No you haven’t.

I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to link to this Nov. 12, 2017 post by Alec Couros, or my response on Facebook, so I’ll just share them here. Alec said:

‪”Every “new” revolution or trend in education is inevitably accompanied by the critics who wisely note “We tried this back in the x0’s.

‪If you want change to happen and to stick, engage your historians to better understand why things failed the first time around.”

And I responded:

“When I read this I think of Dweck and growth vs fixed mindset. Yes some things ‘come back’, but there can be innovation (and research) since the last time.

For example, much of the ‘learn at your own pace’ of 20 years ago meant ‘here is the (printed) package of work so that you can move ahead’ (on your own). Now with online resources, discussion forums, YouTube, access to research and experts… that ‘own pace’ can be far more collaborative and richly supported. Even more so in a learning environment that focuses on competencies & skills, rather than content.

So in this, and many other examples, it’s not like ‘we did this back in the day’… it’s fundamentally different. It still warrants critique & criticism when it’s due, but it doesn’t warrant dismissal because ‘we’ve already tried it’.

This is the difference between using old tools and tools that are transformative, tools that allow you to engage differently than you could before. A blog isn’t just a digital version of a paper journal. A blog lets you edit more easily, it lets you spellcheck as you go, it allows you to link to sources and other content. It exposes the writing to more than just the teacher, it invites comments and further conversation. It makes the writer a publisher, who as a result tends to care more about editing and presenting better work.

Back in the days of my high school English classes the only audience my journal writing had were my teachers, except for a poem I had published in our yearbook one year… and I can’t exactly find that in a Google search today.

The next time you try something new and someone says, “We tried this back in the x0’s,” or “Been there, done that,” take a moment to think about what’s different this time before dismissing it as something already tried and abandoned… it might just be significantly different this time around.

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Here is the list of 6 suggestions I shared in my post, ‘Transformative or just flashy educational tools?‘ which I linked to above:

So what makes a tool great? Or, a better question than that: What should we do with tools to make them great? Here are some thoughts and feadback is appreciated, this is not an exclusive list!

1.Give students choice.

We don’t assess the tool, we assess the criteria, and we want students to meet specific learning outcomes.We can provide students with a choice of tools or even a choice of projects, and not every student in the class needs to meet the same outcomes in the same way.

2. Give students a voice.

Classroom discussions are great, but how else can we provide students with an opportunity to share? What venues can we provide for them to be heard?

3. Give students an audience.

So often we give students an audience of one… the teacher who marks their work. As a teacher, I told students ‘write to your audience’ but I never truly understood those words until I started blogging. If you want students to write to their audience, then give them a legitimate audience.

4. Give students a place to collaborate.

This comes with a caution: A place to collaborate does not in and of itself create good collaboration. You might be using a great collaboration tool, but do your students know how to collaborate effectively? Do they have specific roles to play? Do they have the skills to learn cooperatively?

5. Give students a place to lead.

Whether it be by choosing a tool, or teaching you a tool, or simply choosing their own topic to study, let your students be the lead learner and even the teacher as often as possible.

6. Give students a digital space to learn.

I’ve talked about blogs as learning spaces. Stephen Downes says, ‘To teach is to model and demonstrate, to learn is to practice and reflect.’Give students a space to practice and reflect that is not limited to the confines of a classroom or notebook, and one that helps them build a community, or rather a network, of teachers and learners.

A tool is just a tool! It’s not the tool, but how you use it that matters.