Education Innovation

Welcome To The Revolution: The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

Are you ready to lead a revolution at your school or in your district? Leadership Day 2009.

Intro: The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

Back in 2002 in his book Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution Howard Rheingold predicted that, “The ‘killer apps’ of tomorrow’s mobile infocom industry won’t be hardware devices or software program but social practices. The most far reaching changes will come, as they often do, from the kinds of relationships, enterprises, communities, and markets that the infrastructure makes possible.”

The prediction, as we now know, was spot dead on. The technology has transformed our relationships, how we are able to collaborate, how we now define communities, what constitutes a network, and what kinds of work we are able to do.

According to Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman, authors of X-Teams, “…team effectiveness is not just a matter of managing well around the conference table. Success also depends on team’s reaching out across their borders to find needed information and expertise.”

It is this intersection of collaboration and technology that has now allowed us to create and leverage a new form of boundary crossing Professional Learning Community. It’s called a Professional Networked Learning Collaborative.

Definition: Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

“Educators working together in the ongoing purpose of increasing student learning and achievement while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously."

No longer is the work of educational teams limited to face-to-face around the table collaboration. No longer is specialization or the knowledge base limited to who is physically sitting in the meeting. No longer is email viewed as the technology of choice for collaboration. No longer are teams limited by geography. No longer should great ideas remain trapped inside particular grade levels, departments, or schools. Technology has allowed us to change all that. Technology has created a new reality.

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative seeks to leverage the new reality of education.

Individual educators used to operate under this model.

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Educators understood the value of collaboration, and so the Professional Learning Community arose.

But technology has changed that world. The 21st Century educator now operates under this model. 

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Technology Enabled Collaboration
How is that technology has changed collaboration so greatly? First, technology enables different types of relationships. Virtual relationships are now possible and have become commonplace outside of educational settings. Networks of all sorts (Facbebook, Ning, Twitter, etc.) webcams, Skype, etc. have changed the very definition of presence. Second, technology has changed who is part of the team. Team members can now be virtual. Members no longer tied to geographic limitation can provide input, ideas, and collaborate in real-time for any location on the globe. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative enabled through technology expands the borders of membership to include specialist, consultants, district staff, etc as part of the team.

From Community to Network
The person is the portal to the network. The person is an autonomous communication and collaboration node. Each member can potentially leverage not only their network, but also the network of others who are in their network. This principle is known as Metcalfe’s Law. The number of potential connections between nodes grows more quickly than the number of nodes. The total value of the network where each node can reach every other node in the network grows with the square of the number of nodes. In other words, when PNLC members connect their networks, it creates more value than the sum of networks independently.

The essence of the PNLC is that the “who” of potential members and collaborators is increased exponentially because of individual members networking through collaborative technology platforms, the “what.”

As sociologist Barry Wellman said, “Each person operates his networks to obtain information, collaboration, orders, support, sociability, and a sense of belonging”

So, just at the individual educator has become networked, so too must the Professional Learning Community. And when a PLC becomes networked, it becomes something different. The PLC becomes the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative.

PNLC members will fluidly move between the physical and virtual networks to communicate, collaborate, and share ideas, data, strategies, and information. Each member being a portal or node to their individual network makes the PNLC exponentially stronger, knowledgeable, and wise.

PNLC are able to maximize individual members’ networks to the advantage of the whole.

Networks have now become so much a part of our lives that physical presence is no longer necessary for a member to “present.” Howard Rheingold calls this “presence of those who are absent.” PNLCs can call on a district specialist, consultants, teachers, and staff who are in different physical locations (even different time zones) and who will be able to collaborate, contribute, cooperate, and share just as if they were present physically.

As anthropologist Mizuko Ito puts it, “As long as people participate in the shared communications of the group, they seem to be considered by others to be present.”

Virtual participation = presence = collaboration = results

The Collaborative
The community model served the professional learning community well but the time and technology have changed. The collaborative is the new model. The collaborative includes members of the typical community who are physically present with each other, but also includes community partners, useful outsiders, specialists, consultants, professors, etc. who join the network as virtual team members for a time to help the work of the team.

As each PNLC member’s Personal Learning Network overlaps with other team members it becomes much different from the local context of a community. Overlapping Personal Learning Networks form the "collaborative" in the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. We have moved from face-to-face community of physical space to the technology enabled virtual and physical space collaborative.

K.W.O.K
Technology allows teams to connect to islands of expertise located in any geographic location. Technology allows teams to archive their learning and share with others. The sum result is that technology allows the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative to “Know What Others Know” (K.W.O.K.).  Knowing what others know and sharing what you have learned is what I refer to as Wisdom Stewardship. Technology makes it easy for educators and schools to be good stewards of available wisdom and to know what others know.

Microsoft research sociologist Marc A. Smith put it this way. “Whenever a communication medium lowers the cost of solving collective action dilemmas, it becomes possible for more people to pool resources. And ‘more people pooling resources in new ways’ is the history of civilization in seven words.”

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative allows educators to solve education problems, increase student achievement, share strategies, and analyze data, etc., with members who are physically present “at the table” and with educators who are virtually present from anywhere on the globe. The PNLC allows teams to leverage not only their knowledge, but also the knowledge of other educators, specialists, consultants, etc., from anywhere else virtually.

For example, if a team was discussing the needs of a student with special needs, they could network in specialists from the district office or the county office, or a specialist/consultant in another state.

Not Just The Same…But Different
The very enterprise of the typical grade level or subject matter team will be different as technology enables networks to allows for new levels of data analysis, planning, lesson design, etc. The reality is that what grade levels or subject matter teams will be able to do compared with what they do right will not just more or better… it will be different.

PNLCs will live by the values of ICE³: Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship.

PNLCs will leverage their A.W.A.R.E.N.E.S.S

Why The Need
There are six “key drivers” that I see pushing Professional Learning Communities to evolve into the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. They are Technology, Wisdom Stewardship, Cultural, Accountability, External Approach, and Continuous Change, Choice, and Disruption. These six “key drivers” are having a major impact on education and make the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative uniquely suited to handle the impact effectively.

1. Technological: convergence of video, voice and data over Internet Protocol (IP) and other collaborative technology platforms.

2. Wisdom Stewardship: exploiting the best expertise, talent, and knowledge regardless of geography.

3. Cultural: the increasing desire for real-time feedback, the expectation of immediacy and the compression of time and space.

4. Accountability: Increasing transparency in complying with expanding federal, state, and local laws in addition to categorical program monitoring requirements, and labor contracts.

5: External Approach: The need for organizations and teams to look outside themselves to expand their network with new members who are sources of learning, creativity, and innovation.

6. Continuous Change, Choice, and Disruption: Increasing rate of development in the number of choices, options, disruptive ideas & technologies, and new paradigms.

So today, and increasingly in the future, it is the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative that will allow schools to best handle these drivers of change. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative embraces and seeks to leverage the technological changes because in so doing, they are better able to utilize the resources of time and talent because they have accepted the cultural shift toward immediacy of real-time interaction, and therefore is better able to handle the increasing compliance issues facing education. With both and internal focus and external approach members are better able to handle, and in fact embrace, the continuous change, new disruptions, and increases in choices and options.

The Technology Advantage
The advantage to the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is the ability to leverage “Converged Networking”, the ability to carry data, voice, and video over a single network, which changes how, where, and with whom Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives can collaborate.

The convergence combined with broadband to school sites, district offices, and wireless devices will create an environment in which PNLCs communicate and collaborate regardless of geography.

Converged networking will allow Professional Networked Learning Collaborative to easily share data, communicate, and collaborate with people in different classrooms, at different schools, with experts at the district office, or with consultants from across the globe.

Location independent, or location non-dependent collaboration will not only be possible, but in many cases might allow PNLCs to have greater access to a wider range expertise more frequently. Imagine PNLCs meeting with teachers at other schools to share instructional strategies, or with district personnel to discuss data or potential special education issues, or even with consultants via various collaborative technology platforms.

PNLCs will be able to leverage talent, expertise, and knowledge independent of geographic restrictions.

The Technologies
The tools of the trade for the PNLC are many. Evan Rosen has complied an excellent list of tools complete with descriptions in his book The Culture of Collaboration. Find the list here.
Tools of The Trade: Technologies of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

As communication and collaboration technologies become more pervasive, they will fade into the background and PNLCs will focus on the work. Just as we don’t  “see” or think about the electricity that is powering the lights in our classrooms and offices, powering our copy machines, etc. the computers that we run our communication and collaboration platforms on will disappear into the background and we will be free to focus on “what” and not the “how” of these technologies.

The widespread availability and acceptance of those tools Professional Learning Communities will move from “community” to “network” and “collaborative”, creating the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. Schools, teachers, and students will be the better for it.

So the question is, are you ready to lead it?

Moving From the PLC to the PNLC: 6 Key Drivers of Change- Part 3

There are six “key drivers” that I see pushing Professional Learning Communities to evolve into Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives. They are Technology, Wisdom Stewardship, Cultural, Accountability, External Approach, and Continuous Change, Choice, and Disruption. These six “key drivers” are having a major impact on education and make the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative uniquely suited to handle the impact effectively.

Lets examine “key driver” number four.

4. Accountability: Increasing transparency in complying with expanding federal, state, and local laws in addition to categorical program monitoring requirements, and labor contracts. 

The degree to which schools are increasingly required to effectively to comply with compliance issues continues to grow. So too, the number of ways in which schools are held accountable through increasing transparency.

Your school’s or district’s test scores can be looked up and examined by people living anywhere in the world. From the parents on your P.T.A, to the teachers across town, to the principals across the country, to professors in the farthest reaches of the globe.

The California Department of Education has a site called DataQuest. This site allows anyone with web access to look up and examine school performance data, test scores, student demographic data, school staffing information, student misconduct and intervention data, etc. This is the very definition of transparency. And parents are using this data to make informed decisions about which schools they want their students to attend and even making home buying decisions based on that data. Yep, it’s not just parents who are digging into your school’s information; realtors are using that information to market homes. Who else will soon find a use for your school’s data? It’s out there, transparent for everyone to see.

Educators across the country are acutely aware of the forces of Accountability.

Top Down Accountability: Legislation such as NCLB is making schools more accountable for their results. The federal Department of Education, state departments of education, county offices of education, and districts all provide top down accountability. For good or bad, accountability is a factor that impacts education everyday.

Lateral Accountability: Principals, unfortunately, often compete for students by offering programs that will attract students and comparing one school to another. Public schools and private schools have a lateral accountability dynamic. Competition is a natural result of all the transparency layered into a space where there are limited resources.

Bottom-up-accountability: Being transparent to the public, the community can make choices about which schools they want to send their students to. If they don’t feel you are meeting their needs, there is a school that will. Parents and teachers are able to spread opinions and views of your school or district via the digital world. Your school or district is apt to be branded good or bad by the views and opinions of the grassroots in your community.

No team can afford to miss the opportunity to collaborate with and get the best from all available “people” resources. PNLCs enable teachers to more effectively meet the needs of students and satisfy the various compliance issues by increasing the effectiveness of the team through greater access to expertise, knowledge, information, strategies, research, and by doing so during the contractual hours of the teachers’ school day.

Moving From the PLC to the PNLC: 6 Key Drivers of Change- Part 1

There are six “key drivers” that I see pushing Professional Learning Communities to evolve into Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives. They are Technology, Wisdom Stewardship, Cultural, Accountability, External Approach, and Continuous Change, Choice, and Disruption. These six “key drivers” are having a major impact on education and make the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative uniquely suited to handle the impact effectively.

Lets examine “key driver” numbers one and two.

1. Technological: convergence of video, voice and data over Internet Protocol (IP) and other collaborative technology platforms.

According to Evan Rosen, author of The Culture of Collaboration, “The convergence combined with broadband to homes, remote offices and wireless devices creates an environment in which more people can collaborate and communicate more effectively regardless of geography”

The advantage to the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative Collaborative is the ability to leverage “Converged Networking”, the ability to carry data, voice, and video over a single network, which changes how, where, and with whom Professional Learning Communities can collaborate.

The convergence combined with broadband to school sites, district offices, and wireless devices will create an environment in which PLCs communicate and collaborate regardless of geography.

Converged networking will allow Professional Learning Communities to easily share data, communicate, and collaborate with people in different classrooms, at different schools, with experts at the district office, or with consultants from across the globe.Location independent, or location non-dependent collaboration will not only be possible, but in many cases will allow PNLCs to have greater access to a wider range expertise more frequently. Imagine PNLCs meeting with teachers at other schools to share instructional strategies, or with district personnel to discuss data or potential Special Education issues, or even with consultants via various collaborative technology platforms.

PNLCs will be able to leverage talent, expertise, and knowledge independent of geographic restrictions.

2. Wisdom Stewardship: exploiting the best expertise, talent, and knowledge regardless of geography.

The ability for PNLCs to have access to the best expertise, knowledge, and information through collaborative technology platforms is now possible. PNLCs can leverage others around the school, the district, the state, or the globe, saving money and time. This allows anyone, anywhere to become a valuable resource to the PNLC and is fiscally and economically advantageous. The technology can bring people together. This allows for better use of “people” resources, time, and fiscal resources.

So today, and increasingly in the future, it is the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative that will be able to handle these drivers of change. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative embraces and seeks to leverage the technological changes because in so doing, they are better able to utilize the resources of time and talent because they have accepted the cultural shift toward immediacy of real-time interaction, and therefore is better able to handle the increasing compliance issues facing education. With both and internal focus and external approach members are better able to handle, and in fact embrace, the continuous change, new disruptions, and increases in choices and options.

Tools of The Trade: Technologies of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative

The advantage to the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is the ability to leverage “Converged Networking”, the ability to carry data, voice, and video over a single network, which changes how, where, and with whom Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives can collaborate.

The convergence combined with broadband to school sites, district offices, and wireless devices will create an environment in which PNLCs communicate and collaborate regardless of geography.

Converged networking will allow Professional Networked Learning Collaborative to easily share data, communicate, and collaborate with people in different classrooms, at different schools, with experts at the district office, or with consultants from across the globe.

Location independent, or location non-dependent collaboration will not only be possible, but in many cases might allow PNLCs to have greater access to a wider range expertise more frequently. Imagine PNLCs meeting with teachers at other schools to share instructional strategies, or with district personnel to discuss data or potential Special Education issues, or even with consultants via various collaborative technology platforms.

PNLCs will be able to leverage talent, expertise, and knowledge independent of geographic restrictions.

The tools of the trade for the PNLC are many. Evan Rosen has complied an excellent list of tools complete with descriptions in his book The Culture of Collaboration.

Conferencing Tools
Application Sharing
Live, interactive use of software programs by two or more users on different PC’s. Users can work in programs together screen-to-screen. Web conferencing often includes this capability.

Audio Conferencing
An audio connection involving three or more people each using a PC, phone, speakerphone, or other device.

Document Conferencing
Live, interactive sharing of documents between two or more users. Users can edit and annotate documents simultaneously screen-to-screen. They can also engage in group writing. Web conferencing often includes this capability.

Group Videoconferencing
Live interactive audio and video connections between people at two or more sites using systems optimized for conference rooms.

Personal Videoconferencing
Live, interactive audio and video connection involving two or more people each using a PC, notebook, stand-alone videophone, or handheld device.

Virtual Hallway or Media Space
An always on video and audio link between two or more sites. A media space connects break rooms, hallways, lounges or other areas where people congregate. The idea is to encourage chance encounters and enhance idea generation.

Web Conferencing
Live, interactive audio plus application sharing and other features that may include document conferencing, shared digital whiteboard, shared web browsing, public and private text chat, and audience polling.

Web Presentation
Audio plus screen sharing in which the presenter shares his or her PC screen with one or more remote PC users. Only the presenter can edit or annotate material.

Whiteboarding
Live, interactive sharing of a digital whiteboard program between two or more users. Users can use digital writing and drawing tools together screen-to-screen. Web conferencing often includes this capability.

Messaging/Mail Tools
Email
Asynchronous exchange of text with possible file attachments delivered to in-boxes of oe or more recipients.

Instant Messaging
Exchange text that appears almost immediately on screens of users.

Text/Multimedia Messaging
Exchange of text, images and multimedia among mobile phones. Text messages can also be sent to email addresses and from the service provider’s web site to mobile phones. Typically, there is a character limit on text messages.

Video Instant Messaging (VIM)
Exchange of video and audio that appears almost immediately on screens of users.

Video Mail
Exchange of video and audio messages delivered either as email attachments of as links to server-based content.

Repository Tools
Digital Asset Management
Systems allowing archiving and search based retrieval of video, audio, images, text and other data.

Team Sites, Team Spaces
Intranet and Extranet-based work environments designed for groups of collaborators to exchange or post video, voice, images, documents, presentation, spreadsheet, and other materials.

Publishing/Distribution Tools
Blog
Short for weblog, a blog is a frequent, chronological publishing of stream-of-consciousness writing with links to related information.

Podcast
A method of distributing multimedia materials that allows users to subscribe to a feed of the new or updated content. Podcasts can be played on mobile devices and on PC’s. Podcast refers to the multimedia content as well as to the distribution method.

Vlog
A frequent, chronological publishing on the Web of videos featuring stream-of-consciousness talk.

Wiki
A server program allowing multiple users to develop the content of a Web site. Any user can change the contributions of others or add material including text, images, hyperlinks, graphics and tables.

Broadcasting/On-Demand Tools
Webcast/Streaming
Live audio and video delivered over IP networks that can be archived for later retrieval. Streaming is a more efficient approach to media delivery than simple download in that the compressed materials is sent in a continuous stream and is decompressed as the user receives it. Therefore the user can begin watching and listening to the clip before receiving all of it.

The widespread availability and acceptance of those tools Professional Learning Communities will move from “community” to “network.” Hence, the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative.

A Tale of "Two Teachers" --Teaching and Technology

Teacher 1:
"Walking into a classroom that doesn’t have all that media is like walking into a desert."

"...collect information from other sources, and borrow, and steal, and put it together and reshape it. Isn’t that a skill that I want them to have?"

"I am not saying that cheating is okay. I am saying that cheating is something you have to look at closer to say what is cheating and what’s not cheating?"

Teacher 2:
"Students know how to do things I can’t do technologically in the classroom and I just let them take over and they are naturals."

"I feel at though I am fighting the good fight.  I am trying to hang on to what I think is the most important part of what I do. But, my time is over. This is too much for me. It’s not the educational arena I entered into."

Two teachers dealing with the cultural changes to the educational landscape caused by technology. Which one describes you?

See the video from FrontLine's Digital Nation: Life On The Virtual Frontier --Education In The Digital Age

How Google Saved a School

Thoughts:

Technology is like oxygen.

Wow. Doing interesting things. Feeling of independence.

Real World Skills

If students are getting the work done, they will be doing so while the are IMing, gaming, etc.

Rigorous, challenging, interesting.

Creating original content and adding to the Internet.

Teaching students to muli-task

I don’t think I as an adult can sit and do work for an hour, so I don’t know why I would says it is a drawback that my students can’t?

Focuses them.

Idea Jar - Reach In and Take One Out

Creative Elegance: The Power of Incomplete Ideas
Change This Manifestos

Learning from Mistakes Takes the Right Feedback      The Edurati Review

What Leaders Must Do Next
Gallup Management Journal

Symbolism in Change Leadership
BQF Innovation blog

Prospect theory, risk and innovation
Innovation Tools blog

Global Youth: International Study on Children's Use of Mobile Phones
Barking Robot blog

Directory of Educational Resources on the Web          Mrs. Alline

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live
Time Magazine

Professional Networked Learning Collaborative Defined

In a previous post I introduced the concept of the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. I explained that this is the evolution of the current Professional Learning Community. Definitions being useful, here are the definitions of the PLC and my PNLC.

Professional Learning Community (PLC)

"Educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators." Learning by Doing (2006)

Professional Networked Learning Collaborative (PNLC)

“Educators working together in the ongoing purpose of increasing student learning while sharing physical space, virtual space, or both simultaneously. The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative operates according to the values of ICE³: Imagination, Innovation, Inquiry, Collaboration, Creativity, Curiosity, Exploration, Experimentation, and Entrepreneurship.”
Education Innovation blog: Rob Jacobs 2009

The Coming Shift for Professional Learning Communities and Knowledge Workers

A shift is happening in workplaces across the globe. It is an evolution in the ways people will interact, collaborate, coordinate, and accomplish their work. This evolution, this paradigm shift is based around the social media rich ecosystem of the Internet and all of the emerging technologies that it brings into our lives.

 

Case in point, a recent survey conducted by Acrobat.com with Directions Research Inc. The results detail this coming change.

The survey results indicate that, “an evolution in office workplace culture, including the changing ways white-collar workers are interacting and coordinating their tasks, and how business will be conducted in the social media-rich environment of the 21st century.”

The 21st Century Professional has long been described as a “knowledge worker.” This term, famously coined by management guru Peter Drucker, is the very essence of educators and Professional Learning Communities. The survey identified four key categories of knowledge workers:

Leaders - Young professionals who use a variety of emerging technologies both at work and in their personal lives

Actives - Largely over-35 year old professionals who have adapted to emerging technologies to meet the changing demands of the workplace

Followers - The less technically-inclined who rely on e-mail at the exclusion of other technologie

Resistors - Generally older workers who are reluctant to adjust to shifts in the workplace and office technologies

The survey research suggests several trends that have will have an impact on the way Professional Learning Communities will work in the coming future.

1: “The leap in new technology options and the shifting demographics of the workforce mean that the old, traditional way of doing business is rapidly being enhanced by new ways of working. More business will be conducted using emerging communications technologies and social networking platforms.”

Professional Learning Communities will soon be filled members of this “shifting demographic.” They will be comfortable with technology as a natural extension of their work, how they communicate, how they collaborate, how they plan, etc. The technology is certainly going to continue to evolve making it even easier to collaborate virtually.

2. “Technologies that people prefer to use in their private lives will become the technologies people want to use at work...what we call the consumerization of collaboration.”

Technology is going to increase its involvement and importance in all aspects of our lives. The younger demographic will assume these technologies will be used, and demand it if they aren’t.

3. “The younger generation prefers to use multiple channels of communication, often choosing social networks, text messaging or instant messaging instead of e-mail and in-person meetings.”

The coming demographic (and a growing percentage of the current population of educators) will see these technologies as a logical extension of who they are and how they work.

Technology is going to change how Professional Learning Communities collaborate and interact with each other.

Why? The next generation of educators is not going to recognize a functional difference between person-to-person PLCs and virtual ones. The coming generation consider those who participate through the “virtual” technologies as present, as being there. They will live in two worlds simultaneously. And they will be good at it, because for them, it isn’t really two worlds at all. There is just real touch and virtual touch. But it’s all touch.

Professional Learning Communities will move back-and-forth from the conference table to the digital network.

If you are interested, here is the Acrobat Survey.

21st Century Education Technology Skills Utilize 20th Century Lateral Thinking

In his fantastic book Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger takes the reader through a tour of the digital order that is changing how we approach, knowledge and information. This new digital order, built on bits, not atoms allows students to think about information and knowledge in different ways. In a way, it is very similar to what Edward de Bono spoke of in his book Lateral Thinking, which was first published 38 years ago, in 1970.

by rutty

Edward de Bono compared vertical thinking with lateral thinking.

“Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative.”
The physical world requires that we spend a great deal of time developing a very structured set of codes, rules, and organization so information can be found. The digital world make is possible to organize information any way that makes sense to us. We are not limited to the space on a card catalog or a label. We can put as much information into a digital bit of information as we can imagine.

“With vertical thinking one has to be correct at every step, with lateral thinking one does not have to be.” Make a mistake in the card catalog or reading a label and you are not going to be successful in your search. But, as we know, there are multiple ways to search for something in search engines. Make a mistake, and you simply change your approach. You are never out of the game in the digital world because other people like you may have thought about your subject in the very same way.

“Vertical thinking is sequential, lateral thinking can make jumps.” The physical world of information is very sequential because of the limits of physical space. The digital world allows us to jump around to look at subjects loosely related to the information one is seeking or to quickly jump to tried and true resources or resources that have never been viewed before. It just takes a click.

“With vertical thinking one uses the negative in order to block of certainty. With lateral thinking there is no negative.” The physical world of atoms allows very few ways to organize information, while the digital world allows virtually unlimited ways to organize it.

“With vertical thinking on concentrates and excludes what is irrelevant, with lateral thinking one welcomes chance intrusions” The digital world welcomes more information, even it seems irrelevant to most. It may be very relevant to a few. Therefore as Weinberger says, “… solution to the overabundance of information is more information.”

“With vertical thinking categories, classifications and labels are fixed, with lateral thinking they are not.” For example, a type of dog, say a Rhodesian Ridgeback can be classified only so many ways in the physical world or card catalogs, charts, and shelves. Usually, following biology terms such as vertebrate, mammal, etc. Space limits what you can do. But without the limits of space, such as in the digital world, the same dog could be tagged as things with four legs, things that chase cars, things that eat dog food, things that have a tail, things that have paws, or things that bark. The choices are almost limitless. It all depends on how one chooses think about the subject, which allows one to be very creative in their approach.

“Vertical thinking follows the most likely path, lateral thinking explores the least likely.”
Anyone who has spent anytime on the web can tell you they reached some cool website or found a great book, but they have no idea how they got there. Click after click after click we follow our thinking down “the rabbit hole” and discover what we might be looking for in very odd ways. This isn’t true for a library. It will be very predictable. It will be the “most likely path.”

“Vertical thinking is a finite process, lateral thinking is a probablistic one.” I want to find a book, I look on the shelf and there it is. In the digital world though, I find the book I am looking for and 5 others that are related to the first. I then investigate one of those and discover pictures, video, and music all because someone else thinks it relates. As I continue probing I gain even more information and resources which to use.

Quite possibly, Edward de Bono wrote 37 years ago about the type of thinking that would actually allow our students to be even more effective in the digital world of bits described so wonderfully by David Weinberger.

Recommended Reading: 

Everything is Miscellaneous in Education: Part 1

Green Hat Thinking

Everything Is Miscellaneous blog

The de Bono Group