Book Talk: Disrupting Class by Christensen, Horn, Johnson

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Comment by RobertoBorda on May 10, 2009 at 9:17pm

I attended the Michael Horn: Disrupting Class, Web 2.0, and More on 4/29/09 interview in Classroom 2.0. It was a very good interview.
Here is the link in case you want to hear the recorded audio;
http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/michael-horn-disrupting-class

Comment by RobertoBorda on April 25, 2009 at 1:04am

I just started reading Disrupting Class and am really sorry that I missed the Seedlings interview with Michael Horn. Thank you Alice for sharing your copy of this book; and Bob, thank you sharing the interview with Michael Horn.

Comment by Cheryl Oakes on March 27, 2009 at 6:51pm

Check out this interview with Michael Horn at COSN. http://www.eschoolnews.tv/Esntv.aspx?Filename=http://hwcdn.net/n4j4y5x8/fms/jdlstate_jdlcity_jdlHighSchool_jdlHighSchool_-1/disrupting_class_c518a5fa-1cd6-4336-8beb-6f873a205719.flv.xml

Comment by Janice Friesen on March 27, 2009 at 7:38am

The link to my blog post did not show up, so I am putting it in again.

http://malahinitx.blogspot.com/2009/03/picturing-future-of-school.html

Comment by Janice Friesen on March 27, 2009 at 7:37am

Thanks for the link to Jeff's blog. I think it does connect and one thing that he said ties in with what I was thinking when I was reading your post. He used the word "passion" and I think that is the key to forming a PLN and sticking with it. When you read things that you are passionate about it causes you to think and search further for answers. You either agree or disagree, but you enjoy the process of wrestling with the issue.

That is why I don't follow economist's or politician's blogs although there are some really good ones out there. They bore me. I am not interested and have nothing to say back.

If schools were passion-centered and we were all learners then the teachers could be passionate about their subjects and about how the brain works and about how people learn. Students could each discover their passion. As students they would definitely have to be exposed to many things that were not their passion, but at the time that they were taking these classes they could begin creating a PLN and exploring their passion. Here is my blog about the idea (maybe it describes it better)

The question is... can students (especially some MS and HS students who are sullen and avoid work and thinking at all costs) have passions and follow them? OR is it only a few highly motivated, sharp students?

Comment by Phil Macoun on March 26, 2009 at 1:07pm

Hi Janice,

It seems to be just you and me in here.

I agree with you entirely that a Personal Learning Network is about the people and not the tools. The amount I have learned from my nascent PLN is amazing; I think all the time about how I can replicate this kind of learning in my classroom. The difficulty I am having is reconciling the free flowing kind of learning that takes place in my PLN with the content and learning outcomes based learning my students are supposed to be engaged in.

I also think that as a Technology Teacher and IT Integrator it is easier for me to learn from my PLN than some other subject specialists, take for example Math. I have definitely had more success expanding my horizons as a technology teacher than as a math teacher (although, I have to admit more and more math teachers are becoming a part of my network).

Jeff Utecht recently wrote an interesting post called Connecting People or Connecting Content that I think has relevance (maybe?).

Comment by Janice Friesen on March 25, 2009 at 7:33am

Phil,

It will be interesting to see what your conclusions are after a few more chapters. I really did not think about the idea of modularity as it applies to Personal Learning Networks. I really do not think of my personal learning networks in terms of the tools that I use to communicate with them. They are people that I learn from and hopefully that learn something from me. The blog, ning or twitter that we use to do that does not matter. The tools will change, but the people are constant. For example WAY back in 1996 or 7 I learned about a guy named Andy Carvin from his website (a rare thing for someone to have their own website back then!) My Waste of Bandwidth. Through that (I think) I learned about an email list called wwwedu and joined it. Through that I met and learned from other leaders in the Ed Tech community. Over time I have stayed connected to some of the people, but the tools have changed. Last week I followed Andy as he Twittered in SXSW. Others on the list have blogs and some have really helpful websites that have moved from being 1.0 static websites to 2.0 dynamic ones. Andy does a blog for PBS. I met some of these people after several years at NECC and other conferences.

So, what I am trying to say is that the tools have changed totally, but I still consider some of the people my learning network. I am not sure how this applies to this book. Maybe you or someone else can talk about what you think about that.

Comment by Phil Macoun on March 22, 2009 at 1:27pm

Hi Janice,

Thanks for sticking with me as I share my half formed thoughts. I've been thinking more and more about user networks vs personal learning networks because I do think there is some overlap. I could be completely off base but I think it comes back to this idea of modularity. The kinds of content that are mentioned in Disrupting Class need to be modular so that they can be moved around and cobbled together in different forms. So the question is, what parts of our current PLN's are modular?

My PLN consists of mainly Ning, Twitter and my Blog. I can see forum discussions in a Ning as being modular, especially as they all have rss feeds that allow them to be pulled anywhere. It also just occurred to me that blog posts could be modular if there was a standard tagging system of sorts that would allow someone to search for tags to do with the subject they want to learn. Other than that I think you are right, it's more about the people and ideas and less about the content.

I think these will be my last thoughts for a bit. I'm going to try and get all the way through the next chapter or two first.

Comment by Janice Friesen on March 22, 2009 at 9:11am

It is time to hear from some of the other people in this discussion and I would really like to ask Michael Horn a few questions.

Specifically, I am curious about what Phil talks about below when he talks about the difference between networks as talked about in this book and Personal Learning Networks. I think that what Phil is saying is that his understanding is the book says that the network is focused on content and that Personal Learning Networks are focused on people rather than networks. Is that right? I have always heard of personal learning networks talked about in the context of Twitter. I don't think that Twitter is the only tool that creates a Personal Learning Network, but I might define it as people that you learn from on or offline.

Seedlings is a personal learning network for me. I don't know everyone in seedlings and some people who have influenced me don't know me at all. I am building some connections and ongoing relationships with a few people. I posted about my PLN in my blog http://malahinitx.blogspot.com/2008/11/personal-learning-networks.html and you can browse the other posts in November to find a few more posts about this. I created an Inspiration chart of my PLN a few posts later:
http://malahinitx.blogspot.com/2008/11/personal-learning-network-2.html

Well time is up.... more later

Comment by Phil Macoun on March 22, 2009 at 2:30am

Hi Janice,

I finally finished chapter 5 and "wow". I agree with you that the Dan example was very powerful. What really hit home for me was the reason why teaching something helps you learn it: "when he had to teach the same material, the only way he could do it was to format the rules of accounting in a way that is consistent with his intelligence type." Of course!

I also now "get" the idea of a user network. I wonder though whether the kind of network they refer to is analogous to Personal Learning Networks? The difference to me is that they are referring to specific networks built on platforms that allow users to generate and share specialised content; to my knowledge PLN's are more general in purpose and are more a vehicle for communicating and sharing ideas. What do you think?

I'm thinking that Wikipedia is probably a good example of the kind of user network they are suggesting. The user network has grown up around a particular software platform with a particular purpose. I imagine the way that Wikipedia has supplanted regular encyclopedias could also be called disruptive. The way Wikipedia ensures accuracy might be akin to the way that they suggest all this user generated educational material might be rated: "As content is used over time, users will rate it, as they rate books on Amazon.com and movies on Netfilx, so that others can easily find the tools that match the way they learn best."

I actually find myself agreeing with this idea of users rating materials but I also find myself uneasy at the idea of there being no quality control at all (makes me feel like a dinosaur). I know that Wikipedia manages to be quite accurate, but there are certain controversial topics that you would never go to Wikipedia for. How would a system of user generated modular lessons ensure that the theory of evolution was taught properly?

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