Teach42

I’m pretty sure that I was only in Finland for four days. However, given the number of meaningful experiences that occurred during that time span, it seems hard to reconcile its brevity. That being said, I’m back on US soil again, have replaced jet lag with common, every day exhaustion, and am ready to share a bit of what I learned from the experience.

First of all, I do have to thank three groups. A huge thanks goes out to Nokia for hosting an event like this. It was creative, innovative, and a distinct pleasure to be a part of. I also need to thank WOM world. They truly did a phenomenal job of making sure everything ran like clockwork and that the attendees were treated like celebrities at every turn (more on that to come). Lastly, I want to thank the other invitees who attended the inaugural event. I learned quite a bit from the group to say the least, and much of it had nothing to do with cell phones. It was truly an honor to consider them peers.

Alright, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with the good stuff.

That which rocked
I’m trying to by concise, something I’m not really good at. But I think I have to say that it was the people that made up the experience. The attendees were an eclectic, international group who each had something different to contribute. Very diverse perspectives in many ways, not so in others, but on the whole just hanging out with them was a learning experience in itself. There were plenty of Nokia employees around throughout the event, and I do have to admit that it was fascinating talking to them. It’s a massive company and there are so many different aspects of it. It was interesting hearing what each of them have been working on, and discussing what the implications could be for education. And of course, the people of Finland were incredibly gracious, with the exception of one drunken Finnish woman. Oh, how I would love to know what exactly she was screaming at Brian.

The conversations definitely rocked. That’s no different from any conference. However, these were intended to be a little more open, less constrained, and focused on asking “What could we do if…” There were some very creative ideas that arose from the conversations, and some that weren’t quite so. While at times we seemed to be spinning our wheels, on the whole I think there were some innovative subjects broached. I truly hope that Nokia learned something from the event, I know that I did.

The social events truly rocked. There were two fantastic dinners, with drinks and merriment aplenty. Between the stand up comedian one night and the brilliant guitar the second night, it was very clear that they wanted to ensure their visitors had a great time. And we did.

The last piece that gets thrown into the ‘rocked’ drawer is the amount of free time we had. I was truly worried that I wouldn’t have much time to experience Finnish culture and explore Helsinki. I was wrong. I had a very memorable walk with Mike and Jen with plenty of photos to be uploaded still. I experienced a true Finnish sauna, which involved getting to know far more of the group than I had anticipated. And that’s all I’ll say about that. A group of us visited the Kiasma, a modern art museum that had some rather evocative exhibits…. and some that weren’t. One exhibit in particular, The Trainee, I have to admit I did not get at all, until I encountered it again at the airport in Helsinki on the way home. They recreated the exact same installation and I have to admit it was much more intriguing than I my original opinion, which seems to be the museum’s motto, “I don’t get it.”

Meh
We were sent out the Nokia e71 prior to the conference to try out. I swapped my SIM card into there and used it for a couple of weeks leading into the workshops, but unfortunately it was the European version and I couldn’t get on with a 3G connection. Not a big deal, I figured that they did that so we could have high speed connections while in Europe. And one of the first things handed to us when we got to the hotel was a SIM card to use for the trip. That being said, this was a group of people that were accustomed to carrying multiple devices. And for the most part, the e71 wasn’t exactly the ideal all in one for this group (myself included). So there was a ton of sim-swapping going on, and to be honest I didn’t really see that many people use the e71 that much. Compounding this, was the minute the conference was over, we were required to turn in the SIM card. I’m a bit perplexed why they didn’t just have us return them before we left, or even mail them back. Most people I spoke to basically turned off the e71 when the SIM card was taken away, and went back to their regular device. If they really wanted us to make proper use of it, I’d think they’d want to either give us the version that we could use in our ‘homeland’, or at least provide us with a SIM to keep making use of it beyond the constraints of the event.

I know how much I hate when groups just go around the table and everybody shares who they are, what they do for a living and what their favorite shape of pasta is, this event really demonstrated why that’s so necessary. When we began collaborating, we didn’t know each other. In fact, by the time we had an idea who each other were, the first day was essentially through. Context is so valuable to conversations, and it would have been helpful to have had some when we began collaborating.

Third ‘meh’ for the event was a certain lack of communication. I never really knew what the goals were for the event. In fact, there were some very X-Files conspiracy theories floating around. One theory was that the event was actually more for internal purposes, to illuminate the rest of the company to the power and relevance of social media. Another was simply that it was good for marketing, because surely the bloggers would type up posts like this one. All buzz is good buzz, so sayeth the gods of social media.

Fail
This leads me to the stuff that I don’t think worked. Namely, the structure of the event. There were two days. One day was workshops, the second day was presentations. During the first day, we’d have a 10-20 minute introduction about a topic, and then about 40 minutes to discuss, brainstorm and share back with the group.

Side out rotate.

We were randomly put into groups, and often the specific direction that the groups discussed was determined by the age old system of whoever shouts out first and loudest. I don’t mind randomness though, in fact sometimes it’s kind of nice talking about a topic that is far away from your comfort zone. However, that being said, is 40 minutes really enough time to do a deep delve into any topic? I would say no. In fact, at least three times i felt like the conversation was just barely beginning to get rolling, when we realized we had to stop and start planning how to present our ‘findings’. I was mortified when people who were striking out in some different directions that were contrary to what the group had been talking about, got cut off because we simply didn’t have time to explore their ideas. Very disappointing.

Let’s face it. You handpick 35 early adopters, social media gurus, highly connected, bleeding edge leaders in the world of new technologies… You fly them out to Helsinki and put them up for several nights… You create a stimulating environment and host lavish meals and events for them… And then have them contribute for a grand total of 3 hours? (4 brainstorming sessions x 45 minutes each) What a waste… With the group of people in that room, I truly felt like we could have accomplished something, really delved deeply into some of the different topics, provided some new insight or innovative ideas, beyond off the cuff surface thinking. Instead, there were many people who’s ideas were never heard, which is horrifying considering the nature of the event.

Additionally, there was very little effort made to involve the outside community. We pushed quite a bit of information outwards, but short of a brief pseudo-integration with Second Life, there was no effort to bring anybody from the outside in. If we’re sharing the event with the outside world, why not take it the next step and invite them to participate and contribute? Heck, just putting up a Tweet or SMS wall that allowed people to interact with the attendees would have been welcome in my mind.

Along those lines, one of the biggest surprises to me was the distinct lack of backchannel. Backchannel’s are commonplace for most edtech conferences now, so I was very surprised that nobody expressed a desire to create a backchannel for the conference. Twitter kinda sorta served as an unofficial backchannel, but by the time most of discovered and connected to the other people there, the event was basically over. I think that would have been extremely helpful, particularly during the presentations of the second day.

Lessons Learned:
I guess this one should be obvious, but you get out of an experience what you put into it. I realized pretty quickly that education wasn’t going to be a focus, and didn’t really figure much into most of the topics we were discussing. I could have tried to force the groups along my preferred path, but I didn’t think that’d be constructive. Instead, I realized that we had a pretty eclectic group of people gathered, many of whom are currently making a career out of jobs that didn’t exist when we were growing up (sound familiar?). So with that in mind, I thought I’d do a little informal survey and see what people had to say about their education. I asked about 10 people or so some questions about their schooling and got some pretty fascinating answers. Videos to be edited and shared soon.

Another point that I think bears further exploration is the idea of fame in the 21st century. Every person at this event was famous… for 15 people (give or take a few thousand). Very well known, very well respected, among a very tiny community of people. I like to think that I’m pretty well known in the EdTech community. And yet, I guarantee you there was not one person there that knew who I was. And for the most part, I didn’t know anybody else there prior to being introduced to them. There were sites I knew and employers I recognized, but nobody was what I would consider a household name, even amongst the bloggerati. However, as I said, everybody there was famous.

It made for an interesting dynamic. Some were rather outspoken, others rather soft spoken. Clearly a few people felt intimidated and didn’t want to chime in despite efforts to draw them out. Others simply dominated the conversation. It truly did emphasize to me the opportunity that every person has to become famous nowadays. It doesn’t take much to become famous, simply persistence, courage and the confidence to put yourself on the line. That’s it. Ironically, expertise is optional.

The last point I’ll mention in closing is more of a question than anything else… Which is more important, diversity of ideals and interests, or diversity of cultures and personalities? We had plenty of the latter, and not as much of the former. As diverse a group as we had, we were remarkably homogeneous. More often than not, it’s the conflict of opinions that leads to new ideas. Innovation doesn’t occur in an environment where everybody agrees. And there was precious little disagreement during these sessions. If people disagreed, it would come out on Twitter later, rather than verbally much of the time. I suppose part of it could have been because of the limited time available, but I think it was actually more due to the fact that everybody there had similar characteristics when it came to technology.

Ok, one more point/rant and then I swear I’m closing off. Let me just say that after spending half a week with this hyper connected, social media obsessed group, I really wanted to throw my cell phone through a window by the end. Believe me, I’m still pro-twitter, pro-blogging, pro-sms, pro-cell phones in the classroom and all. But I was appalled at how many people simply were unable to UNPLUG even just for the duration of a meal. I vividly remember at one point looking around, and at a table for ten, six people were busy typing away on a total of 8 devices. We were flown halfway around the world, being put up in an incredible hotel, and had the opportunity to collaborate with some brilliant minds… and people couldn’t seem to break away from the network overlay. Believe me, I understand the desire to tweet everything that happens, and I’m hardly a model example for the manners textbook, but that was just too much… Cell phones and mobile technologies should augment communication, not replace it. I just kept flashing back to the presentation we had seen earlier in the day by Adam Greenfield. He showed an image of a woman walking through the mall talking on her cell phone, and pointed out that while physically she was there, mentally she was nowhere near that mall. Her mental space was a technology overlay completely separated from her physical space. For the most part, that’s what seemed to be happening quite often throughout the weekend.

I’m not advocating that we eliminate the technology, but I do think that this is even more of a reason to teach appropriate use during schools. After all, the flip side of appropriate use, is understanding when NOT to use it.

Welps, that’s enough of a rant for now. More to come. And while it may seem like a lot of moaning and whining, it truly was an incredible learning experience. I hope Nokia got as much out of it as I did!