Many in the one-to-one com­mu­nity, myself included, often throw around the phrase “any­time, any­where learn­ing.”  The phrase reflects the many learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties avail­able to stu­dents when they are given a ubiq­ui­tous learn­ing device.  One-to-one pro­vides stu­dents with the oppor­tu­nity to col­lab­o­rate with oth­ers, research top­ics of inter­est (as well as not so inter­est­ing top­ics), and cre­ate any­where at any­time.  I recently read Fred Bra­mante and Rose Colby’s book Off the Clock: Mov­ing Edu­ca­tion from Time to Com­pe­tency.  The book REALLY pushed my think­ing on what any­time, any­where learn­ing could look like.  In fact, it helped me real­ize how  my pre­vi­ous def­i­n­i­tion of “any­time, any­where learn­ing” only rec­og­nized a small part of the poten­tial of that type of learn­ing.  A major theme through­out the book was that schools need to move away from equat­ing learn­ing with time, and instead equate learn­ing with com­pe­tency.  Some stu­dents will nat­u­rally need more time to achieve com­pe­tency while oth­ers will need less time than pro­vided in our cur­rent sys­tem. Most edu­ca­tors don’t seem to dis­agree with this theme.  Many would agree that the Carnegie unit is out­dated, and doesn’t make much sense today.  Of course, the change to a true com­pe­tency based model involves changes to school and pos­si­bly state poli­cies. A sec­ond theme through­out the book focused on how and where that com­pe­tency based model was deliv­ered. This part would likely get much more push back from many edu­ca­tors.  The authors spent a great deal of time focus­ing on how learn­ing could look dras­ti­cally dif­fer­ent.  Learn­ing could take place through­out the com­mu­nity, and it could be deliv­ered by mul­ti­ple indi­vid­u­als.  The exam­ples below are a com­bi­na­tion of my ideas, and those of the authors.

• Online learn­ing that includes courses with uni­ver­si­ties, and pro­grams such as Rosetta Stone.
• Credit to stu­dents who spend time in a for­eign country.
• Intern­ships with busi­nesses or non-profits in the community.
• Credit for stu­dents who par­tic­i­pate in extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties in the arts and sports, and even those not directly con­nected to school.  Expe­ri­ences my include mem­ber­ship in a band or par­tic­i­pa­tion in a com­mu­nity sports team.

Photo Credit: Bom­bardier on Flickr

Title: Inter­na­tional 1:1 Conference

As many of you pre­pare to head to the Lau­sanne Lap­top Insti­tute in Mem­phis next week, I also  wanted to share infor­ma­tion about another con­fer­ence.  The Euro­pean 1:1 Learn­ing Insti­tute will be held on Sep­tem­ber 28 and 29 at the Frank­furt Inter­na­tional School (FIS) in Frank­furt, Ger­many.  The con­fer­ence will include keynote speak­ers Ian Jukes, Scott Klososky and Jeff Utecht as well as numer­ous break­out ses­sions.  This con­fer­ence should be a great oppor­tu­nity for not only inter­na­tional edu­ca­tors, but any 1:1 edu­ca­tor.  I have had the oppor­tu­nity to attend two inter­na­tional 1:1 con­fer­ences and have ben­e­fited greatly from the expe­ri­ences.  For those of you at 1:1 schools where you feel like your school is “stuck”, the net­work­ing and con­ver­sa­tions with edu­ca­tors from around the globe could cer­tainly pro­vide you with new approaches to use tech­nol­ogy to impact the learn­ing environment.

Photo credit: Barrett.Discovery on Flickr

In Cur­ricu­lum 21: Essen­tial Edu­ca­tion for a Chang­ing World, Alan Novem­ber describes what he calls “dig­i­tal farms” as a way of chang­ing the cul­ture of teach­ing and learn­ing.  He begins by writ­ing about how prior to the indus­trial rev­o­lu­tion chil­dren were respon­si­ble for mean­ing­ful jobs that were impor­tant to the suc­cess of their fam­ily.  These chil­dren later went on to become pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens within their com­mu­nity as adults.  Novem­ber goes on to describe how for many chil­dren there is now a real loss of work and con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­nity.  The heart of his chap­ter out­lines six jobs that give stu­dents the oppor­tu­ni­ties to make valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to their learn­ing com­mu­nity.  Those jobs include:

• Tuto­r­ial Designers-Students record them­selves solv­ing prob­lems using tools such as Cam­ta­sia or Jing.  I also really like Screenr!
• Offi­cial Scribes-Students build class notes using a col­lab­o­ra­tive writ­ing tool such as a blog, wiki, or Google Docs.
• Researchers-One or two stu­dents each day act as the offi­cial researcher and answer class ques­tions using a com­puter (A one-to-one class­room could cer­tainly change the dynam­ics of this job.).
• Col­lab­o­ra­tion Coordinators-Students are respon­si­ble for find­ing and orga­niz­ing vir­tual meet­ings with out­side experts or oth­ers from around the world.  Meet­ings could occur on Skype or another video conferencing tool.
• Con­trib­u­tors to Society-Encourages indi­vid­u­als to be more socially respon­si­ble and aware using sites such as kiva.org.
• Cur­ricu­lum Reviewers-Students cre­ate mate­r­ial for con­tin­u­ous review com­bin­ing visual and audio com­po­nents that can be posted online.  Click here to check out an example!