David Warlick Keynote — Our World, Our Children — March 28th, 2008

UPDATE (4-3-2008): Yesterday, David Warlick posted some of his “reflections” from the day which include some highlights of some of the discussions he heard during the small group sessions. He also highlighted my post on an earlier entry on his blog.

Today was such an exciting day for education in the Houston area. Houston A+ Challenge and the American Leadership Forum co-hosted the 2008 Convocation on Education, the theme of which was: “Education 2021: Preparing Kids For a Future We Can’t Describe”. The Guest Speaker today was David Warlick and the audience consisted of area school superintendents, school principals, area business leaders, school board members, teacher leaders, various community members, and parents. I had the distinct honor/pleasure of being able to webcast (via Ustream) David’s presentations and the panel of superintendents that he moderated — those video clips can be viewed on the Ustream channel for this event. Anyone interested in the technical side of what I did today can read those notes here.

David Warlick addressing the audience. I am sitting on the front row, leaning forward toward my laptop

Before I continue with my reflections on the day, here some some other relevant links from today:

• David Warlick’s landmark-project website
• David’s handouts for today’s presentation
• David’s session outline
• The transcripts of the online chats during David’s keynote and during the Superintendents’ Panel discussion (chats occurred in chat window of the Ustream presentations)

  I highly recommend that attendees who were there in person today take some time to read through the chat transcripts. There were many interesting comments and conversations that occurred in the online chats that in my opinion add additional value to the dialogue of the day.

• David’s Animoto Animation created with pictures from today’s event.
  David’s SecondLife page

The morning started with an engaging keynote presentation from David Warlick and then everyone broke into smaller groups to engage in discussions around three guiding questions:

* What does the future hold for education?

* What do schools and districts need to do to prepare for the future?

* What will this future require of me?

Following the small groups sessions, five area school superintendents took the stage to participate in a panel discussion moderated by David Warlick. The participants included:
Wanda Bamberg (Aldine ISD), Michael Fineberg (KIPP), Duncan Klussman (Spring Branch ISD), Abe Saavedra (Houston ISD), and Guy Sconzo (Humble ISD)

(More photos from the event are posted here.)

After lunch everyone broke into role-alike groups to continue the discussion and then the day ended with a concluding presentation by David Warlick. Overall, the day was stimulating and engaging, and as an edublogger and strong advocate for moving our schools into the 21st Century, I must say that I am very excited that these discussions have started happening among the educational leadership in my region.

One of the recurring issues that came up repeatedly throughout the day was the issue of “fear” — fear of change, fear of the tools, fear of openness — and this was not surprising to me. Interestingly, during the superintendents panel discussion, Abelardo Saavaedra, Superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, stated that “We are organizations of fear because we are organizations of adults”, and this reminded me of a recent comment on someone else’s post (can’t remember who, so feel free to comment and remind me so I can give proper credit!) about filtering. The commenter stated that “Filters don’t protect kids. Filters protect adults.” I think this is at the heart of the “fear” that everyone seemed to be bringing up during today’s discussions. We are fearful because we are afraid not only of making mistakes, but also because others (parents, community, etc.) may hold us accountable for those mistakes — especially if the mistakes have a direct negative effect on the students. If we hope to move our schools forward, we must overcome this barrier of fear.

Other issues that came up during the conversations today included:

• Teacher preparedness, training, professional development, support, and creating a safe environment where teachers can feel comfortable to innovate
• Bridging equity gaps in the community — not all students have same access to tools & tech outside of school
• Building more quality connections between school & community, school & home, home & community

Overall, it was a great day for the Houston education community.

Coincidentally, some of the discussions during the day related to the recent blog post co-authored by myself and Kate Olson. Specifically, there were discussions that touched on the concept that, through no real fault of their own, teachers generally aren’t knowledgeable (through experience or lack of connections) of the changes occurring in workspaces outside of education.

In some of the chat discussions that occurred online, it was brought to my attention that Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach had also published a post today that addressed some of the attendees’ recurring concerns of “how do we get started on implementing the needed changes”?

In addition to Sheryl’s suggestions, a few ideas off the top of my head include:

1. Locate the “early adopters” in your district/schools and bring them in to a conversation around change — recruit them to help spread change virally
2. Start reading blogs — two good places to start include the LeaderTalk blog and this wiki page with links to tons of education bloggers.
3. Decide on one or two “changes in your own practice” that you can implement tomorrow as a way to model change from your leadership position. Start your own blog or put your technology plan/school improvement plan on a wiki and invite staff members to contribute to developing the document. Don’t know how to do either of those two things but interested? Contact me and I’ll be happy to help you get started.

Finally, if you are an educational leader looking for some summer reading to get a sense of the “big picture,” here are a few books to get you started:

• “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” (Clay Shirky)
• “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything” (Don Tapscott, Anthony D. Williams)
• “The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life” (Richard Florida)
• “The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent” (Richard Florida)
• “The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century” (Thomas L. Friedman)
• “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future” (Daniel H. Pink)
• “Classroom Blogging: 2nd Edition” (David Warlick)
• “Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century” (David Franklin Warlick)
• “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms” (Will Richardson)
• “Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools” (Gwen Solomon, Lynne Schrum)

I want to conclude this post by thanking David Warlick for sharing his knowledge and passion with Houston education and business leaders (as well as for allowing me to Ustream his presentations today!). I also want to thank Melissa Milios Davis from Houston A+ Challenge for allowing me to participate in this capacity — I had a blast today! I am also grateful to Houston A+ Challenge and the American Leadership Forum for their continued dedication to providing engaging learning experiences (such as this Convocation 2008) to Houston area leaders. Finally, I want to thank everyone who attended the event today — in person as well as virtually! — the conversations were powerful and the ideas contributed by participants were incredibly insightful and valuable to the overall discussion.

Okay Houston, what are we waiting for? Let’s get started!

Technorati Tags: Classroom, Convocation2008, Flat, Warlick