Education Innovation

Essential Education: “Awesomely Simple” by John Spence

Essential Education: Lawrence Lessig on Institutional Corruption

Essential Education: Charles Leadbeater on Collaborative Creativity

Essential Education: "Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom" by Alan November

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Essential Education: "Trust Agents" by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Innovation Is Not Invention

Don't confuse innovation with invention- Innovation is not invention

Every test you've ever taken measured how well you understood the past not how well you create the future.

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Essential Education: Three Laws of Performance

To complete your Essential Education take a few minutes to watch friend Steve Cunnigham's great video summary of the book The Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

Essential Education: Social Media Revolution

Journey to the 4th Dimension of Education: Teaching, Learning, and Collaboration in the Palm of Your Hand

Imagine, education (teaching, learning, and collaboration) in the palm of your hand. That is education in the 4th dimension. 

If you haven’t seen the Nokia video (Go Play- 4th Screen) on YouTube, you really should take a look. In the video Nokia shares the idea they call the “Fourth Screen.”

The First Screen was the movie screen. People gathered in the public space of the movie theater to see the world presented to them through the lens of the movie camera. History and entertainment were all brought to the big screen. People, together in public, were able to laugh, cry, cringe, cheer, and share emotions together.

Just as moviegoers watch together, so too, do students learn together in the classroom. But the First Screen and the classroom share some flaws. Both require the people it serves to come to it. Both function off a set schedule. A both limit their offerings. Choice, time, and location are the limitations of the First Screen and the classroom.

The Professional Learning Community model operates according to the principles of the First Screen. Members must be present together and obeys a set schedule. Professional Learning Communities are limited by time, location, and physical presence just as the movie screen (First Screen). 

The Second Screen was the television screen. People were connected to the outside world through a menu of television programs. People could learn about the world around them and talk about what they were watching. Television was able to reach more people. Those people required a greater variety of programming. But, instead of sharing the screen with the public, the Second Screen was shared in privacy of the home alone or with family and friends. Strangers were not part of the Second Screen experience like it was in the First Screen experience.

The Second Screen and the classroom still shared some limitations. The participant was required to be in front of the television in a fixed location, just as the student is required to be in fixed classroom. While television increased the choice and variety of its offerings compared to the movie screen, the content was still decided upon by others. Just as the variety of subjects and standards students are required to learn has increased, those subjects and standards are still decided upon by someone other than the student. So called experts controlled programming just as so-called experts control curriculum.

The Professional Learning Community shares some of the limitations of the Second Screen as well. Participants are required to be in fixed geographic locations and the meetings remain a largely private affair, limited to just the few team members. Fixed locations and small private membership are traits of the PLC and the Second Screen as well.

The Third Screen was the computer screen. The computer screen changed the way we work and play. The Internet allowed people from all over the world to pursue their particular interests and to form virtual communities on-line. The Third Screen allowed people access to more information than they could have imagined. It opened up access to new types of media and allowed people to participate in creating, sharing, and talking about all types of media. But, though they belonged to “communities” they were still virtual communities. Choice had never been greater and the ability to participate in the creation, consumption, commenting on, or collection of information and media was available to many.

The Third Screen seemed to be the penultimate in screen evolution. However, the Third Screen and the current model of 21st Century Education still share some limitations and flaws. Participants of on-line communities and students are still limited to access to the Internet access, either hard-wired or wireless. The Third Screen is limiting in that much of the community is virtual. No true person-to-person interaction. Virtual space will never match touch space in the most powerful aspect of human interaction. In education, the technology that exists for students is still limited by access for all, the need for the majority of students to be present in the classroom to use the technology, and for education to focus the technology on the individual instead of creating communities.

The Professional Learning Community lacks much of what the Third Screen provides. The Professional Learning Community model is not equipped, for good and for bad, for leveraging the virtual community as part of its work. While the PLC still maintains important touch space interaction, it does not benefit from what the “virtual” can bring to the work of the team. The virtual allows for expanding membership, for access to knowledge, data, expertise, and information from virtual members unbound by geographic limitations.

The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative is built around the idea that teams need to Know What Other Know (K.W.O.K.) and Wisdom Stewardship. Through the virtual connections of team members’ Personal Learning Networks the best knowledge can be shared (K.W.O.K.) and the best expertise can be accessed (Wisdom Stewardship) The Professional Networked Learning Collaborative makes use of what the Third Screen has brought to education.

The Fourth Screen, according to Nokia, is the screen that you take with you. The Fourth Screen allows the user to leave the virtual community behind and take the technology out into their actual community. The Fourth Screen allows the user to take advantage of the ability to create, share, collect, and comment, with their virtual or real community. It takes the user back in the realm of the First Screen, back out into the public.

The Fourth Screen is the Open Model of Education. Users and students can be in public, interacting with the world or their communities. They can exist in both virtual space and touch space. They can introduce their virtual community to their touch space community. And it can happen anywhere, at anytime. Choice, unbound by time and geography, accomplished with portable technology. Information and knowledge unfiltered by experts and content created, consumed, collected, and discussed without limitations. This is the Fourth Screen and this is the Open Model of Education. Learning at anytime, from anyone, in anyplace, and is meaningful to the student. It’s the fusion of the in person and in public First Screen, with the at home in private Second Screen, and the virtual space of the Third Screen. The Open Model of Education and the Fourth Screen are the future and it’s going to change everything.

The Fourth Screen is the future of what Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives can be as well. As video becomes a more pervasive and accepted part of our lives and the technology of video instant messaging and live streaming video continues to grow more powerful and more portable, the future is using cell phones to conduct Professional Networked Learning Collaborative meeting while simultaneously networking in useful outsiders via cell phone video. Most importantly the PNLC allows collaboration with members and virtual useful outsiders, thus expanding the membership and making the team less privatized. The ability to connect via portable technology allows the collaboration to take place anywhere that is meaningful and convenient for team members. Further, that virtual members connected via video can be literally carried into meetings, carried back into the actual community.

Education is changing, the evolution of education from the First Screen to the Fourth Screen and the Open Model of Education and the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative. Coming is the fusion of all 3 previous screens into the coming Fourth Screen model of teaching, learning, and collaboration…the 4th dimension.

The 4th way, that is most definitely Education Innovation.