Teach42

I’d been putting off this post for several days while I figured out exactly what I wanted to say. Then I finally did and got it all typed out. Then I accidentally navigated away from the page and lost it all. *sighs* I never learn to save strategically throughout writing. Well, if it was worth writing once, it’s worth re-writing.

As many of you have heard, there was a shakeup at Discovery Education and many people were let go. In particular, the vast majority of the DEN’s staff of field managers, 20 in all, are no longer employed by Discovery. There have been quite a few people expressing their anger, disapproval, outrage and grief. This all happened about a week ago now, and some people have come to accept it and are waiting to hear how the Educator Network will adjust and move forward. Others are still angry and expressing it.

One thing has become increasingly clear throughout the public outcry over last week’s events; we struck upon something with the Discovery Educator Network that went way beyond a few products for teachers to use in the classroom. And I’m not the only one who noticed this.

From Wes Fryer:

What a GREAT model the Discovery Education folks have come up with for DEN, to promote conversations and learning among in-service K-12 teachers. I thought at the time that DEN meet-ups and the digital DEN network provided an ideal chance for larger numbers of K-12 teachers to learn from each other and teach each other about digital education in the 21st century.

Jeff Giddens at SegaTech

First and foremost, we valued the DEN because it was personal, warm, and human. There are many educational organizations out there, many membership cards with numbers that you can wear, and many networks that educators can join.
…
We felt that perhaps the DEN was different from other strictly profit-driven networks. The DEN was not about free marketing, but about helping educators and being a haven for them.

Aaron Smith, the Academic Aesthetic

It is our job to help out our colleagues when it comes to tech savvy stuff. My first action as a DEN member was to lead a workshop to get teachers blogging, so while I know I have more learning to do I’m far from being a novice.

Yes, these quotes are taken out of context. In particular, the quotes from Jeff and Aaron are taken from posts absolutely slamming the events of last week (Jeff did some nice photoshop work with a tombstone). But one of the things I keep coming back to is if this was just a corporate support group that nobody gave a crap about, well they wouldn’t have taken the time to create podcasts about it, fill up discussion boards and leave literally hundreds of comments on the blogs.

Obviously we struck on a formula that worked, and worked incredibly well. I see the outrage, I see the anger, but what I really see underlying it all is people saying, “This is something I really care about and don’t want to lose.” People are afraid that the community they invested in and committed to is going to go away. Perhaps even worse, it’s going to become cold, dispassionate, distant and virtual. There’s no question, the initial post made it sound like we’re replacing the field managers with the website.

So what is it that people are so afraid of losing? What did we create that evoked such a response from the educational community?

A few more quotes from the blogs and discussion boards this time.

At a time in education where moral is waning due to budget constraints, the DEN was the spark that made me proud to be an educator. To be affiliated with such a supreme group was a blessing. — Gina Loveless

In my 38-year career in education I have run across both good and bad educational ideas. But the DEN program was beyond just a “good idea”. It was this huge corporation interacting personally with me and thousands of others educators in America and drawing us into a network of communication that allowed us to learn from each other about technology integration. — Kay Teehan

This dynamic community should continue because it has and will continue to do exactly what it was created to do — positively impact student learning and support educators as they reform educational practice and infuse their teaching with 21st century technologies. — Jennifer Dorman

Enough quotes. Here’s what I take away from them. My two cents if you will. The DEN made teachers feel respected, valued and above all, empowered. I’ve talked many times about how every teach is a rock star and just doesn’t realize it yet. They have information and experience that would be incredibly valuable to hundreds of other teachers out there, they just don’t realize it or have a connection to them. The DEN helped to built that connection. There are hundreds, thousands of DEN members who are learning that they aren’t behind the tech learning curve, most of them are actually ahead of it without realizing it. Without believing it.

We gave teachers that opportunity on a regular basis. We encouraged teachers to connect with each other, whether it revolved around Discovery products or not. So long as teachers were gathering together and learning from each other, then good things were going to come of it. For the educational community in general, and yes for the company as well. A company that deals in digital media benefits from a tech savvy teacher community.

There’s one other important take away from the posts and comments. While virtual communication is amazing, cheap and easy, it was the personal touch and interactions that really set it apart from many other communities. The DEN is so much more than a website, list-serv, blog or podcast. It was the direct, face to face contact that really set it apart.

Maybe it just comes down to basic human needs. Webinars are incredibly effective. I’ve done enough of them to know what works and what doesn’t. And while you can get the info out there, and people can definitely learn alot, there’s still some degree of disconnect that comes from them. It doesn’t touch people quite the same way. And teachers are passionate people. If our hearts and souls aren’t into what we’re doing, then we probably won’t be doing it. It guess it’s human nature, but that seems to be a key ingredient to what made our community so powerful.

As I look at all the comments made by people, both positive and negative, the overwhelming message is that people don’t want to lose their connection to each other. They don’t want it to end.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last week thinking about why I signed on with Discovery Education in the first place. Considering recent events, I had to spend some real time doing some soul searching and to determine if this was time to start updating the resume. I haven’t done that, nor am I going to. There’s a ton of reasons, and yes the fact that my son will be born any day now definitely figured into it, but the main reason is that I still believe in what I signed up to do to begin with. We’ve created an amazing community of teachers revolving around one key concept: Sharing their knowledge with each other.

Why on earth should that change? Teachers still need to connect with each other and learn from each other. Heck, we learn better from each other than from anyone else. So if my belief in that hasn’t changed at all, why would I leave a community that has accomplished so much in such a short time? Yes, I’m saddened by what happened. There are times when I still get upset thinking about it. But I still believe today more than ever in what we worked so hard to create. And if the heart of the entire program was teachers learning from each other, then I know that it will continue on.

I’ve had quite a few people ask me via email whether I’m staying with Discovery and if so, how I can justify what happened. I can’t and I won’t. That’s not my place. I’m sticking with the program because I truly believe that it is making a profound difference for thousands of educators. And I think it’s just too valuable a program to walk away from. If there were any other way that I thought I could make a bigger difference in the field of education right now, maybe I’d be looking elsewhere. While I could achieve a more direct result by returning to the classroom, this position allows me to make a more diverse and widespread impact.

Some things just haven’t changed. Tech is still evolving and teachers still need to figure out how to adapt classrooms appropriately. With my son arriving any day now, I have a very personal reason for doing everything I can to make sure that he grows up in a strong, educational community that prepares him for his future. At the end of the day, I truly believe that’s what I’m doing.

Jon Stoper pointed out a great video comparing Vista and OSX. While I haven’t tried out Vista yet, after watching this video I get the feeling that I’ll be right at home.

A co-worker in the office shared this site with me today. Check it out particularly if you’re thinking about buying a Nintendo Wii for yourself or that special someone this holiday season! Pretty scary stuff. Maybe making a controller that you swing around wasn’t such a good idea after all.

A lot of what I do for Discovery is exclusive to customers, and while I’d love to keep everything open to the world, it IS a business and they do pay the bills. However, I’m always amazed at just how much they do that is available to anyone and everyone, regardless of whether you’re a customer or not. They supply keynote speakers to conferences, free professional development opportunities, and a live webinar series called EdTechConnect.

I think I’ve written about it a couple of times before, but EdTechConnect is a series of webinars that is completely free and open to the public. Previous speakers include Alan November, David Warlick, Kathy Schrock, Joe Brennan, Hall Davidson, and next up on the list is the blogfather himself, Will Richardson.

It’s going to be on Wed, December 13th, at 5:00 EST. It’ll be about 45-60 minutes, and there should be time for questions and answers. If you’d like to attend, you can find the registration link at the EdTechConnect homepage.

Should be a great way to close off 2006!

There have been times when I’ve felt guilty about failing to blog about something. Usually, I feel like I’m missing an opportunity to share something with other educators, and then I rationalize it by affirming that nobody is depending on me for this, and if they don’t get it from me they’ll get it from any of the other numerous bloggers out there that people are subscribed to.

A comment by Miguel has really turned my thinking about that upside down though.

Blogging for me is an aid to remembering what I have learned…
[snip]
[Blogging... ] 1) Helps me remember what would otherwise be lost in a day’s worth of thinking and reflecting.

2) Allows me to easily find those reflections in written form–in my own words and referencing the source.

This comment really got me thinking about two situations in particular. How many times have I gone to Google in order to find a resource, only to find a link back to my own blog right there among the top search results? It happens on a fairly regular basis. The second situation is how often I need to find a resource or solution that I’d already figured out but have since forgotten. I wind up returning to Google and trying to follow the same trail that I followed previously to figure out where I found the solution to.

It makes me wonder just how I’m very likely under-utiliziing this blog. With Miguel’s comments in mind, I realize that there’s a ton that I could and probably should be blogging, just so I have a record of all these little solutions that took some time and effort and I know I’ll need again some day. Share them on the blog and then other people could be getting some benefit from the effort and I’ll have my own record to refer back to.

There you go, my first resolution for 2007! To do more blogging the purpose of being used as a record for future self-reference.