Irecently saw a cartoon titled "The Perfect Birthday Present" that seemed applicable to all of us in educational leadership. The setting was a preschool child's birthday party with wrapping paper thrown across the floor, evidence of the gift-opening frenzy that had just occurred.
The final present had just been lifted out of a big box by the proud parents. There it was, the perfect gift for an adventurous preschooler-a shiny new car, just his size, with plastic pedals ready to let those little legs pedal the preschooler to destinations unexplored. It was a great plan, but now that the gift was opened, where was the child? Playing in the box, of course.
Throughout our professional lives we are presented with gifts that can enrich our experiences, yet we fail to recognize the true power they hold and choose instead to be satisfied with a less powerful experience. Virtual online learning is such a gift. It holds phenomenal power to connect teachers, improve curriculum management, establish a framework for research into the most effective practices and provide dynamic feedback loops for continuous improvement.
While that is its potential, what we see too often are attempts to put an existing static curriculum in an online format. Yesterday's workbook becomes today's new online course. The vision ends there. What we need are out-of the-box thinkers who will use the virtual learning environment to create what Peter Senge refers to in The Fifth Discipline as learning organizations.
In-the-box and out-of-the-box thinkers approach new technologies from different perspectives. In-the-box thinkers ask, "How can we use this new technology to do what we have been doing more efficiently?" Out-of-the-box thinkers ask, "How can we use this new technology to do what we should be doing more effectively?" The key difference between the two is vision.
Our efforts should be driven by a focus on quality, not just convenience.
In Growing Up Digital, Don Tapscott reinforces Senge's concept of learning organizations when he claims: "There is no sustainable competitive advantage today other than organizational learning. That is, companies can compete only if they can learn faster than their competitors."
The questions I think about are these: Are we really using online learning environments to learn about learning? Are systems feedback loops in place to tell us which formats, which assignments and which activities have the greatest payoff in terms of student achievement? Are courses designed to meet the needs of the customer? Have customers even been asked how relevant the online learning experiences have been? Are customers involved in adding knowledge to the learning environment?
To gather this information, the online learning environment needs to be designed to collect and manage this type of data. Often content designers are satisfied with the convenience their online environment has provided for the learners, but other than adding convenience, little has changed.
The challenge we face is to think through the power the new technology presents and avoid the temptation to use it in less powerful ways that are limited by our existing mental models. In a strategic partnership, the University of North Texas, the Texas Center for Educational Technology and Voyager, a private education firm, have created online professional development courses and graduate degrees for teachers that model systems thinking and effective knowledge management.
I am hopeful other models will follow, but that will happen only as creative and innovative educational leaders choose to step out of the box. After all, playing in the box is a good way to stay busy. It can even be fun, but it certainly won't take us anywhere.
Don Hooper is president of AASA.