Source: http://www.nichcy.org/Laws/IDEA/PublishingImages/training_curriculum.jpg

I was following Miguel Guhlin’s tweets this morning and came across a his reference of this blog entry by Karen Fasimpaur. The entry lamented the seeming chasm between the instructional technology side of districts and the curriculum and instruction side. So true, so true.

While the post started out well enough, it devolved into a argument for open sourced textbooks. That is all well and good, but she misses the larger picture here, one I had hoped she would have explored:

When will the curricular people truly embrace technology as a tool in the learning process?

Update: It’s been about an hour since I wrote this blog post and I have to confess to utter futility of these kinds of blog entries that plague the blogosphere. They are futile because they feed the negativity of achieving change, holding out false hope that change can be realized in a series of bulleted statements or points (e.g. manifestos). The truth is, change has to be accomplished over time through repeated actions customized to specific situations…and even then, failure may result. So, I’m making some edits and relabelling these first draft and second draft.

Second Draft (current):

Acknowledging failure means being able to embrace success in a different form. Technology integration is a failure technology advocates have yet to acknowledge. It’s a failure, not because technology use won’t be ubiquitous, or our kids won’t need to know it, but because our portrait of it is fundamentally flawed.

Wasting time pointing that out in a variety of details won’t change the root premise that school districts are structured in a way that makes technology use a deviant behavior. What we need to do is fundamentally shift how schools work so that technology isn’t deviant anymore.

Here are a few ways to accomplish that:

1. Introduce online learning as the trojan horse that will slowly change how we approach teaching, learning and administration in schools.
2. Abandon traditional efforts to “integrate technology” and share the attitude that any technology use will make us better people, teachers, and leaders.
3. Put people in contact with one another using online tools. This will help them realize the power of connected, collaborative conversations within their own areas of interest.
4. Ruthlessly practice radical transparency and disclose your biases with others then invite them to do so as well while reflecting on their praxis.

Not sure if this second draft is better than the first, but it is shorter…and that’s always better, right?

First Draft:

That’s how Tim Holt starts off his entry, Crossing the EdTech Chasm. Tim Holt shares a dramatic re-enactment of conversations that happen between Technology and Curriculum Departments every time they meet…I found it surprisingly accurate.

Tim points out his view of the solution involves REQUIRING, MANDATING Curriculum & Instruction and Technology to work together. If that fails, then technology funding will dry up.

I’m for letting the budgets dry up. Technology is irrelevant to curriculum departments today. They just don’t get it and they’re not going to even if Tim redoubles his efforts. Curriculum Departments are living in fantasy land and I’ve seen nothing from current political administrations to dis-spell the illusions. And, I’ve given up on the effort to change their minds. My approach now is to challenge them and say, “How come YOU aren’t integrating technology? It’s not up to Educational Technology to make the effort FOR you…it’s for YOU to DO IT FOR OUR STUDENTS.”

Here’s why:

Technology integration has failed. This isn’t a bad thing. Acknowledging failure means being able to embrace success in a different form.

Continuing to push technology integration is the Sisyphus approach to technology integration where technology specialists model for curriculum people how to integrate tech. They watch, but they don’t do. We do, but we are more interested in technology and how it facilitates communication/collaboration/creativity…and those aren’t the first 3 words that come to mind for educators.

Simply, school curriculum folks today do NOT value 21st Century Learning a la techno-fanatics. They could care less about 100 new Web 2.0 tools, the art of possibility. Only when technology fits into schooliness, as Clay Burell likes to term it, do we see acceptance of technology as subservient, as what Jim Collins calls it, an accelerator of change.

I was envisioning a future in which all the edtech evangelists got what they wanted: schools full of teachers in every classroom using blogging with their students.

But rather than seeing a utopia to celebrate, I saw a bleak dystopia: Blogging as “just another way to turn in homework.” Blogging, like thinking, creativity, and other joys, turned into an aversive horror by the forces of schooliness….
Source: Clay Burell

Does that mean we need to stop trying? Of course not. It does mean that our efforts to integrate technology have failed and we need to completely change our approach in light of that failure and what success could mean.

“…every single one of the companies had become a pioneer in the application of technology,” he says. “On the one hand, they hardly place any emphasis on it, yet on the other hand, there is no question they were pioneers in the application of technology.”
Source: Jim Collins as cited here

Fundamentally rethinking our approach. Technology is accelerating change in schools but it’s driving us down into the abyss because, in Collins’ words, schools are “fundamentally mediocre.”

I’m not the first to propose it…we need to transform schools completely. What does that mean? That means, we need to switch our efforts from “integrating technology” to accelerating the online learning revolution. We need to outperform school district curriculum departments and do curriculum the right way (with technology), not try to bolster or fit in.

In short, we need to model what we preach and just do it and to heck with Curriculum Depts. Online learning, modularized learning that is available 24/7, involves both push and pull approaches to content for learners.

Here are 5 steps to take now:

1. Develop online learning courses for teachers and students. Do whatever you have to so as to ensure this becomes reality in schools.
2. Abandon traditional efforts to “integrate technology” and share the attitude that “you should have learned how to do that over the last 15 years.”
3. Encourage building of professional learning networks that put people in contact with one another, including efforts such as K-12 OnlineLearning Conference, Classroom 2.0, etc.
4. Model the use of Read/Write Web tools to build conversations and enable collaboration between people in ways that disrupt top-down organizations in schools and non-profit, state organizations.
5. Use your bully pulpit without fear and practice radical transparency.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure