21C Learning Hong Kong, hosted by my school, HKIS, is happening this weekend. Big names from the blogosphere have been flown in, both in real life and in Second Life, and tech-savvy teachers and techevangelists from the Asia region have come to the city to swap ideas for tools and tricks to increase technology use and learning in classrooms.

I have gone to five of these now dating over the past two years. Two of them in Shanghai, and this is the third in Hong Kong. All of the conferences have been put on professionally and thoroughly. I am especially impressed with what my friend Justin has accomplished here in Hong Kong.

However, not to complain, but just to comment…I feel overloaded. Nothing sounds new. That is not to say that the speakers and ideas aren’t still inspiring at times! But what follows is an attempt to toss out some of these ideas…not a finished set of concepts below, but I would love feedback / pushback on what I think I’m thinking.

One pattern that I note is how easy it is to give lip service to the idea that “it’s all about how technology changes the learning” and yet spend the majority of the time in workshops looking at cool new tools. I know that I am as guilty as the next person about this, as I have given two presentations about wikis and blogs without much time spent talking about the transformative capabilities of these tools.

But it’s so hard. How do we have practical discussions about how to make drastic changes in the day to day experience inside of a school?  Surely the conversations need to be focused on something more than just the next cool Web2.0 tool. However is a classroom teacher in any position to implement anything radical? What I keep on hearing / coming back to myself is a frankly naive wish to simply “blow up” the current paradigm of education and start off afresh. I love the idea of a “Ten Man School” as Rob suggested today, take ten committed teachers and build the experience around student learning, with no concessions given for our preconceived notions of what a curriculum ought to be. I loved working at a new school for three years and feeling as if my energy could make a big difference in the way learning would happen for the students.

But what can I do now? Must I be testing out and tinkering with each new Web 2.0 tool? I’m supposed to be delivering Social Studies knowledge, concepts and skills, not teaching my students the next coolest slick looking online gadget like Prezi.

I know that I’ve grown as a teacher. I’m certainly leaps and bounds better than I was 2-3 years ago.

But I am starting to feel that I’m relearning the same things. I’d love to fine tune a curriculum, to go into a week knowing that this is the spot that the students are going to trip up.

But no. I am always up against the task of building the jetliner mid flight.

I feel like this little guy.

Okay. Pity party over. Sorry.

The sentence that stopped me in my tracks:

…Mohammed’s case [a tenured teacher in NYC charged by her administration as professionally incompetent] will probably have cost the city and the state (which pays the arbitrator) about four hundred thousand dollars.

Nor is it by any means certain that, as a result of that investment, New York taxpayers will have to stop paying Mohammed’s salary, eighty-five thousand dollars a year.

There’s a part of me that just wants out out out of teaching when I read about this.

my secret weapon

I don’t see any way that this post won’t come across as vain and elitist. However, if you knew me well, you’re probably rolling on the floor right now as you realize that JEFF is writing about FASHION. When I mentioned to my mother that I bought more cufflinks over the summer, she laughed. “Do you even have the shirts to go with them?”

But I believe that this is an improvement over the standard business casual. For me, it’s my uniform, and like everything else in my teaching I want my clothes to be a notch above. When I’ve got on a tie and cufflinks, I take myself more seriously. My students can tell that I look like I mean business. And lastly, I feel that it’s one part of my response to all those critiques of teaching as an “easy job”. It’s easier to say that I deserve to be treated like a respected professional when I look like it.

Of course I’m not saying this replaces lesson prep, or pedagogy, or that it applies the same in all school contexts. Appearance isn’t everything. But it does count for something.

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Tangent Number One, aka “Best Laid Plans”:

I started off my first day well-prepared…except that I left my work laptop at home. A bit of a flustered start.

Tangent Number Two:

A more valid criticism of this is that I’m playing to, and reinforcing, class stereotypes. I work at one of the oldest private schools in Hong Kong, and also one of the most expensive. Class and race are knotted up in Hong Kong, always lurking below the surface. They are much bigger issues that I don’t even know how to start untangling. For now, all I can do is to stay aware of their presence.

I started with a big player – Will Richardson – and specifically this page, where he has posted all sorts of resources and relevant links about blogs. I clicked on about a dozen links that seemed at first glance to be relevant.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is a “retroactive live-blog” of the highlights of my one hour hunt. (Stealing a page from Bill Simmons – his passion and humor deserve all praise.)

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First Stop: Anne Davis.

Hmm. Nope, this is a post to get educators convinced of the value of the blog, both in and outside of the classroom. Not for me – I’m already converted!

But before I leave her page let me skim the right sidebar…wow, she’s been blogging since I was in college! Back then, all I did online was Napster. Maybe there’s something else to be found, under “Beginnings” (3 posts), or “Obstacles” (3 posts)…nope…and the category of “Weblogs” is too big to spend time on, with 349 posts.

Repeating the fruitlessness of this experience with the blogs of Clarence Fisher, Chris Lehmann, and Scott McLeod, I wonder if I’m going about this the wrong way? What else can I do in addition to scanning tags and categories and few searches?

We’ll try again: Konrad Glogowski

Vygotsky reference in the title of the blog is a plus. Nice prose as well – despite running on for substantially longer than your typical blog post.

Initial reaction is that this looks like more of the same, preaching to the converted, as the ideas in this post are on how to foster student blogging. But upon a closer reading of this related post, I wonder if what I am looking for isn’t contained in the ideas there. I also have the feeling after reading the bio that if I dive deeper into the archives I’ll find what I’m looking for here.

We end with one last flicker of hope: Karl Fisch.

I remember his blog fondly as one of the sparks for my first ever presentation on technology – it should still be alive online at slideshare here.

And it looks like with Karl I have again found something worthwhile! His last two posts are on the topic of protecting student identities online. Not directly related, but this would be a great chance for me to add my two cents and put in a question as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76206184@N00/775521097

So – what did my hunt catch me? Konrad’s (dormant?) blog and archives which should occupy me for some time, and a “happening now” conversation related to this topic at The Fischbowl. Hopefully I have enough food for thought to formulate whatever will satisfy me as a “code of online professionalism”.

I have to say it, though – should I have had to look so hard for this? Or am I tilting at windmills when the answer to being “professional” online is something simple and right in front of my face?