Whether you're a teacher or a researcher the combination of weblogging and the proliferation of incredible knowledge-making/communicating tools is causing, I believe, a knowledge explosion.

Let's leave aside the fact that there is no longer a corporate or state-ist stranglehold on what information and knowledge is disseminated to whom. It's a big, no, HUGE, topic but not the one I want to talk about at the moment.

My emphasis is upon the tools for thinking and communicating that are now available that were unavailable, say, twenty years ago. We're only indirectly talking about machines. Yes, this thinking and communicating is done on machines and with the aid of thinking devices made possible by machines. But all of this has magnified our ability to know, to teach, to communicate and to organize.

Let's look at what a professional educator and communicator had 30 years ago: chalk, blackboard, overhead, book, movie. S/he was bounded both in what was learned or constructed and what s/he disseminated by those tools.

Now add,say, personal ability to construct and manipulate data-basesthe ability to converse, at length and indepth (via discussion groups, blogs, chat rooms, etc), the ability to access and/or collaboratively construct complex knowledge systems on wikis and the ability to construct concept/mind maps (FreeMind, NovaMind(NovaMInd), and timelines via Dipity(Dipity). With these tools we've considerably aided our ability to think and communicate as individuals.

It's not just that we've empowered groups of people to think and decide as a group. We have! And bravo!!

We've given tools for thinking and communicating to individuals that considerably enhance thought processing, organization and the ability to communicate complex ideas to others.

Individuals with enhanced idea processing and accessing power are working with others similarly altered.

We should expect a magnified ability for learners to conduct self-directed learning and for teachers to communicate information directly and, more importantly, to aid individuals in their quest for information and skills that give them the power to manage their own life spaces.

If part of the ability to rule is to control information flow and to minimize understanding and organizing powers of subject peoples … I think government that is run for the few off the backs and lives of the many is becoming less and less likely.

I eagerly await new developments.

i would say that the final American Idol 2008 show was an exercise in cynicism. The accounting firm's gold embossed, Academy Award imitating, certification is simply of a count --- not of the authenticity of this measure of public will!!

As I will try to indicate, our notion of fair election (however inaccurate) is preconditioning us to believe that this really is a popular measure of perceived talent, where each person who wishes to take the trouble can be counted. It is very unlikely that the result is a fair and accurate measure of the sum of individual beliefs about contestant talent.

For now, a list:

-The possibility of multiple dial-ins per customer, if interpreted --> the Idol is the measure of obsessive adoration not talent.

-The possibility of computer supported blasts (multiple submissions)--> The producers and contractors (and others, too, but their motivation would be unknown) can hire outsiders to influence the outcome -- yes, with a computer farm and no limitation to call-ins, even to the extent of 12 million votes -- to best conform to income maximization goals for Ford, Fox and record companies and producers.

A hello to Savvica staff who are replacing nuuvo with Savvica

I've done quite a bit of Web 1.0 instruction online. It's time to move on to work at the Web 2.0 level --- I would like to encourage DEEPER involvement of students in knowledge building, group learning, knowledge structuring and organization.

Here's a partial list of Web 2.0-inclined newcomers, (thanks to ReadWriteWeb):

• elgg.net a Social networking, open source, application. While it is not set up so much for education... it can serve a distributed network as it talks over and collaboratively develops knowledge. The following from the University of Brighton:

  Elgg is now being used formally within course and modules and less formally to bring together people with similar interests - enabling people to share information, reflections and comment across course boundaries and develop something very different to anything we've had before. I firmly believe we're taking the first steps from a Virtual Learning Environment to a Shared Learning Environment."

• nuuvo -- now savvica (evidently in beta). Here documentation for nuuvo. Presumably there will be resemblance; though that's not guaranteed. Nuuvo became Savvica via a purchase (Often the purchase can sever originator vision from the product. Would "repurposing" be an appropriate description of what often takes place?)
• Digication
• Chalksite a system for teacher communication with students and families. Can include a web site.
• Haiku LMS Includes teacher and class website creators, gradebook, assessment, dropbox for online submission of homework, and much more. The only classroom feature that is not obvious is a testing module.
• Sakai Is like Blackboard, WebCT (now owned by Blackboard) and Moodle [to a lesser extent, I would arguw] in its relatively traditional organization of instruction from the teacher out. They're teacher centric, if you like. A student centric , or at least a more balanced approach, would start with an individual student, or group of students and the voluntary choice of a knowledge or competence target. The teacher would serve as an advisor on the learning path, the method and the recognition of sufficient competence.

To be honest, given my comments on Sakai, you might not be surprised to know that I'm not sure that there is a student-centric knowledge acquisition system out there. Bits and pieces but not yet the whole system. Once its constructed it will resemble a generic research application with a strong focus on verifying that knowledge acquired satisfactorily matches all specifications initially given by the student. Perhaps the teacher could serve as a honest reflector upon the accomplishments. It can be easy to rationalize the product as 'just right' , even when it is short of or different from the original goal, because of fatigue or even an honest change of mind that has come because of engagement with new knowledge bits and engaging knowledge-making processes.

PS. After above thoughts I think I should dig into the definition of Web 2.0 Learning systems. Distributed ownership is terrific but is not the same as, is not necessarily accompanied by, learner centric instruction.

<p>A hello to Savvica staff who are replacing nuuvo with Savvica

<p>I've done quite a bit of Web 1.0 instruction online. It's time to move on to work
at the Web 2.0 level --- I would like to encourage DEEPER involvement of students in knowledge building, group learning, knowledge structuring and organization.

<p>Here's a partial list of Web 2.0-inclined newcomers, (thanks to ReadWriteWeb):
<ul>
<li>elgg.net a Social networking, open source, application. While it is not set up
so much for education... it can serve a distributed network as it talks over and collaboratively develops knowledge. The following from the University of Brighton:
<blockquote>
Elgg is now being used formally within course and modules and less formally to bring together people with similar interests - enabling people to share information, reflections and comment across course boundaries and develop something very different to anything we've had before. I firmly believe we're taking the first steps from a Virtual Learning Environment to a Shared Learning Environment."</blockquote>
<li>nuuvo -- now savvica (evidently in beta). Here <a href="http://support.nuvvo.com/documentation">documentation</a> for nuuvo. Presumably there will be resemblance; though that's not guaranteed. Nuuvo became Savvica via a purchase (Often the purchase can sever originator vision from the product. Would "repurposing" be an appropriate description of what often takes place?)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.digication.com/about/company">Digication</a>
<li><a href="http://www.chalksite.com/learn/">Chalksite</a> a system for teacher communication with students and families. Can include a web site.
<li><a href="www.haikuls.com/php/features.php">Haiku LMS</a> Includes teacher and class website creators, gradebook, assessment, dropbox for online submission of homework, and much more. The only classroom feature that is not obvious is a testing module.
<li> <a href="www.hawaii.edu/its/sakai">Sakai</a> Is like Blackboard, WebCT (now owned by Blackboard) and Moodle [to a lesser extent, I would arguw] in its relatively traditional organization of instruction from the teacher out. They're teacher centric, if you like. A student centric , or at least a more balanced approach, would start with an individual student, or group of students and the voluntary choice of a knowledge or competence target. The teacher would serve as an advisor on the learning path, the method and the recognition of sufficient competence.
</ul>

<p>To be honest, given my comments on Sakai, you might not be surprised to know that I'm not sure that there is a student-centric knowledge acquisition system out there. Bits and pieces but not yet the whole system. Once its constructed it will resemble a generic research application with a strong focus on verifying that knowledge
acquired satisfactorily matches all specifications initially given by the student.
Perhaps the teacher could serve as a honest reflector upon the accomplishments. It can be easy to rationalize the product as 'just right' , even when it is short of or different from the original goal, because of fatigue or even an honest change of mind
that has come because of engagement with new knowledge bits and engaging knowledge-making processes.

<p>PS. After above thoughts I think I should dig into the definition of Web 2.0 Learning systems. Distributed ownership is terrific but is not the same as,  is not necessarily accompanied by, learner centric instruction.

Can I write here with impunity?

Or... what!

Summary: This extension of my group knowledge building model isn't so much one of structure as of membership. It occurred to me that with the support of an "expertise exchange" either a classroom or professional knowledge-making group could extend it's efforts and effectiveness. [This entry was originally drafted on March 22 ... but somehow was left in the draft stack. Here it is --- a bit later than I planned.]

---

My point is that most groups will run into a "wall" at some point or another. That is, they will soon find that, even between them, they don't have the answers to some of their important and central questions. Nor, they find, do they have resources that quickly provide those answers. Sometimes just waiting out the impasse may help. Perhaps a new problem solving technique will get them there. There are undoubtedly problem solving algorithms that could be adapted to the online group. But, even then, the collective knowledge base and problem solving expertise may not be enough.

Does the group disband or does it look for an expert … someone who will volunteer or who will, for pay, get them through the wall?

To make this situation more imaginable let's first start with a within-class learning group. It could be online or it could be face to face. The group is working within one subject and with problems that are within the reach of the expertise of the teacher. Teacher sets up a problem series and the groups independently tackle the problems [using within class materials and those they can find in the school and class library as well as what they can find online. Often, early in their skill development, occasionally when the group has become more sophisticated at solving posed problems, the group will hit a wall. For the wall we have the teacher. The teacher, who has picked the problems that he/she can solve or has solved, steps in to offer the timely and useful hint … just, barely, enough to get the group over its problem-solving hurdle. The group solves that problem and learns content and problem solving skills in the process. As the class progresses more and more complex problems are solvable by the group, partly because of advances in content expertise and partly because of its growth in problem-solving sophistication.

Take a look at my original model, below.

Now imagine that this class is online. The learning environment is, for the most part, Moodle, say, or Blackboard. In the Illustration we may be midway in the group problem solving experience; that is, the group decided at an earlier time, last week, as an example, to partition the original, BIG, problem into S1, S2, S3 ... and S5 … smaller problems. The teacher stands either as the coordinator (RC) or is paired with the coordinator -- when it's becoming obvious that whoever has rotated into coordinator position is "stuck", and it is obvious that the other members (R1-R5) aren't able to help. This too seems to be a "doable" approach to within-class problem-solving-based instruction.

In "real" life, the group may not have access to the teacher who happens to have problem solving skills appropriate to their problem. From the perspective of a spontaneously organized problem-solving group ... the classroom is "rigged".

After all, in real life the problems haven't yet been solved. The group has organized in the hopes of surmounting a problem that they aren't sure can be solved. Yet, determination, frustration and solidarity, perhaps, have them joining together to try anyway.

---

.

Now another, big jump … to non-structured learning situations in which the group has not been organized around a class and acquiring competence in some school-ish way but is, instead a) self-organized and b) motivated by an issue, each member having some reason to be invested in addressing, talking about, learning about, and/or resolving that issue. Picture the situation in which a group of people have locally self-organized around this issue. Each person is computer-comfortable and in communication with the others. Between them they have either partitioned the problem into subproblems -- or have each tried to tackle the problem separately. Each has kept her/his own weblog of work to date. And, using GoogleGroups, they have discussed and attempted resolution without, as far as they can see, any workable synthesis that "solves their problem". Their assigned leader has reviewed their steps to date and all agree that they DO still have the problem/issue but DON'T have a workable solution. Their individual weblogs (W1-W5) as well as their joint group weblog -- GW in the picture above -- reflects their lack of satisfactory closure. They're stuck!!

In the class the teacher would come at the sign of a waving hand in the air or in response to an email asking for help. In real life, the part that isn't in a classroom, who or what fills the role of the teacher? Perhaps a content expert. Better yet, a content expert who can help the group "discover" the answer [Discovered answers can often sink in deeper and hold on longer]. Given the reality of "need and expert" the group needs some means to get the volunteer or paid services of an expert who will provide enough expertise to get them over this hump... and to be available for the next one.

Summary: I praise the free knowledge-making possibilities now available on the web. Some would have said, did, in fact say, that team knowledge development could be strongly advanced by the combination of weblogs and wikis. It's now a free reality.(draft 3/19/07).

---

This will be the first draft.. less subtlety than I'd like. At the very least it's a place-marker for what I consider to be a worthwhile "philosophy, technology and the times" entry. While keeping my original title for the sake of continuity I find "Team Knowledge Development" to be too obscure. The phrase conjures up sports and hi-tech think tanks... that is too small a venue. The possibilities are far huger than that!!

Why? Think: do we need more knowledge (def. that which allows you to satisfy basic needs in a constantly changing, always demanding environment)? Yes. Where can it come from: any one of the 6 billion entities that call themselves human.

So anything that advances the ability to adjust and adapt and shape for humanity is needed. Sure. No argument, one might say! But, I am also arguing that computers linked via the internet and these free knowledge-making venues , if generally and broadly available and applied, offer us the chance to accelerate the development of useful individual and social behavior.

Individual and group and community, for that matter, knowledge construction is becoming accessible to those who access to the internet via the 100 dollar computer, the internet, and, of course, some kick-off training to develop the taste for it (there is always a need) and a starter set of skills. The taste and the starter set may be more of a challenge than the technology. But, once developed, will have I think, HUGE potential repercussions.

Take 1 group blog on blogger.com and a wiki from wikispaces or from an inexpensive open-source provider (see, for example, www.siteground.com - 4.95 per month) and you have either a free or very inexpensive group knowledge-making environment.

Three years ago it was an operational reality in well-heeled think tanks or online classrooms like Blackboard and Moodle. This was utilization in one --even unrecognized as a "knowledge-making venue" because doing so in the guise of traditional teaching-- of a far broader list of potential individual and social knowledge-making activities. Research as a general knowledge-making activity was by-and-large untouched. This year, while it isn't commonplace, it is possible for all and sundry and has developers and forward-looking venture capitalists recognizing the possibilities.

Now we have to create the social processing that allows us to do what the tools now allow.

---

The following is a connectivity weblog entry from early December of 2003.

Summary: I illustrate and explain a small group knowledge-making model. I do this in order to distinguish communicative contexts for weblogging. The general weblogging case --well described by Dave Pollard in a recent entry (See also my response and links here)-- is different from the situation in which weblogging is part of an individual or group research (knowledge-making) activity. My sense is that, since new knowledge development requires extensive introspective note taking, research journaling and, often, the testing of successive hypotheses, a wiki is better suited to the process. I've left the external communication role (of more finished pieces of research work) to the weblog. Details below and in notes linked to below.

In my above-referenced  entry I noted:

…if the issue really is expanding individual and collective knowledge, then the inter-blogger steps are a "surface" process which is an overlay on another, less accessible phenomenon, namely, a group's acquisition of new (at least to its members) and goal-related knowledge. IMHO the explanation of the blogging process in this context would be better served if some explanation of essential knowledge-making actions were folded into, or at least linked to from within, the discussion of sequential blogging behavior.

I followed this expressed concern with notetaking concerning the differences between general case blogging and blogging in the context of research/knowledge-making. For my set of notes using Dave Pollard's blogging steps but expressed from the point of view of an individual writing an in-house blog for a working research/knowledge-making group look here.

Those notes led to my construction of this entry's diagram which I offer for your consideration and evaluation. It, too, is drawn from the within-research-group perspective.Explanation of the research and publication process follows beneath the diagram.

Most research group endeavors have a life cycle--preceding from formation and ending with either a mature knowledge product or a partial version of the planned-for knowledge product, (or, in the extreme worst case, nothing that was intended nor even any unintended side product that has value). The within-group processes I describe below are aimed somewhere in the middle of the life of the research group.

At the base of the diagram you will see 5 R-S pairs. Those represent 5 researcher pairings with a research(knowledge-making) "situation". Each has researcher's assignment has two aspects: first is to "getting a good answer" to a research question and second is to make it accessible, via explanation, to other members of the research team.

Each researcher's notes, problems, results and explanations are detailed in her/his respective wiki. As part of participating in the research team each researcher comments upon, offer suggestions for, evaluate, etc. , the work of two other team members--via the evaluated member's wiki. Those processes are signified signified by the dashed arrows from each researcher to two other team members' wiki documents (those documents are W1, W2, W3, etc.). Such cross-communication can help to assure that the researcher will be developing her/his findings and explanations in ways that are compatible with the larger knowledge question which all are addressing with their particular research projects.

There is one other (the sixth) team member: the Reporter/Coordinator(RC). S/he will also be reading/evaluating the wiki's from the perspective of the larger knowledge-making situation of which the separate researcher situations are each distinct parts. S/he will also be reading from the perspective of an explication of the total product to a public.

In the early project stages the research coodinator/reporter documents impresssions of progress in the in-house summary document which is the group wiki (GW).

For non-group members summary snippets are issued via the group weblog (GWL); its purpose is to document progress and/or to justify solicitations of material support from a suprasystem or from a granting agency. Informational support might come via weblog comments from collaborating groups in a larger enterprise (e.g., a containing suprasystem) or from the broader public made up of knowledge consumers and competing research enterprises. Any responses from those outside sources will be fed back into the group wiki as a means of challenging/updating within-group work.

A last observation: the dashed line surrounding the group is meant to indicate that the boundary is voluntary. All members voluntarily limit their communications to fit within the bounds of the research mission. This self-limitation will occur for some portion of their time as dictated by their interests and the commitment made to the group. In the best of research groups this self-limitation is in fact empowerment. (See my entry about knowledge-making in bounded groups)

[Note 1: I have expanded the number of tools used to two: wiki and weblog. When a publication is to show it's edit history and to allow text intrusions ranging from paragraph level editing by multiple editors to page-level comments, I've chosen a wiki. When the document itself is to remain intact but is be accessible to attached commentary and for linking, I've chosen a weblog. It is possible to follow the design using weblogs alone (replace all wikis with weblogs).The wiki, however, affords a far more nuanced set of possibilities.]

[Note 2: Larger knowledge-making enterprises could be approached by using the illustrated group design as a module and by adding necessary organizationalinfrastructure and process]

[Note 3: If we replace the researcher and group wiki's with in house circulation of a weekly progress update--- on paper, and if we replace the group weblog with newsletter publications and/or journal articles -- again, on paper , then we still have a "plan". How much better off are we , at this level of analysis, because we HAVE inserted Wiki and Weblog?]

Summary: I praise the free knowledge-making possibilities now available on the web. Some would have said, did, in fact say, that team knowledge development could be strongly advanced by the combination of weblogs and wikis. It's now a free reality.

---

This will be the first draft.. less subtlety more like a placemarker.

Take a group blog on blogger and a wiki from wikispaces or from an inexpensive open-source provide and you have a low cost/no cost group knowledge-making environment. Three years ago it was an operational reality in well-healed think tanks.. but not that well disseminated. Now, while it isn't commonplace, it is possible for all and sundry.

Now we have to create the social processing that allows us to do what the tools now allow.

---

The < a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0106698/2003/12/05.html#a202">following from early December of 2003.

Summary: I illustrate and explain a small group knowledge-making model. I do this in order to distinguish communicative contexts for weblogging. The general weblogging case --well described by Dave Pollard in a recent entry (See also my response and links here)-- is different from the situation in which weblogging is part of an individual or group research (knowledge-making) activity. My sense is that, since new knowledge development requires extensive introspective note taking, research journaling and, often, the testing of successive hypotheses, a wiki is better suited to the process. I've left the external communication role (of more finished pieces of research work) to the weblog. Details below and in notes linked to below.

In my above-referenced  entry I noted:

…if the issue really is expanding individual and collective knowledge, then the inter-blogger steps are a "surface" process which is an overlay on another, less accessible phenomenon, namely, a group's acquisition of new (at least to its members) and goal-related knowledge. IMHO the explanation of the blogging process in this context would be better served if some explanation of essential knowledge-making actions were folded into, or at least linked to from within, the discussion of sequential blogging behavior.

I followed this expressed concern with notetaking concerning the differences between general case blogging and blogging in the context of research/knowledge-making. For my set of notes using Dave Pollard's blogging steps but expressed from the point of view of an individual writing an in-house blog for a working research/knowledge-making group look here.

Those notes led to my construction of this entry's diagram which I offer for your consideration and evaluation. It, too, is drawn from the within-research-group perspective.Explanation of the research and publication process follows beneath the diagram.

Most research group endeavors have a life cycle--preceding from formation and ending with either a mature knowledge product or a partial version of the planned-for knowledge product, (or, in the extreme worst case, nothing that was intended nor even any unintended side product that has value). The within-group processes I describe below are aimed somewhere in the middle of the life of the research group.

At the base of the diagram you will see 5 R-S pairs. Those represent 5 researcher pairings with a research(knowledge-making) "situation". Each has researcher's assignment has two aspects: first is to "getting a good answer" to a research question and second is to make it accessible, via explanation, to other members of the research team.

Each researcher's notes, problems, results and explanations are detailed in her/his respective wiki. As part of participating in the research team each researcher comments upon, offer suggestions for, evaluate, etc. , the work of two other team members--via the evaluated member's wiki. Those processes are signified signified by the dashed arrows from each researcher to two other team members' wiki documents (those documents are W1, W2, W3, etc.). Such cross-communication can help to assure that the researcher will be developing her/his findings and explanations in ways that are compatible with the larger knowledge question which all are addressing with their particular research projects.

There is one other (the sixth) team member: the Reporter/Coordinator(RC). S/he will also be reading/evaluating the wiki's from the perspective of the larger knowledge-making situation of which the separate researcher situations are each distinct parts. S/he will also be reading from the perspective of an explication of the total product to a public.

In the early project stages the research coodinator/reporter documents impresssions of progress in the in-house summary document which is the group wiki (GW).

For non-group members summary snippets are issued via the group weblog (GWL); its purpose is to document progress and/or to justify solicitations of material support from a suprasystem or from a granting agency. Informational support might come via weblog comments from collaborating groups in a larger enterprise (e.g., a containing suprasystem) or from the broader public made up of knowledge consumers and competing research enterprises. Any responses from those outside sources will be fed back into the group wiki as a means of challenging/updating within-group work.

A last observation: the dashed line surrounding the group is meant to indicate that the boundary is voluntary. All members voluntarily limit their communications to fit within the bounds of the research mission. This self-limitation will occur for some portion of their time as dictated by their interests and the commitment made to the group. In the best of research groups this self-limitation is in fact empowerment. (See my entry about knowledge-making in bounded groups)

[Note 1: I have expanded the number of tools used to two: wiki and weblog. When a publication is to show it's edit history and to allow text intrusions ranging from paragraph level editing by multiple editors to page-level comments, I've chosen a wiki. When the document itself is to remain intact but is be accessible to attached commentary and for linking, I've chosen a weblog. It is possible to follow the design using weblogs alone (replace all wikis with weblogs).The wiki, however, affords a far more nuanced set of possibilities.]

[Note 2: Larger knowledge-making enterprises could be approached by using the illustrated group design as a module and by adding necessary organizationalinfrastructure and process]

[Note 3: If we replace the researcher and group wiki's with in house circulation of a weekly progress update--- on paper, and if we replace the group weblog with newsletter publications and/or journal articles -- again, on paper , then we still have a "plan". How much better off are we , at this level of analysis, because we HAVE inserted Wiki and Weblog?]

Summary: My move into teaching was propelled by my first reading of Martin Buber[base ']s I and Thou .

One core, resonant idea at the center: our transactions with others glow with moral purpose. Buber notes that if we treat others as an instruments in our own, self-centered life plan, we are [OE]it[base ']-ing those others, reducing each into a set of qualities that are valued only as far as they help in our own life plan, like puppets in a Punch and Judy play. Buber offered a deeply argued other approach.

There is, he suggests, also the possibility of Thou-ing another. Addressing that other in her or his fullness now and in the future, in both actuality and potentiality. This meant to me that my approach to another should respect her or his wholeness, her or his integrity as now seen and as envisioned in the future.

This meant that a great act of teaching would bring a person[base ']s understanding and actions in better alignment with the translation of actuality, what is at every level, and potentiality, what could be.

What a [base "]Thou[per thou]-based teaching relationship would not be:

• simply being nice, ie wooing or by other means making the other person comfortable
• teaching elements of a common curriculum or of [OE]cultural literacy[base '] for their own sakes (as opposed to as incidental to a thou-centred plan for becoming or enablement)
• comfortable, necessarily. What I am, most fundamentally and now is not necessarily accessible to me. What future versions of me that might be best interpretations of the core [base "]me[per thou] might, at this present moment, be incomprehensible, strange, even repellent to me.

I conclude by saying that I believed then, as a 22 year old, and as I do now, more than forty years later, that helping others become what they have the will and potentiality to become is a great and good thing. It gave me goose bumps to think of the possibilities -- still does!!

I still think that this pursuit is a noble calling, a great quest. Noble because difficult and challenging. Noble because Thou-based. Noble because, if successful, it yields great works of living human art, one miracle at a time. It[base ']s a quest because the goal is not always realized and because the fulfillment is the journey as much as it is the destination.

Oh. Last thought: the sign on my teaching shop was going to be the title of this entry. Teaching: Your Thing.

One of my first jobs, I realized, way back then, would be to figure out what on earth that meant!

Summary: We need to focus on the person from the inside out. On skills relating to being in charge of self and one's projects. This requires time. Time from the developing person, time from the parents, time from the school. We need to back off a good distance from the idea of someone being a "good worker" in order to see the supersets of "good person" and "integrated" and "satisfied". This entry will focus on the possibilities created by time and focus.

First off -- I'm not big on mass education of character. It's better than nothing and probably has some positive effect. No argument there. But, I believe that the emphasis should always be on working from the center [of the person] out, when it comes to personal development. We must be about developing the individual perspective and skills and commitments and resources. A litany of phrases is not the same as an active and dynamic set of beliefs that integrate what has previously been lived with the life one is living now or the vision of a life towards which one reaches.

In what remains of this entry I will break out concerns and possibilities by a person's age, attaching observations, comments, arguments and thoughts about possibilities to each age range:

Age Range and Hours Per Week	Where Delivered	Who's Responsible	Focus And Example Growth Topics
Birth-3 yrs. 3 hours per week	Home	Parents Child as Possible	Competence: Habits that are survival- and success- oriented. While habits are being developed they are also accompanied by talk. The habits are explained/ encoded in a way that will be part of self-aware discussion and self-extension in the future. Examples: response to commands/command tones, relatively broad but scrupulous eating habits, exploration tempered with caution, playfulness. perseverence.
4-6 years 3 hours per week (156 hours per year)	Home, child-care, preschool	Parents Child as Possible	Competence and Socializing. Examples: language use for social within- family and within-community purposes. A balance of wilfullness and willingness-to-please. Work habits such as persistence balanced with curiosity; helpfulness and risk-taking moderated by/alternating with carefulness and self-protection. Beginning awareness of group dynamics within family and within peer groupings.
7-11 years 5 hours per week (260 hours per year)	Home and School	Parents and Teachers, Student As Possible	Competence, Socializing. Group skills, beginning efforts at self-awareness at abstract thought and at learning to learn. First exposure to personal profile of actual & potential abilities and related/ compared with desires, deep pleasure and satisfaction. Much of this through story-telling, story and fable interpretation plus an emphasis on learning to observe and comment upon individual, group and personal behavior within such contexts. Such learnings set the stage for learning to predict of the consequences of real group and real individual actions-- including self. Learning-to-learn social skills lessons will be taught both systematically (i.e., to small groups and classes before "need-to-know-now" has been demonstrated) and as occasion's and individual readiness allow.
11-18 years 5 hours per week (260 hours per year)	Home and School	Student Teachers and Parents as Needed	Competence and Socializing: It is during this period, that character development and metalearning (learning to learn, deuterolearning) can most effectively "lift off" and accelerate. Why? Because self-awareness, self-control and abstract thought (Piaget's formal operations) all may mix to allow meta-meta learning (metalearning squared). Metaphorically speaking it is the development of pilot skills to encompass, sometimes to supercede, the already developed passenger skills. When it comes to profound success we must individually tailor and appropriately fit all of our teaching to the formulation and pursuit of life aims within the context of life-as-experienced. The fact that this individuation must apply to hugely diverse aims (e.g., community development, running a newspaper, writing a novel, preserving threatened species, inventing alternatives to gas, running a farm, raising a family, military tactics and the development of philosophical systems, etc,), emphasizes the size of the task facing each learner and most profoundly all of those parents and teachers who have set themselves the charge of helping one or people define, locate and enter the "field of their dreams". Whatever the rationale, whatever form the apologia takes, such a glorious entry is not the predominant, nor even a secondary, product of secondary school and college studies. Indeed it is rare!When such a success does result, it was not, most certainly, in any intentional --"this-is-primarily/foundationally-what-drives-all-system-decision-making" -- sense. In my opinion, that has to change!! If we, students, parents and teachers & schools, are to reclaim the lives of present secondary and college students and if we are to have any chance of helping the coming generations to develop their, at the same time self-sufficient and yet societally useful potential, then we have much yet to do!!

Picture the number of unsolved problems we -- as communities, or nations, or as the world -- presently face. Now picture the number of people for whom those problems need solution. Now tell me that a faltering delivery of basic skills to an increasingly disinterested and even hostile client population is a sufficient response!!

Related Entries:

• The Biggest Reason for School Reform: The Loss of Our Children
• Learning in Groups: Maybe Schools Should Be More Businesslike??!!
• Learning to Learn (deuterolearning, metalearning):Knowledge About Self and Learning --> High Proven Payoff
• Weblogs in Educational Settings: Undergraduate and Graduate

Summary: I like Survivor but should I? I remind myself of it's ups and downs and what keeps me coming back. I then try to translate to the human issues involved in connected joint survival.

---

In our present Survivor it looks like Terry's downright excellence at competitions plus a decent strategic sense will have him winning the competition. He could lose, however, if Cerie's superior strategic sense can get someone other than someone jury members detest opposite him in the final two.

It's been the same since the show began: good competitive skills, good strategic thinking and a dose of luck have separated the winner from those that fell by the wayside.

The subject matters and venues are different in the Apprentice and American Idol. And so are the means of selection/elimination. Fellow contestants vote at all stages in Survivor; the public votes in American Idol and Trump votes in the Apprentice. But the end result, i.e., that there will be only one at the end, is fixed. Clearly the success of the shows indicates that there is a deep appeal of such a format and such an end!!

For me, at any rate, the competition certainly has appeal. I was raised to it in a culture which seems to honor competitiveness above most other natural drives. I say natural because I believe it's "wired in" from birth. I see it as being shaped rather than created in familial and cultural upbringing.

Take jealousy for example (Is jealousy the parent of competitiveness or vise-versa?). Jealousy exists without help; it shows itself amongst brothers and sisters and in groups and classrooms. How does it show itself? As a concern over signs that another has been recognized or rewarded more than oneself.

Also two dog-derived ideas (legitimate source: we can can find the bottom-line roots of human behavior in the behavior of other pack animals! Packs are just early mammalian tribes, prototribes, as it were.):

• first clue: the sweet talk refrain used by a dog trainer with her charges -- "You want to be the only one", and
• second clue:, the comment yesterday made about a longtime family dog as she politely snubbed the newbie dog who had been adopted two months before -- "She'd prefer to have been an only child". [She's quite civil about it, but her preferences are clear]
  
• third clue: the evidence of puppy behavior as the litter approaches even two months -- to have adequate physiological support appears to be almost less the drive than to get more than anyone else.
  

To summarize my response and to take it back to Reality TV:

If our tribal behavior is pack derived and thus legitimate enough to be expressed,

I don't want it to be just bravado-laced,

unscrupled cleverness as in Richard

Hatch's example.

It seems to me that we could put together programming which is not only entertains us but teaches and inspires. I don't know if Survivor can be reshaped. But a show could be so structured that longer term necessities are taken care of -- and probably be built around other instinctively natural behaviors to boot!!

That is, we need to give some scope to competitiveness but also to encourage the development and display of skills (and drives) which afford a people-friendly, environment-friendly survival for the whole group. In the real world elimination of competitors is an antisocial high cost strategy which, when I think about it, has to be the lesser of the set of strategies which support a longer term societal success.

Given this reasoning I think you'll have to agree that you and I, fellow Survivor watchers, may be spending too much time watching the struggles of Survivor participants. Why? Because their victory-targeted strategies are only a small subset of the total set of strategies, skills, understandings that we as individuals and as a society must apply. That total set needs to be applied at home, in school groups, at work and in our communities. When we have done that  we will all prosper in ways that ensure our families and communities survival. That survival will have with quality, and it will continue into a future that lasts many generations.

The small subset of competitive skills are, if practiced alone, destructive. We don't live life to win at the expense of all others. The "I want to be the only one" goal is natural, yes. But -- life strategies that give it first or only place are suicidal. Let's put something together that helps us learn behaviors and strategies that allow all of us to have a real future.
[Most recent cleanup: 5/1/06 9:40 am]

Summary: A multimedia and in depth learning ecology lesson is available. Slides and Audio. Whether you are after content learning or metalearning, George Siemens offers understanding and advice on how you creates a learning ecology -- and supports the subsequent evolution of quality . His ideas will apply online or off.

PS. You can navigate in nonlinear fashion --attending to voice, or slides or graphics, as you like.

His graphic above (slide 19 in his audio and video sequence), captures important segments of the depth complexity of a learning ecology.

PPS. Nota bene. This delivery demonstrates what can be done with powerpoint. Further, because he has used "Articulate" - a Windows-friendly powerpoint-augmenting software -- you get more features and don't have to worry about downloading, compressing or decompressing. :o]

[George's Material came to me via Will Richardson's Weblogg-Ed ]

Summary: The resources abound for technically inclined teachers and motivated and technically inclined learners.

The picture makes sense when you've read the Jan 25 entry on Bee-Coming A Webhead. It's all really happening.

Michael Coghlan is now presenting Hearing Online Voices in EFL/ESL on Yahoo Messenger for the BaW 06 Evo Session. 30 people present, among whom 3 Brazilians (Carla Arena, Erika Cruvinel from Brasilia and myself in Sao Paulo). Aiden is explaining how she participated in an audio exchange with Michael and how the students became the main protagonists in the chat. Michael describes how Chris Jones (Arizona), Anne Fox (Denmark) conducted exchanges online with their classes. Buthaina (Kuwait) had webheads listen to students' oral presentations and ask questions. Aiden and Michael have recorded wonderful messages for my blogging workshop on the Summer School Podomatic.

It's almost to the point where people are "taking it for granted". Scary -- cause we still have to pay attention to whether we are teaching!!

[technorati: weblogging, edublogging, onlinelearning]

Summary: Bill Wong's parents and I mull over what Bill should learn next. I've just finished a conference with the teacher. Now we explore the same topic with Bill's parents.

The parental take on the "short and sweet" is probably neither short nor particularly sweet to any of the others involved in the question of what and how to teach.

[See my earlier entries in the What to Teach sequence of entries. The first entry is here , and the second is here . ]

This entry and the one which will follow will focus on parental and individual takes on exactly the same profile of skills.]

* A reminder: Bill Wong is a hypothetical person. His profile does represent, however, the very real complexity that each person, each learner brings to the discussion of what to learn/what to teach.

---

Now, instead of discussing the results with principal and superintendent or Bill's teacher, I work with Bill's parents to think about Bill's test results. What do they think should be taught?
Mr. and Mrs. Wong have requested a review of Bill's test results. They want to plan his middle school and high school education. As we sit down they both glance at their copy of Bill's Profile of test results (A copy just above ).
Mr.Wong: Is this some kind of report card or something? We called for this meeting to talk about Bill's future.	Spike Hall: It's Bill's Achievement Profile. I've taken all of his achievement test results and summarized them in this graph. This graph can really help us think about Bill's future.
Mr. W makes sure his copy is the same as mine and then notes, " It's pretty complicated , I see that, but I don't see any of the courses he's signed up for on the chart!. What's it have to do with what we're meetings for -- And what're the vertical lines about and the colored dots and so on. (Mrs. W nods in agreement.)	Spike Hall: Ok. Each vertical line is an area of development. For example, gross motor development translates into, say, athletics. Each vertical line is, like gross motor (athletics), an area of important development that starts with what you and I and Bill -- everybody-- generally bring into our first days in a school and ends with what some  of us master in our late teens. Generally speaking, roughly one hundred things, things that need to be learned pretty much in order, are, presented during each year of school. Of course there are individual differences and school to school differences in how much is presented and how much is learned.
Mrs. W asks, "Are those differences important?" Oh -- and what is that horizontal line across the graph. Is that important? I see some of his dots, five, are above the line and a couple are a little bit below?	Spike Hall: That's an important question Mrs. W. That line represents what other boys and girls of Bill's age are capable of doing -- on the average. You can see --
Mr. W interrupts to say: Fine Motor, Gross Motor, Math and Ethics are the ones that are obviously above and Receptive Language and Expressive Language are below. What does all of that mean?	In everyday speak? Bill's capable of reading and writing and speaking but, at least on tests and during observations, he comes up a shade under the class average in those skills. But in athletics, in penmanship and in drawing and in knowing and sharing what he considers right and wrong he is outstanding. Sometimes his skills in communication -- or  his reluctance to communicate--, I'm not sure which -- your experience at home may help clear up that mystery -- get in the way of his communicating that strong sense of right and wrong and of justice. Even with communications skills exactly as they are he's clearly a leader, a leader for the good, in my opinion, in these areas.
Mr. W: So he's high in some areas and low in others. Are we supposed to do something because of that?	Spike Hall: I'd say yes! All of us should build from this profile-- at home and at school-- to construct what all of us, Bill most of all,  would consider a desirable, doable set of possibilitiees. We can, I believe, build from Bill's high skills (and high interests) in his schooling to help him  grow in all his  areas. Now that we have this information, we can use it to tailor how we advise Bill on activities and how we encourage him to take on new projects and to set goals. In other words, with this material in hand you and I and Bill can all make life more challenging and more interesting to Bill. At the same time, we can help him see how other areas (math, for example) can support the growth areas that he really does like.
Mr. W: Makes sense so far. But we need to talk over the results with Bill. It's ok, right? (Hall nods emphatically). He's never seen this kind of thing before.	Spike Hall: Makes sense. Then maybe we can have a follow up with all of us and Bill putting together a plan or outline that builds upon Bill's interests and strengths to take him farther on the path he seems to be on.
Mr. W: Hold it. What if he changes his mind three years from now? What if he wants to, all of a sudden, focus on, say, poetry -- which is not interesting to him now.	Spike Hall: That would be his choice. The idea isn't to make him a slave to his best skills or his least skills. Rather-- it is to have his skills work for him and for his evolving life interests (and your backing for them). The idea is for him and you be in the driver's seat when it comes to building his future. When he has the inclination to shift his priorities our job isn't to stop him or to say, blindly, "Go for it!". Our job, at least as far as I see it, is to help him learn and to help him project the consequences of his actions and plans into the future . We would weigh those future consequences against his needs and our greater experience and report our "findings" to Bill. As he gets older and more "in command" our reports become more and more advisory -- a back-up resource to his own evolving command of his future prospects.
Mr. W: Sounds good. Mrs Wong: Good but work too!! Hmm!! But nothing we wouldn't be doing anyway. This is the first time I remember thinking that school and home we're obviously working for the same thing.	Spike Hall: Nice to hear you say that Mrs. W. Yes it will be work and much communication for all of us. I'll look forward to hearing from you two and Bill after you've had your talk about these results and what they mean. Let me know If I can help as you and Bill get into thinking about his growth plan. However your discussions turn out, it would probably a good idea for all of us to get together in the next 2-3 weeks. Next time your house? I'm really looking forward to our next discussion!!

Five minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Wong' and Hall exit the school building on their way to their cars. As Mr and Mrs. drive away Hall waves and smiles. They're too busy talking to notice! He nods his head, smiles and gets into his own car.

Summary: I have written admiringly of John Taylor Gatto before. I am provoked to do so again by Mike Kilen's moving summary and critique of mandatory schooling (aka the factory model of education). There are large dangers to 'factorified' education; the worst, IMHO, is each student's loss of relationship to her or his potential. What's left? The sole decision: as to how much one commits to, or resists, becoming an "appropriately trained" worker participant in a one-size-fits-all vision of existence .

To quote Gatto (via Mike Kilen in today's Des Moines Register):

"To raise kids to get a job rather than find a way to be useful in the world[italics mine*, SPH] is an act of murder," Gatto said.

"In a perfect world, he would close all government schools, use the money to pay parents or other experts to teach kids and sponsor apprenticeships."

"It's not going to happen although a growing number are taking education into their own hands by home schooling.[sigma]

[sigma]So Gatto would start by taking the profit out of teaching kids the relatively easy tasks of reading and arithmetic. He'd eliminate the administrators and school boards. He'd have small, neighborhood schools and measure performance by individualized instruments while teaching themes instead of subjects. He would allow flexible time and space for students to think critically and perform creatively, all within a framework of core values of work, duty, obligation, loyalty, service and fun.

---

*I'd rephrase more explicitly to say, "find a way to become a satisfactory version of one's vision of one's unique self and at the same time be useful (i.e, contributing to the ongoing project of righteous survival for the immediate and extended community )

Links:

• Gatto's web site
• His acclaimed and Insightful The Underground History of American Education
• An audio clip from "The Paradox of Extended Childhood"
• His link to World Prosperity - " A group that is dedicated to defining the root causes of social dysfunction, the most fundamental of which is a dysfunctional educational system."

Summary: Bill Wong's parents and I mull over what Bill should learn next. We've just finished a conference with the teacher. Now we explore the same topic with Bill's parents.

The parental take on the "short and sweet" is probably neither short nor particularly sweet to any of the others involved in the question of what and how to teach.

[See my earlier entries in the What to Teach sequence of entries, First entry here , and the second here . This entry and the one which will follow will focus on parental and individual takes on exactly the same profile of skills.
* A reminder: Bill Wong is a hypothetical person. His profile does represent, however, the very real complexity that each person, each learner brings to the discussion of what to learn/what to teach.

---

Now Bill's Parents and I process Bill's Results. What do they think should be taught?
Mr. and Mrs. Wong have requested a review of Bill's test results. They want to plan his middle school and high school education. As we sit down they both glance at their copy of Bill's Profile of test results(Copy just above )
Mr.Wong: Is this some kind of report card or something? We called for this meeting to talk about Bill's future.	Spike Hall: It's Bill's Achievement Profile. I've taken all of his achievement test results and summarized them in this form. This form or graph can really help us think about Bill's future.
Mr. W makes sure his copy is the same as mine and then notees, " It's pretty complicated , I see that, but I don't see any of the courses he's signed up for on the chart!. What's it have to do with what we're meetings for -- And what're the vertical lines about and the colored dots and so on. Mrs. W nods in agreement.	Spike Hall: Ok. Each vertical line is an area of development. For example, gross motor development translates into, say, athletics. Each vertical line is an, like athletics, area of important development that starts with what you and I and Bill -- everybody-- generally bring into our first days a Kindergarten class and ends with what most of us master in our late teens. Generally speaking, roughly one hundred things, things that need to be learned pretty much in order, are, learned each year of school. Of course there are individual differences and school to school differences.
Mrs. W asks, "Are those differences important?" Oh -- and what is that horizontal line across the graph. Is that important? I see some of his dots, five, are above the line and a couple are a little bit below?	Spike Hall: That's an important question Mrs. W. That line represents what other boys and girls of Bill's age are capable of doing -- on the average. You can see --
Mr. W interrupts to say: Fine Motor, Gross Motor, Math and Ethics are the ones that are obviously above and Receptive Language and Expressive Language are below. What does all of that mean.	In everyday speak? Bill's capable of reading and writing and speaking but, at least on tests and during observations, he comes up a shade under the class average in those skills. But in athletics, in penmanship and in drawing and in knowing and sharing what he considers right and wrong he is outstanding. Sometimes his skills in communication -- or reluctance, I'm not sure, your experience at home may help clear up that mystery -- get in the way of his strong sense of right and wrong and of justice. But he's clearly a leader, a leader for the good, in my opinion, in these areas.
Mr. W: So he's high in some areas and low in others. Are we supposed to do something because of that?	Spike Hall: I'd say yes! We build on this at home and at school. We can, I believe, be pretty darn active in involving Bill's high skills (and high interests) in his schooling and in helping him bring enhance the other skills to support his strong areas. I believe that, now that we have this information, we can use it to tailor how we advise Bill on activities and how we encourage him to take on new projects and to set goals. In other words, with this material in hand you and I and Bill can all make life more challenging and more interesting to Bill. At the same time, we can help him see how other areas (math for example) can support the growth areas that he really does like and with which he has such considerable skill.
Mr. W: Makes sense so far. But we need to talk over the results with Bill. It's ok, right? (Hall nods emphatically). He's never seen this kind of thing before.	Spike Hall: Makes sense. Then maybe we can have a follow up with all of us and Bill putting together a plan or outline that builds upon Bill's interests and strengths to take him farther on the path he seems to be on.
Mr. W: Hold it. What if he changes his mind three years from now? What if he wants to, all of a sudden, focus on, say, poetry -- which is not interesting to him now.	Spike Hall: That would be his choice. The idea isn't to make him a slave to his best skills or his least skills. Rather-- it is to have his skills work for him and for his life interests (and your backing for them) be in the driver's seat rather than some anonymous and bureaucratic textbook series. When he has the inclination to shift his priorities our job isn't to stop him or to say, blindly, "Go for it!". Our job, at least as far as I see it, is to help him learn and to help him project the consequences of his actions and plans into the future -- and to weigh those consequences against his needs and our greater experience.
Mr. W: Sounds good. Mrs Wong: Good but work too. But nothing we wouldn't be doing anyway. This is the first time I remember thinking that school and home we're obviously working for the same thing.	Spike Hall: Nice to hear you say that Mrs. W. I'll look forward to hearing from you two and Bill after you've had your first talk. If I can help interpret or back up interpretation at school with Bill in class let me know. Then we'll all get together in the next 2-3 weeks. I appreciate your coming over and your kind comments so much!!

The Wong's and Hall exit school building on way to cars. Mr and Mrs. drive away having an animated conversation. Hall waves and smiles. They're too busy to notice!

Summary: Real Person and I talk about the Meaning of Life and Learning For Bill Wong. RP and I begin to talk about developmental profiling in general and as it would benefit instruction in the classroom (in RP's case a High School classroom). (This will be the first of a series of entries on how classroom activity and the learner's cutting edge can or should relate to each other.)

---

---

We Talk about Bill, Potential and Real Life.
RP and I are sitting in my office after he's had a rough and demanding day in his High School History Classroom. We're planning later classes in his Masters program. As we are just finishing up our planning he looks over at this chart that's been sitting next to his papers. (Copy just above )
RP: Whatya got there, some kind of graph. I remember you showing us progress graphs in the assessment class.	Spike Hall: It's Bill's Achievement Profile. I've taken all of his achievement test results and summarized them in this form.
RP moves to my side of the table so he can see it better. So what're the vertical lines about and the colored dots on them.	Spike Hall: Ok. Each vertical line is an area of development that starts with what kids generally bring into the beginning of a Kindergarten class and ends with what the best kids master in their late teens. All in all, roughly one hundred things, things that need to be learned pretty much in order, are supposed to be learned each year in each area.
RP squirms a bit, picks up the chart and reads labels, rotates chart first vertically then horizontally
RP: Okay, I get the basic idea, sort of. What are each of the areas?	Spike Hall: GK: General Knowledge. That which is frequently a major component of so-called IQ tests. Material that should make sense on news shows, that comes up in the newspaper, how everyday things work, safety, history, that sort of thing. RL: Receptive Language. Reading, Listening and Signing recognition are examples. In general, receptive language involves: The ability to process incoming language. This requires ability to receive some signal (as examples the word "dog" as said by another, "dog" as signed by another or the word "dog" on the printed page). This ability requires a set of "words" that are recognizable by the individual. The ability to process complex linguistic messages requires memory and grammatical decoding skills as well. EL: Expressive Language. Writing, Speaking and Signing are examples. In general, expressive language involves: The ability to process an outgoing message. This requires the formulation of an intent, the translation of that intent into a set of semantic items, the grammatic connection of those items into a message and the generation of signals appropriate to those grammatically connected items The ability to process complex linguistic messages requires short-term memory as well as the skills already mentioned. FM: Fine Motor. Fine motor skills: The ability to coordinate hand in small spaces to accomplish such things as handwriting, carving, puzzle assembly, knitting, sewing, etc. Usually aided by senses of sight and touch GM: Gross Motor. The movement of the body in space as in walking, running, tumbling, gymnastics, swimming. Athletics of competitive and noncompetitive forms generally involve the demonstration of skilled gross motor skills. Dancing involves the above plus the ability to move as influenced by the rhythm and even mood of music. ML: Math and Logic. Perception of, reasoning and communication about amount, amount and space(as in geometry and trigonometry) and logical relations as they have bearing on various understandings concerning everyday and professional existence. Soc: Social Skills. Ability to respond to and send messages which are socially effective in the context. This would include manners, perception of emotions, expressing emotions effectively, leading, following, cooperating, negotiating. E: Ethics, Ethical Skills. The ability to perceive the application of moral and ethical principles to practical and general situations involving individual, small and large group behavior. The ability to not only perceive but to influence the ethical practices of others would combine both social and ethical domains.
RP has become increasingly agitated while all of this explanation has taken place. His foot is tapping and his face is a little redder than it was a few minutes ago.
RP: [Splutter, cough … ]. I'm having trouble getting behind this project--- connecting it to what I do, which is teach History to kids who start out having no use for it and too often end up the same way. I have attendance problems, I have a Department head who thinks videotapes and DVDs 75% of the time are the answer. Help me make the connections Spike -- I'm not seeing them!	Spike Hall: Okay. Let's start with a premise, namely, that each student will learn well and easily if instructional material, content and process are at or near her or his "readiness level", also that it will not go wellor easily if the material is too far below or above "readiness level". Look now at Bill, particularly at his "profile". What do you see?
RP: Well, for one, his profile has hills and valleys. The hills, I suppose, represent strength and the valley's weakness. Right?	Spike Hall: Close enough but with some qualifications. First, it will depend on how you define strength. If one defines strength as "power" with a material (say social skills) that is greater than that one one's peers. Then yes. But it will depend on the individual. The goal-directed won't be so pleased or sense themselves so powerful if even a relative social strength in social skills or logic or whatever isn't sufficient to realize self-set goals. But, yes, let's talk of strength as defined by one's power relative to one's peers. How does Bill measure up in that sense?
RP: Well I wouldn't know about Bill except with reference to himself-- that is how many objectives out of the total K-13 set he has mastered. In some areas more than others. Those are self- and sequence- related strengths right?	Spike Hall: Right. That's the way I see it too. But we also have that funny dashed line going across the chart. That represents the average that is expected of people who are the same age.
RP: That would allow us to compare him to the "norm". Ok, I get it and on that basis he's quite strong in in Fine Motor and Gross Motor skills, and really good with Ethics; and more or less average in other areas.	Spike Hall: Do you see any implications from this pattern of average to terrific in various skill areas?
RP: Maybe. Hmm. Maybe the Ethics would be useful as we look at political history or social dynamics or the conduct of school board and city council meetings, etc.	Spike Hall: I agree. But it isn't just benefit to the class. It's benefit to him. If you ask things of him and instruct him in a way that respects and interacts with his present skills and beliefs you will be more likely to help him make significant growth. It doesn't have to be a totally different curriculum to do that. You can still have the American History textbook play a significant part. But how you use it can be adjusted to skills, values and profiles, to the benefit, and learning pleasure, of all.
Rowanda F., fellow faculty member and advisor to RP, drops by and is invited to sit down. She listens a bit while looking over the Bill W chart. She gets an intensity of look and is clearly about to say something. Spike and RP look expectantly in her direction. Rowanda: You two are obviously onto something hot and, as much as I've been able to gather getting here late, it seems really worthwhile. But - hey --I'm concerned about something too. Where is it that Bill's aims, ambitions and concerns are folded in? [Rowanda continues] One of the most powerful forces for success in Bill's (and any other student's] program has to be what s/he wants, what s/he will commit to, what goals are driving actions right now. Even if we keep the subject matter organization, this really should be questioned, but even if we did, we have to have Bill sitting in the driver's seat and with us as advisors. This chart will give Bill insight, us too. But it shouldn't call the tune. It's not that Bill is low in X and high in Y that is important. What is centrally important is what Bill wants to do now and what he wants to become. The fact that he is high in Fine Motor skills and Ethics may inspire choices of goals or methods... but shouldn't BECOME the goals. [Rowanda concludes] Finally I don't see one assessment that I think is central if Bill is going to be in the driver's seat (and he should be). It has been called metalearning and deuterolearning -- but basically is how good he is at learning to learn. Having an understanding of how well he independently or with guidance learns to learn any given subject (for example the general subjects on this chart) is insight Bill needs as he tries simultaneously to find out who he is, what he wants and what he might be good at. [Rowanda exits] Sorry guys to introduce the subject and then exit but have an appointment for which I'm already 10 minutes late.
RP: Wow that's too much too fast but I think I've been swayed!!! At the same time I don't really know what this chart or expanded one Rawanda is referring to has to do with how I run my History class. More on that later.	Spike Hall: [laughing] She's always like that. Frays the nerves, at least in my case, but there's lots to be had by replaying what she says. In this case I've got two things to start with. The first one is that Bill has to be at the center. These test results are for Bill's guidance as he makes decisions; we are informational and planning resources, but it's his plan!! This is a far more radical idea either of us might realize. The second is the whole idea of learning to learn. If you accept the idea of Bill's being in charge of his learning -- and he is,ultimately, however much we insist on control of our classroom or class processes, then knowing just what his l-to-l skill in each area is important as he chooses what to do. Finally, he should probably understand how good he is at this central skill and what he can do about it. My mind is tired. Let's quit for now.
RP and Spike agree to let it go for the day. RP wants specifics and Spike promises to describe possible uses and classroom actions that are tuned more exactly to RP's history classroom.

[Stay tuned for further interactions. Bill Wong: Part II.]

Summary: Readiness theory would have us predict that learning will be real and non-trival to the extent that what is being taught about and how it is taught matches the content and learning strategies already "owned" by the learner. It seems that the education profession is quite comfortable with this as a general statement; however, the useful application of this maxim in classroom situations, i.e., something that results in improved student learning, is appallingly small . Class lectures and/or reading one chapter at a time from a text, as representative examples of current practices, are not good ways to maximize student learning. In this entry I offer one basis for understanding why this is so and then I sketch several ideas for making the ideal into the real.

Moving to Personalization from Large Group Instruction is a BIG Deal:

Assume that you have the objective sequences, tests, and instructional activities for several content areas planned; that map is lying in front of you. If you are teaching in an elementary school as a classroom teacher, you may have to teach each of thirty pupils in each of these content areas. If you are a secondary or adult-level teacher working in a typical situation, you may have as many as two or three content areas to cover for perhaps ninety to one hundred and fifty students.

Let's look at the elementary classroom. In that classroom, as stated before, you might be responsible for thirty students' progress in five curriculum areas. You would probably be responsible for reading, language arts, arithmetic, social studies, and science. As is illustrated in the first table, your personalization problems would be considerable. In these five areas you could, if each student had different objectives from all of the others in that area, have responsibility for personalizing in a classroom with instruction required for 150 (5 areas x 30 students) objectives.

Thankfully, since there are usually several objectives which are needed for more than one student, the required instruction would probably come closer to a distribution like that illustrated in the table below example (where instruction is required for approximately 85 objectives as the year begins ).

In such a situation there is no way that "whole class" lectures alone could be a useful instructional activity for each of the students depicted below (as x’s in the table below) . Even if your lesson was perfect, that lesson could only say the appropriate thing to a small fraction of your students (those who had sufficient skill levels to be able to learn from the concepts that you were using).

The other students might sit still, might even acquire pieces of the information here and there, but would not learn in the sense that you assumed or were hoping for.

The Personalizer's Dilemma
Reading		Language Arts		Arithmetic		Social Studies		Science
Obj. #	# of Students	Obj. #	# of Students	Obj. #	# of Students	Obj. #	# of Students	Obj. #	# of Students
1	--0--	1	--0--	1	--0--	1	--0--	1	--0--
2	--0--	2	--4--	2	--0--	2	--0--	2	--0--
3	--2--	3	--1--	3	--0--	3	--5--	3	--2--
4	--1--	4	--1--	4	--0--	4	--5--	4	--3--
5	--1--	5	--1--	5	--0--	5	--3--	5	--3--
6	--1--	6	--1--	6	--2--	6	--1--	6	--1--
7	--1--	7	--0--	7	--3--	7	--1--	7	--1--
8	--2--	8	--0--	8	--1--	8	--0--	8	--4--
9	--2--	9	--0--	9	--1--	9	--1--	9	--1--
10	--3--	10	--1--	10	--1--	10	--1--	10	--1--
11	--3--	11	--1--	11	--1--	11	--3--	11	--1--
12	--0--	12	--1--	12	--1--	12	--1--	12	--1--
13	--1--	13	--1--	13	--0--	13	--1--	13	--1--
14	--1--	14	--1--	14	--3--	14	--0--	14	--0--
15	--4--	15	--1--	15	--2--	15	--0--	15	--0--
16	--4--	16	--1--	16	--1--	16	--0--	16	--0--
17	--1--	17	--1--	17	--1--	17	--1--	17	--0--
18	--0--	18	--1--	18	--1--	18	--1--	18	--0--
19	--1--	19	--1--	19	--1--	19	--0--	19	--0--
20	--0--	20	--0--	20	--1--	20	--1--	20	--0--
21	--1--	21	--3--	21	--1--	21	--1--	21	--1--
22	--0--	22	--3--	22	--1--	22	--3--	22	--1--
23	--1--	23	--3--	23	--3--	23	--0--	23	--1--
24	--0--	24	--0--	24	--3--	24	--0--	24	--1--
25	--0--	25	--1--	25	--1--	25	--0--	25	--1--
26	--0--	26	--0--	26	--0--	26	--0--	26	--1--
27	--1--	27	--2--	27	--0--	27	--0--	27	--1--
28	--1--	28	--0--	28	--0--	28	--0--	28	--0--
29	--1--	29	--0--	29	--1--	29	--0--	29	--0--

You can probably see that this same sort of reasoning applies to any secondary or college classroom situation that you might describe. While there might be fewer subjects taught during the day, there would be more students. The likelihood of one textbook page or one lecture being appropriate for all students is virtually zero. The difficulty of managing the delivery of personalized instruction is at least as difficult for the secondary or college teacher as it is for the elementary teacher. And , if maximizing the rate of student mastery of (not exposure to) material is the goal , it is equally crucial to the success or failure of the secondary and college enterprise

Organizational Assumptions

Normally, we interact with people spontaneously, and in a 1, 2, 3, 4 at a time fashion. However, teaching and personalization are not "normal" relationships. The relationship in each is purposeful and planned. Personalization, when it occurs, requires the simultaneous distribution of a teacher's purposes, plans, and interactions among thirty people, at maximum; and at minimum (as in the reading example in Table 1), among four to six individuals or clusters of individuals.

In order to have the maximum impact upon all thirty individuals in a classroom, there has to be a radically different organization to instructional activities than there would be, say, to a conversation.

Each personalizer has many forces with which he or she must deal in order to personalize. All of those forces mandate high organization in order to accomplish individually prescribed instructional objectives. A list of these forces is given in the following table.

With these factors in mind, you can see that personalization requires a high level of classroom organization. It follows that a lecture format does not allow personalization and thus is not productive in terms of student learning. Implementing a high/middle/low grouping plan will allow finer tuning of instructional delivery. Everything else held constant this will enhance average learning of objectives per week but will be far short of what is possible.

The cause of personalization will be advanced considerably by moving the teacher out of the role of a bottleneck in the flow of instructional information and organizational and operational communication (One thing about large group lecture, choral recitation and all doing the same thing—fewer decisions for the teacher . When the teacher organizes the personalized classroom s/he is building in a necessity for many more moment to moment decisions. Why? Because decisions are no longer the same for all nor do they occur at the same time. Thus the need for careful planning and organization in the personalized classroom. The bottleneck is found when every or most instructional messages and organizational decisions must be created on-the-fly by the teacher. When the bottleneck exists the classroom pace grinds down to a snails pace within moments of the beginning of class.

On the other hand, if the volume of decisions is planned for, these decisions are anticipated and thus built into the structure and processes of the classroom. Class members act independently as signaled by place, circumstance or time. Once these signals are planned and then learned and practiced, the multiple organizational and instructional decisions will be carried out independently by members of the class. During class hours the teacher spends time on planned instructional delivery and on individual learning concerns that have not been built into the carefully designed personalized learning environment.

By having much of the organizational decision-making and instructional communication capable of occurring independently of here-and-now teacher action we eliminate the bottleneck. All students will have access to the instructional communication and organizational decisions that they need. Thirsty people will get to drink when they need it, or, in ‘instructionese’, each person will get the lesson that is appropriate to her or his level of readiness.

Teaching a System as Well as Subject Matter:

Your major trick will be to set up an instructional system that eliminates the bottleneck, and to teach students to use it. In such a system, you would reserve for yourself those instructional communications and organizational decisions that could not be made by students or materials. Naturally, the fewer of these on-the-fly the less likely there will be bottlenecking.

Components of Your Organizational System

The major idea of your system is the division of the total activities of the class into subactivities which are carried out at centers. For example, the centers might be as follows:

1. direct instruction/individual counseling
2. tape and filmstrip,
3. group study,
4. reading,
5. individual work,
6. mastery testing,
7. daily monitoring of progress in each (orspecially targeted) subjects.

Each center has its organizational rules which govern its use and which are posted for all to see in its location. This particular subdivision of classroom activities is not the only one possible. Subdivisions could be based on subject matter (e.g. science, reading, math, etc.), or topics, such as environment, creativity, etc. in which all basic skills have a part. (For example, the environment center might have required math, reading, writing, and social activities associated with its objectives.)

[Edited for html problems readability 12/1. Also having trouble with MarsEdit and Radio Userland Handshakes]