Helping us launch Digital Citizenship Week & connecting us to higher education....
Gerry Swan
Associate Professor of Instructional Systems Design
Assistant Dean of Program Assessment
Co-Director of Digital Learning Design Lab
University of Kentucky
In what way are you a connected educator?
When I think connected, my
first thought is social media. While I do use Facebook (for casual
relationships), twitter (for work… sort of) and have a linked in
profile, I don't really consider myself a social media
champion or aficionado. Given that, I felt a little disingenuous being
highlighted here. I went back to Donnie Piercey's definition in the
first post, "Connected Educator Month is a celebration of teachers who figured out how the
Internet can be their friend in the classroom." After reading that, I
thought, "I can make that work."
So here goes…
I use (and build) web based tools to directly
connect and impact practices with colleagues whether they be down the
hall or across the state. My first job in education was at a boarding
school who had recently implemented a 1:1 laptop program
as part of a school redesign model they were putting in place. When I
first started tinkering with technology, I used to spend a lot of time
engrossed with Filemaker Pro. I built digital textbooks, self-checking
workbooks, online assignment submission to my
grade book and lots of other stuff. I even had an audience response
system that I could "push" differentiated questions to the class when
conducting guided practice. This was how I internalized and externalized
my thoughts about meeting the expectations set
out for teachers at the school. It was a mode of professional
expression for me and what how I used technology to better "connect" to
may practice (i.e. increase fidelity of implementation).
While I started this type of work as a way to manage
my own classroom, other teachers started asking me to use the same
tools. Soon I was building school wide systems. Now I was helping others
connect to their practice and that's where things
got interesting. One project I worked on was a curriculum authoring
tool that started as a stand alone template used by one person to
develop curriculum. One of the things I was tasked with was migrating
that to a networked tool that had everyone accessing
the same instance to develop together (think of it as a curriculum
wiki). I remember sitting in on the history department as they were
doing some summer planning using the networked version of the curriculum
tool. Some one would yell out, "hey Alan, what do
you think about the outcomes for group 3 in unit 2." Alan would take a
look and go in and make a few edits and say how does that look?" I was
fascinated at how tools could scaffold the work and practice of people
while allowing them to better connect with
each other.
I'm going to answer 2 and 3 together as my service
and research are both driven by trying to scratch that itch I got 15
years ago when I started teaching. Trying to port those same ideas to
people outside of our school was difficult, because
Filemaker was a relatively expensive infrastructure to put in place.
The Internet and the rise of scripting languages (particularly PHP)
really changed the tool development and distribution landscape. Through
the OTIS initiative, I look at how do we support
better practices through the design and study of tools. I guess I would
say connecting stuff is my practice. Sometimes that connection is
internal (e.g. letting someone look at data in a new way by creating new
connections between data points). Sometimes the
connection is external (e.g. helping them better connect with other
people through the use of technology).
The
expression “Old Wine in New Bottles” is often used to describe a new
phenomenon that bears a resemblance to an existing condition. Often the
expression is used to convey a message of being underwhelmed--sort of a
“been there and done that.” However, new bottles
can change the way we interact and use a product. For example, if you
wanted a Guinness Draft before the late 90’s, the only way was to go to a
bar or restaurant that served it. Around 1996, Guinness introduced
their “Draft Can” that allowed people to have
the same product experience at home. Most recently, they have created a
bottle that preserves the draft condition, but doesn’t require the
consumer to pour the beverage in a glass. By evolving the packaging, the
company was able to take its existing product
and expand the avenues through which it could be consumed. In other
words, the “new bottles” quite literally added value to the experience
by making the content more accessible. I like to think that I take "Old
Wine" like formative assessment, portfolio assessment,
organizational learning, etc. and see what happens to those ideas when
we put them in new "bottles". When you look at OTIS projects like Open
Portfolio, Snapshot (a.k.a. Standards Based Reporting) or the Digital
Driver's License, you can see clear connections
to ideas grounded in the knowledge base, but with an added wrinkle that
changes how those ideas are operationalized. Even Bloom mused how the
arrival of the computer would impact the ideas that he, Madaus and
Hastings presented in the handbook of formative
and summative assessment.
What advice or resources about being connected would you recommend to colleagues?
If you want to unleash your inner McGyver to help
"connect" people with their practice and each other, I would definitely
read the Cathedral and The Bazaar by Eric Raymond.
As for advice, here are a few**
1. Developing and coding is a long and lonely process. You have to commit to it. You must learn it's discipline.
2. Find a problem and get angry at it…. very angry. You'll need that to sustain your efforts over the long haul.
3. Don't worry if you are scared. Harness it and fear will will help you move faster than you thought possible.
4. Don't forget to read research and scholarship.
There is a wealth of knowledge out there. Use it. Stand on the shoulders
of giants.
**Most of these are really excuses to include YouTube clips I like.
Dr. Gerry Swan received his Ph.D.
in Instructional Technology from the University of Virginia in 2004 and joined the college in 2007. He is
an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction
and his research interests include use of interactive media with
instruction and computer-managed instruction and research. Through the
OTIS initiative Gerry has developed tools that translate
research based ideas into practice. Each year tens of thousands of
students and instructors from kindergarten to college use OTIS tools. As
the Assistant Dean for Program Assessment, Gerry helps build systems and
processes that manage the collection, storage and sharing of the huge amounts of data required for meeting accreditation requirements and generating feedback to students, faculty and programs.
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