Catching the cutting edge 60’s and O.K. Moore
The evidence seems to be saying that there is something broken about the point of writing. In short, at a time of rapid digital change and critical need for creative and inventive composition of all kinds, our children are taught composing with just essay-type text. Within that particular medium, less than 1/4 of them are succeeding. At the same time, Cyberspace and Makerspace settings bring other communication options in which students might be motivated to find success, and curiously, eventually leverage their text writing skills as well.
Research Evidence
The research on writing instruction and the abilities of school age children is not particularly thick, but certainly sufficient to establish a kind of rough outline of a measuring stick on public school children’s numbers of words, sentences, paragraphs and pages across grade levels and to report a measurement of effective student progress.
The data indicates that at best students write some ten sentences a week in kindergarten (Kent, Wanzek,Petscher, Al Otaiba, & Kim, 2013; Puranik, Al Otaiba, Sidler & Greulich, 2014) progressing towards 5 paragraphs a week in middle school (Gilbert & Graham, 2010; Graham, Capizzi, Harris, Hebert& Morphy, 2013) and 3 pages a week in high school (Applebee & Langer, 2006; Applebee & Langer, 2011). But too many do almost none of even this; just 33% of 8th graders and 24% of high school seniors earn proficient writing scores (Kent, Wanzek,Petscher, Al Otaiba, & Kim, 2013; NASP, 2008; Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008). That 24% are proficient helps explain why about 19% of high school freshman finish college. It is a curiously close percentage to "only 25 percent of U.S. public high school graduates have the skills needed to succeed academically in college, an important gateway to economic opportunity" (Gates Foundation, 2014). If not for the almost forgotten 1960’s work of O. K. Moore, there might be little reason for optimism about potential radical improvement.
Such school challenges play out against actual radical improvement in our adolescent and adult league, the Web. Trillions of new types of digital compositions from billions of creators now flood cyberspace. They accelerate the long running and transformational work of the information explosion (Houghton, 2013). In an era of richly varied and often free multimedia software, these compositions combine and re-combine in ever more intricate ways to play an ever more critical and creatively disruptive role in the new digital economy and culture. The basic building blocks of this renaissance are not hard to see on any Web, Facebook, Twitter and nearly any digital site. The fundamental units make up a digital palette defined by at least 10 major elements (Houghton, 2012). How do these elements move from building the digital adult economy that was center stage at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Sallis, 2014) to any kind of local place in the school curriculum? If integrated, will they further distract or permanently prevent us from reaching major educational goals of the last 100 years, such as proficiency in basic writing ability? Or can each leverage the other?
His initiatives were ending in the 1980's just as the personal
computers were first making their cultural appearance. Fortunately it was his
concepts and designs that enabled his settings to sing, and the technologies of
40 years later (see photo on the right) can duplicate his learning strategies and tools for a 200th of the cost.
As Moore would often indicate, it was not the technology that was critical, it was the vision of what drove his team's effort. But where's the software that is duplicating and expanding on his ideas with the far superior devices of 2014? We can watch and wait or start somewhere.
Some of the elements of autotelic software show below as selected examples in the spreadsheet table, designs that make new digital media composition accessible for even preschool and kindergarten. However, baseline data on measuring our progress with 21st century composition is nonexistent (graphic below). There is as of yet no way to make comparisons and measuring points for media across grade levels that is comparable with the data now available on written text. For example, for video composition, what is the kindergarten level equivalent of 10 sentences a week? The lack of this knowledge is hardly surprising; schools are just beginning to get the funding to fully join the other professions in going digital so that such instruction, achievement and measurement would be possible. The time to take such a baseline is now; much research needs to be done.
As Moore would often indicate, it was not the technology that was critical, it was the vision of what drove his team's effort. But where's the software that is duplicating and expanding on his ideas with the far superior devices of 2014? We can watch and wait or start somewhere.
Goal Setting
Podcast - Models for Designing Motivation
Now that schools are beginning their move in North Carolina to 1 to 1 computer availability with technology significantly more sophisticated for a fraction of the price of the learning tools of Moore's era, Moore's work deserves a deep look and reinvention for meeting the new needs of the digital age (Moore, 1980). However, this may grate a bit against the top down culture dominating factory elements of secondary and higher education. His work meshes well with the deep educational thought of student centered Montessori, Dewey, Vygotsky, Friere, Piaget and Papert. It is as equally pointed and current as Psychologist Peter Gray's thoughts on natural learning settings for learning to read.
Some of the elements of autotelic software show below as selected examples in the spreadsheet table, designs that make new digital media composition accessible for even preschool and kindergarten. However, baseline data on measuring our progress with 21st century composition is nonexistent (graphic below). There is as of yet no way to make comparisons and measuring points for media across grade levels that is comparable with the data now available on written text. For example, for video composition, what is the kindergarten level equivalent of 10 sentences a week? The lack of this knowledge is hardly surprising; schools are just beginning to get the funding to fully join the other professions in going digital so that such instruction, achievement and measurement would be possible. The time to take such a baseline is now; much research needs to be done.
See the animated chart below. Do you have the knowledge to measure such abilities as effectively as we now measure writing? If not knowing is something that bothers you, how can we solve this problem?
[The video below is the same uploaded file as above, but uploaded through blogger.com's Video Upload button. Notice its markedly lower quality in comparison with the version above that was uploaded directly to YouTube. Where appropriate, go with YouTube.]
Makerspace is not just a concept. Makerspaces are also physical places that range from manufacturing tools that have shrunk to fit on an office desktop to "community centers with tools", using computers and computerized manufacturing tools that continue to fall in cost and size while simplifying ease of use. An explosion of these neighborhood makerspaces (MakerMap; 2) from office spaces to libraries is underway in communities around the world.
If you were to graph your own literacy progress in digital composition, at what grade levels would you drag each of the column heights above? Grab an Excel spreadsheet version of this chart and define your own starting point for professional development. What will it take to create a "responsive environment" of such media for your own learning and those you teach?
To make a spreadsheet column graph of your current development with digital literacy, download the linked spreadsheet above, and follow the directions in the screencast on the left. (hosted at YouTube; click its full-screen button for best viewing).
[The video below is the same uploaded file as above, but uploaded through blogger.com's Video Upload button. Notice its markedly lower quality in comparison with the version above that was uploaded directly to YouTube. Where appropriate, go with YouTube.]
Makerspace
Obviously, the columns of this spreadsheet represent the digital ability to read and compose different kinds of media that appear on the cyberspace screens of digital devices, from smartphones to desktop computers. However, one aspect of these columns of digital literacy is hidden from recognition; there is a transition underway that is extending cyberspace to the physical world of "maker space", from creations that end up on display screens to a surge of digitally driven creations that are physical objects in the real world. These objects increasingly contain sensors and actuators that communicate with other objects for automation purposes or alert notices for manual direction by their owners and managers.
Such maker space designs do not have to involve "rocket science" creations. The framed example below shows live data from a set of sensors in series of small greenhouses for my year-round gardening in the mountains of North Carolina. The sensor data will be used to control actuators that manage temperature, light levels and watering, the beginnings of a greenhouse robotics system that is as relevant to home winter gardeners everywhere as to school gardens largely abandoned during the summer months.
Makerspace is not just a concept. Makerspaces are also physical places that range from manufacturing tools that have shrunk to fit on an office desktop to "community centers with tools", using computers and computerized manufacturing tools that continue to fall in cost and size while simplifying ease of use. An explosion of these neighborhood makerspaces (MakerMap; 2) from office spaces to libraries is underway in communities around the world.
These centers are as open to families and children's design groups as they are to adults. Makerspace participants use the columns of computer programming, robots, sensors and 3D CAD/CAM software and tools for fabrication such as laser cutters and 3D printers. The video below is one simple example.
Tinkercad creations could be fanciful (as above) or just as easily be highly practical (see below), as with the the high schoolers who used 3D printing to make a prosthetic hand for a 9 year old for under $10 or the gardening example of this next video below, posing a solution to standard seed starter containers.
Every bit as important as the emerging technology is the nature and design of the learning community within these centers. The vast depth of knowledge from the Web, the ready availability of digital devices for study and creation and a collection of learners who like to share is recreating the point of Moore's 'responsive environment' within which so many found success. This educational direction is but one of a long line of learning practices stretching back to the lights of Pestalozzi, Montessori, Dewey, Piaget and Papert. Makerspaces can create places within or outside of schools which provides a setting and alternate agenda where students and teachers can think differently about the educational process.
The learner-centered, learner-initiative nature of makerspace and cyberspace communities represents the seed, a break with current school practices, and the hopeful prototype for the inventive activity that communities will also expect someday of public schools.
The Charge for Change
The learner-centered, learner-initiative nature of makerspace and cyberspace communities represents the seed, a break with current school practices, and the hopeful prototype for the inventive activity that communities will also expect someday of public schools.
Updated 2/18/2014 version 1.7
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