Navigating the Digital Self

Mastery in our new digital environment isn't a single, linear skill set. Asking for basic knowledge of unconnected skills isn't going to cut it. We need a cohesive, connected digital skills continuum.

Should we be aiming for

survival or mastery? Is 50%

really good enough?

Damian Cooper is advocating for an 80% pass because this "is more representative of real learning" - raise the bar - but I don't think it's high enough...

80% is raising the bar?

Damian later said 80% of what you say is forgotten by students. Are we aiming to raise the bar to 16% retention of learning by students?

What is mastery learning?

What does it look like?

How can we develop it?

It isn't trying,

it isn't guessing,

it isn't a percentage.

Mastery is a personal & complete

commitment to knowing & doing.

A case study in n00bism:

Tim learns to ride a motorbike

No one taught me how to ride a bike, though great teachers did facilitate MY learning. What is the process of learning? It's an internal process that a good teacher can facilitate, but instructors are never the source of true learning, it must happen in the learner.

A step in mastery is recognizing that YOU are the alpha and omega of your own learning...

What skills are vital to mastery in

the digital realm?

How did you learn your computer kungfu?

Self direction underlies all of this, curiosity powers the initial contact, the ability to self correct allows the mastery seeker able to develop beyond ignorance and habitual use.

The mastery learner becomes resilient, less risk averse, more willing to experiment with new hardware and software...

Have you ever truly learned something from someone else?

Mustn't all learning be done by the learner? A good teacher is like an awesome roadie, ready to jump in to keep the show on the road, but they aren't the show itself

back to digital mastery...

How did they choose their phone?

Socio-economic factors most likely,

and what their friends have. Hardly

a decision based on digital mastery.

Is a smartphone really the best way to teach digital mastery? Education should be presenting a variety of tools to tackle the wealth of information at our finger tips.

We need to stop focusing on devices in hands and start focusing on hands on devices. It's the people we need to teach digital mastery too, we shouldn't be in the business of indoctrinating students in closed platforms, it's bad for their mastery learning - it makes them habitual users in a closed digital eco-system.

Have you ever seen a carpenter hammer in a nail with a sledgehammer because that is what is available? Could you imagine a carpentry class that only provided sledgehammers because that was easier to provide?

That is what educational technology does.

Differentiation and diversification is a key element in developing mastery in digital skills. Using locked down, out of date technology is pedagogically ineffective and expensive.

What can we start doing to facilitate mastery of digital tools in students? In ourselves?

• diversify your own use of digital tools
• offer students diversity of tools
• expect independence and self maintenance
• encourage self direction

• no images, no prepackaged software or hardware, no platform dependance
• encourage experimentation of digital tools amongst students and staff
• celebrate investigation
• empower the teachers who want to engage in digital tools to show the way

• open systems to self reliance
• create an ecosystem that is platform agnostic and robust
• focus on delivering basic connectivity, leave the end user experience up to goal driven needs
• get school boards out of trying to deliver an always on utility (network connections) - they aren't built for it.

is an ipad?

Teaching is an act of coercion, a moment of zen lightness where you maximize the environment to encourage engagement, but you can't force learning itself.

The motivational force to learn must come from the learner! No where is this more true than in the absurdly self empowering digital realm.

this?

Internalization of knowing most often happens by doing. No one else can do the doing but the learner. No one can give you skill, you MUST take it and do it to own it.

This is especially true in self directed environments like digital spaces...

is Windows?

OSX?

Linux?

the datasphere

https://plus.google.com/113881433443048137993/posts/47xcJtLyrsP

Smartphones are, at best, a stop gap measure for effective information access.

really the best way to access...

is this?

millwright

Stochastic skills development

(in 2003!)

Are we ever really completely new at something? I'd never ridden a bike before, but I could draw on other experiences to assist me in getting up to speed

Shopclass as

Soulcraft

tools

mechanical

empathy

computer technician

auto mechanic

training

race driving experience

goal based focus

driving

working beyond the tools (software/hardware), using technology based on goal needs rather than personal bias

bicycle riding experience

performance driving training

Information access is a key feature of the datasphere, the best way to access it is to know many ways to access it... digital pedagogy, a learning based approach to technology, not a management based approach to technology.

hardware

software

26 years of driving in experience, 2+ yrs internationally

hardware

greater understanding through variation

digital mastery

essential skills development

Mastery!

platform agnostic tools don't dictate choices, choices dictate tools

curiosity rekindled with

greater awareness leads

to ability to self regulate learning

differentiation

expansion

Into this disjointed mess we throw BYOD as if it will solve our problems. The issue isn't technology access, it is technology use. We don't teach it.

key teachable moment

breaks the cycle of habitual use

software

this is a graphic of major network nodes in 2003... it's increased by a factor of 10^6 since!

familiarity

repetition

hardware

curiosity

habitual use

dictated by need!

not by habit!

not by ignorance!

not by marketing!

We're told to use what we have... smartphones?

entertainment

video

passive

balanced in active and passive technology use, aware of variety in media and how to use it, effective collaborator, able to use technology for a variety of tasks.

Tim's New Mastery Learning

gaming

active

content creation

writing

media

expression

information

Super User

entertainment

Out of balance, tends to passive consumption, repetitive use of the same, often wrong tools

passive

active

gaming

tends to be habitual, limited to single genre and system

software

lurker

passive

atrophied

weak

user

online

information

expression

viewer

ineffective

collaboration

empty or inappropriate digital footprint

collaboration

How did you teach yourself digital mastery?

http://temkblog.blogspot.ca/2013/04/objective-learning-humility-and-real.html

What did it germinate out of? For me it was gaming.

How did you build on experience to develop a coherent skillset?

When did you break out of habitual patterns and expand your learning?

Where do you see us missing opportunities to build digital fluency in student learning?

what can we bring in from other experiences to fortify us against feeling n00b?

Why do we do this in every school computer lab?

http://prezi.com/u26blkzyzodh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

what is mastery?

this is not mastery

learning

Is 50% good enough for anything other than a pass in the education system? Do you ever do 50% at work?

http://temkblog.blogspot.ca/2012/11/digital-skills-continuum.html

DIGITAL FLUENCY CONTINUUM

Journeyman

Mastery

Apprentice

School computer lab

Mini-lab Concept

Digital Mastery

Mid-level digital fluencies

for beginners

Access to diverse equipment & online environments

system designed to slowly open options as skills are demonstrated consistently

• awareness of various hardware and software approaches to digital access
• development of a personalized approach to effective digital skills
• ability to self moderate online behavior in a productive manner in an otherwise unstructured environment
• effective troubleshooting abilities

technically competent/confident

digitally self-aware (citizen, footprint)

learning evolves into a more open system

(when students demonstrate an ability to cope with it)

(that's staff or students)

I might have rushed into mastery a bit quick there...

DIGITAL FLUENCIES TO BUILD IN BEGINNERS

• Computers as a learning & research tool - break habitual use patterns!
• Familiarity with personal usage in order to prepare for effective personalization of technology
• Internet as a source of information/not just entertainment
• Critical analysis skills
• Internet as a collaborative tool
• digital citizenship
• social computing (social media, cyber bullying, digital footprint awareness)

The goal: to develop digital fluency around something other than an entertainment paradigm

ability to choose effective digital tools to maximize effectiveness of digitally enhanced learning

an experienced digital coach/digital mentor

able to maximize effectiveness on a variety of digital tools

develop familiarity with basic digital fluencies

BYOD: build your own device? Should students not have a working knowledge of the digital tools they are expected to use? Shouldn't educators?

secure, directed environment

http://temkblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/byod-build-your-own-device_9.html

The information revolution isn't something happening to other people...

development of awareness of personal style in approaching digital fluency

interrogative: questioning of online content

http://prezi.com/u26blkzyzodh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

digital fluency is like literacy, it requires development of a variety of fundamental skills toward a greater, more complex end

we aren't navigating this digital revolution very well

we're developing broken people

distraction is the new normal, continuity of thought is broken, habitual use of technology stalks the land like a big stalking thing

http://temkblog.blogspot.ca/2012/05/i-just-wish-they-could-finish-thought.html

NAVIGATING PAST DIGITAL IDIOCY TOWARD DIGITAL MASTERY IN 2013

ECOO13

How do we overcome habitual decay and build digital mastery in education?

Evolutions

Who am I?

ECOO10

ECOO11

ECOO12

dusty world

dancing in the datasphere

a digital skills continuum

web

designer

@tk1ng

• My dad wouldn't let me buy a game system when I was a kid, I had my first computer (Vic20) when I was ten, I was hacking games on it by the time I was eleven, I am a hacker.
• My high school computer science teacher told me to drop a subject I love because I didn't have the right aptitude (not mathletic enough)
• I have no investment in traditional education, I'm a high school dropout who came back at 21 to graduate
• I've apprenticed, gone to college and gone to university, I keep trying to find ways to make education work, but it often doesn't
• I'm more interested in preparing students for the wall they are about to hit than maintaining any status quo
• traditional education interests (Ministries, boards, unions are drag on a system that needs to change

timothy.king@ugdsb.on.ca

www.atking.ca

http://temkblog.blogspot.ca/

http://temkblog.blogspot.ca/2011/09/dancing-in-datasphere.html

http://temkblog.blogspot.ca/2012/10/forming-ecoo-presentation.html

http://prezi.com/mlmks5pq65dz/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

http://prezi.com/u26blkzyzodh/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Some final thoughts...