BYOC: Bring Your Own Context

by Shelly Blake-Plock


A lot of discussion recently over the pros and cons of BYOD -- Bring Your Own Device. Some folks have been quite adamantly in favor or against.


For all the hub-bub, I think it's worth thinking about devices not just in relation to what kids do with them in the classroom, but rather how they relate to the connection those devices represent for them in the real world.


Fact is that we are living in a time -- not unlike those previous -- when one device will not do it all. 


Context is the key.


If I am processing audio, I want to be on a Mac. If I am tweeting on the bus, I want to be on a smartphone. If I am reading the news, I want to kick back with a tablet. If I am learning a new language, my iPod will do just fine.


Does this make life more difficult when you are trying to find a "solution" for you school? Yes. Technology is not making life easier.


Again, context is the key.


Personally, I don't think that forcing a "school standard" will change the fact that for a lot of people, the smartphone represents their connection to the Internet.


Nor is giving me a laptop going to change the fact that I personally read better on an iPad. Nor is giving me an iPad going to change the fact that I type better on a laptop.


There is no "one device".


So why do schools pretend they can provide it?


My wife loves Android. I'm waiting for Windows 8. Fortunately, we can make decisions to experience technology in the way that is most conducive to the way each of us work. So, I can't afford a new fancy Mac to do high-end video, but luckily there is a community center in town that offers time on theirs. I take my iPad to the library, but when I want to do some heavy writing, I use the desktop PCs they have there running OpenOffice. In other words, between what we can provide and what the community can provide, we have a range of options for using devices to do what we need to.


Maybe instead of trying to find the "device" or the "solution", we should step back and think about our role in schools to provide a range of computing experiences -- and to allow kids to bring a range of computing experiences with them. This after all is fundamentally what a school is meant to do: provide a range of learning experiences and accept that kids bring a range of experiences with them.


One of the biggest failures of 1:1 computing in education is school's inability to understand that there is a difference between having a machine and having a lifestyle device.

One of the biggest potential failures of BYOD is thinking that kids can provide equity on their own.


My own approach as a decision maker would probably be to strike a balance whereby the school would provide machines capable of handling the task at hand and the students are allowed to bring their own devices to complement the tech infrastructure.


We need to integrate both into a learning experience.


We need a range of devices to handle a range of problems and provide a range of opportunities.

Going hard one way or the other -- for or against BYOD -- is missing the reality of the way most of us actually compute, and missing a chance to leverage the context in the way we and our students actually understand and relate to technology.

In reality, this isn't about BYOD, it's about BYOC -- Bring Your Own Context.

1000 Posts

Somewhere over the last couple days, we published our 1000th blog post here on TeachPaperless.

I'd just like to say that I have really enjoyed and appreciated the variety of forms both in terms of writing and philosophy that have taken to these pages since the blog became a community-created endeavor back in January of this year. Thank you to all of the writers, contributors, commenters, and readers who have -- in my mind -- made TeachPaperless the special thing that it is.

Looking forward to 1000 more.

- Shelly

From a PLN to a Guild

by John T. Spencer

I had a lengthy Twitter instant message conversation with Russ Goerend.  We talked about hard issues of desires for teaching, reform in our classroom and burnout.  It was a time of vulnerability for both of us.  On other nights, we might have talked theory or exchanged instructional ideas.  But tonight we were both needing a conversation about the parts of teaching that aren't mentioned in the staff lounge or a PLC meeting.

A few nights ago, I "met" via Google chat with Gregory Hill.  Again, the conversation pingponged between teaching and life and the sense of hope and crushed hope that we both experience at different times.  On Saturday I met with Robert Greco.  We had had coffee and shared stories, geeked out about teaching and society and spoke honestly about what it's like to be a dad.  A few nights before that, I Skyped with Jeff Russell.  While the focus was on filming student documentaries, he had a chance to see my kids misbehave and my response to him.  I felt embarrassed, but he was gracious.

The day before that, I sent some books out to David Loitz, read an amazing post by Justin Stortz and heard some of the best push-back and compliments I've ever gotten by Chad Sansing.  That same day, I had a very geeky, intellectual, honest conversation with Shelly Blake-Plock and a long Twitter conversation with William Chamberlain and Michael Kaechele.

If you had caught me on a different week, I would have been interacting with David Wees, Jabiz Raisdana, Jerrid Kruse, Shelly Terrell, Michael Doyle, Angela Watson, Mary Beth Hertz, Stephen Davis or Jose Vilson.

At this point, my entire post could easily feel like a long list of names.  However, for me, these are the people who have kept me teaching, writing and thinking when I was nearing a place of burnout.  It's a bigger list than I had ever imagined.  I am, too a large extent, an introvert.  I tend to hang out with Javi the Hippie and Quinn the Business Bohemian.

I've written before about PLNs.  I've created sketchy videos to explain how a PLN works.

And yet . . .

I'm not looking for something that works.  Not when I have somewhere that I belong.  I have a loose band of online friends (many of whom are not mentioned in this post) who offer ideas, ask questions, share stories and, most of all, allow me to be myself.  I have a non-geographic place that transcends any medium and it is in this place that I can not only be transparent, but also vulnerable.

So, when I search for a metaphor regarding this space, I'm most likely to think of it as a guild.  It is a place where I am known as a whole person engaged in a challenging, meaningful vocation.  It is a place where I can share ideas on my craft, tell stories from the classroom and make sense out of my struggles.  It is a group that I trust who will fight for me against the forces of apathy, insecurity and standardization that so often derail me as a professional.

Ideally we would all live in a physical community.  Then again, ideally I would ride a unicorn to work and instead of a stress ball at work, Carol King and Samuel Beam would stand by my desk and each offer their own singer-songwriter melodies.  However, we live in an urbanized, fragmented, compartmentalized world. We can allow emerging technologies to push us toward amusement and fragmentations or we can form a guild and share our lives.

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Note: For the rest of this week and all of next week, you can buy any of my books for one dollar. You can get all five of them for a price of a venti latte. Oh, you'd rather have that venti latte? Okay, I don't blame you entirely.

Troubleshooting Tips

By Steve Katz

In the ed tech office we often get teachers coming in with computer problems that are solved with some very basic troubleshooting tips. I created this document (in the form of a certificate) with the hope of helping teachers to learn the most basic troubleshooting. I created it as a certificate thinking that people might be more inclined to post it on the wall and refer to it. Please feel free to share the document.

Download the full-size Certificate

Cross posted on my blog.

The Real Public Media

by John T. Spencer

The Radio

"They seem to lack a unified message."

Really?  I heard that phrase twelve times over the course of two mornings on NPR, which implies that unity can only occur through a set of specific talking points and a hierarchal structure.  This is a fundamental misunderstanding of democracy, social media and what a grassroots movement is all about.

I'm not a reporter.  I get that.  But I noticed quite a few signs with words written on them.  After reading the words, I noticed people were angry about the bailouts, angry about the corporate take-over of public institutions, upset about the Supreme Court allowing corporations to be treated as people.  Sounds to me like a unified message that there is an oligopoly, plutocracy and kleptocracy running America.

Then again, I'm not a "real" journalist.

At one point, a reporter (not someone being interviewed) said, "they haven't seemed to figure out why they are protesting."  I've never known anyone who protests just for the hell of it.  I doubt anyone said, "Dude, there's gonna be awesome bongo drums.  I don't care about why we're protesting.  I'll risk being arrested because those bongo drums, my God, they sound great."

The Take-Home

I still like PBS and NPR (someday I'm going to meet Terri Gross in person).  However, I need to remember that while they might be the best of mainstream media, they still pale in comparison to the real public media.  We are in a new era where information is instantly accesible.  Who covered the Occupy Wall Street protests first?  (Or for that matter, who paid attention to the Tea Party first?)  Who video-taped police beating folks who were exercising their First Amendment rights?  Who covered and helped produce the Arab Spring movements?

The Occupy Wall Street movement is proving that the public is the true public media.  We are the citizen-journalists.  What this means for teachers is that if we want true social studies, we need to teach students to think well about civics and social justice.  Students need to move beyond memorizing facts and into the bigger issues of understanding context, distinguishing between facts and opinions, analyzing language, reporting accurately, expressing one's voice respectfully and understanding the bias of both the medium and the message.

Mobile devices have created the Pocket Journalist, where students can access, create, mix and analyze information as it is happening.  I can complain about the bias in public media, but my time is better spent helping develop a more informed, accurate and meaningful public media within my own context of the public education system.

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Note: For the rest of this week and all of next week, you can buy any of my books for one dollar.  You can get all five of them for a price of a venti latte.  Oh, you'd rather have that venti latte?  Okay, I don't blame you entirely.  

#OWS Consensus

by Mike Kaechele
Stumbled on this in Google+ from Benjamin Wilkoff about the consensus process being used at Occupy Wall Street.



This has potential for so many questions and discussion topics with students.

• What is actual democracy?
• Is the current government of the United States a democracy?
• Whose voice is most important in an democracy?
• For PBL it is a great example of how student groups should function.
• What are the weaknesses of this form of government?
• Does this scale to a national level and what would that look like?
• How can we make sure more opinions are heard and given a true seat at the table before decisions are made?
• How can we implement the consensus model in schools?
• How could the consensus model be used in your classroom?
• How could the consensus model be used with students in curriculum planning and design?

What would you add?

Paperless Coaster

By Steve Katz

Unfortunately, hard drives don't last forever. But you can keep using them. Here is my friend Kevin's external hard drive shortly after it died.

I love opening electronic equipment after it no longer is in use, so that's what I did with the hard drive. I left it sitting on my desk after opening it. I started using it as a coaster for my coffee cup.

A few days later I came across some of those rubber footpads that are used to keep things from scratching up your table. I stuck four of those to the bottom to keep my "coaster" from scratching my desk.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Originally posted on my blog.