BRICK IN THE WALLVS.

HOLE IN THE WALL

Caroline D. Hardin

@carolinescastle

caroline@ictwiki.org

• Brick in the Wall: Learning with schools is problematic

• Hole in the Wall: Learning without schools is problematic

• We are the Hope: Hackers are really good at learning

• Disrupting the System: Hackers are inventing education’s future

WHY LISTEN TO ME?

“..I started to think about what this system does to kids and how they can escape from it, what it does to our society and how we can dismantle it.”

- William Deresiewicz, former Yale professor in http://mashable.com/2014/07/22/avoid-the-ivy-league/

BRICK IN THE WALL

6 Shocking Things I learned in Grad School about Why Schools Suck

1. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A SUCCESSFUL SCHOOL?

Civic

Vocational

Cognitive

Emotional

Moral

Social and Cultural

EDUCATION IS CULTURAL

“Throughout most of his historic course Homo sapiens has wanted from his children acquiescence, not originality. It is natural that this should be so, for where every man is unique there is no society, and where there is no society there can be no man.”

Education and the Human Condition, Jules Henry, page 54

2: BECAUSE EDUCATION IS CULTURAL...

education is political

3. OUR SCHOOLS ARE NOT DESIGNED TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD

“…the majority of variance in test scores, up to 90 percent, is caused by out-of-school factors.”

Karl F. Wheatley in a letter to the New York Times, June 29th 2014 Unequal Childhoods by Annette Lareau

4. STANDARDIZED TESTS…

have significant biases

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat#sthash.8PyU4CpF.dpbs

5. CLASSROOMS LOOK/ACT OUTDATED…

But teacher training has significantly evolved!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.htmlDeveloping a theory of ambitious early career teacher practice by Jessica Thompson, Mark Windschitl and Melissa Braaten

5. CLASSROOMS LOOK/ACT OUTDATED…

But teacher training has significantly evolved!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.htmlDeveloping a theory of ambitious early career teacher practice by Jessica Thompson, Mark Windschitl and Melissa Braaten

6. IT’S NOT BAD TEACHERS WHO RUIN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM...

It’s a bad educational systems which ruins our teachers

6. IT’S NOT BAD TEACHERS WHO RUIN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM...

It’s a bad educational systems which ruins our teachers

6. IT’S NOT BAD TEACHERS WHO RUIN OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM...

It’s a bad educational systems which ruins our teachers

• Brick in the Wall: Learning with schools is problematic

• Hole in the Wall: Learning without schools is problematic

• We are the Hope: Hackers are really good at learning

• Disrupting the System: Hackers are inventing education’s future

HOLE IN THE WALL

What’s stopping us from getting rid of schools?

FIRST OF ALL, IT’S NOT A NEW IDEA

“First, that all children will, under the right conditions,

acquire a proficiency with programming that will make

it one of their more advanced intellectual

accomplishments. ”

Seymour Papert, Mindstorms, page 16

VANDALISM, WASTED TIME, FRUSTRATION

Arora, P. (2010), Hope-in-the-Wall? A digital promise for free learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41: 689–702. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01078.x

VANDALISM, WASTED TIME, FRUSTRATION

Arora, P. (2010), Hope-in-the-Wall? A digital promise for free learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41: 689–702. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01078.x

TEACHING IS A SCIENCE

Content Knowledge

Pedagogical(teaching technique)) Knowledge

Awesome teaching happens here

IT LETS THE GOVERNMENT FURTHER ABANDON THE POOR

If the poor kids don’t learn, it’s their fault

UNGUIDED ‘DISCOVERY’ LEARNING…

is not very effective or efficient

“Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: An analysis of the failure of constructivist, discovery, problem-based, experiential, and inquiry-based

teaching” Paul Kirschner, John Sweller, Richard E. Clark, page 76.

WHAT IF...WE HAD APPRENTICESHIPS?

Scale.

(and you still need classes)

THEN WE’LL USE MOOCS*!

those who succeed in moocsare the already successful

*Massively Open Online Courses, like Coursera, Udacity

or edX

FINE. BUT WE DON’T NEED THOSE IVORY TOWER ACADEMICS

1993: “What had started as a subversive instrument of change was neutralized by the system and converted into an instrument of consolidation”

2014: “The story is the same every time: a big, excited push, followed by mass confusion and then a return to conventional practices”

Seymour Papert, The Children’s Machine, 1993, page 39http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html

FINE. BUT WE DON’T NEED THOSE IVORY TOWER ACADEMICS

1993: “What had started as a subversive instrument of change was neutralized by the system and converted into an instrument of consolidation”

2014: “The story is the same every time: a big, excited push, followed by mass confusion and then a return to conventional practices”

Seymour Papert, The Children’s Machine, 1993, page 39http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/magazine/why-do-americans-stink-at-math.html

SHOULD HACKERS BOTHER TAKING CLASSES?

It does let you offload:

Content CurationSelf-DisciplineMotivation

“A class or course provides the kind of structure that I need in order to stay focused.” (Seeker7 in 2600 V Spring 2012, page 60)

BESIDES SKILLS, SCHOOLS WILL GIVE YOU:

• Credentials• Networking

• Demonstration of bullshit tolerance

WHAT ABOUT HACKERSPACES?

4 weird old tricks that make Hackerspaces good for learning

ACTUALLY, HACKERSPACES EXCEL AT EDUCATING, BECAUSE….

They are Communities of Practice

which offer Situated Learning

through Legitimate Peripheral Participation

with an emphasis on Cognitive Apprenticeship

• Brick in the Wall: Learning with schools is problematic

• Hole in the Wall: Learning without schools is problematic

• We are the Hope: Hackers are really good at learning

• Disrupting the System: Hackers are inventing education’s future

WE ARE THE HOPE

10 ways hackers model expert learning

1. HISTORICAL EXAMPLES

• Bill Gates• Steve Jobs• John Carmack• Mark Zuckerberg• Captain Crunch

• Paul Allen• Jack Dorsey• Randal Schwartz• Aaron Swartz• Kevin Mitnick• Kevin Poulsen

2. WE QUESTION AUTHORITY

3. WE RTFM

Klopfer, E. (2008). Augmented learning research and design of mobile educational games. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

4. WE MAKE THINGS

5. WE BREAK THINGS

Productive Failure, Manu Kapur, Cognition and Instruction Vol. 26, Iss. 3, 2008

6. WE ARE STUBBORN AS HELL

7. WE KNOW WE CAN FIGURE IT OUT

8. WE PLAY VIDEO GAMES

9. WE USE THE HIVE MIND

10.WE MAKE TOOLS TO DO THINGS FOR US

• Brick in the Wall: Learning with schools is problematic

• Hole in the Wall: Learning without schools is problematic

• We are the Hope: Hackers are really good at learning

• Disrupting the System: Hackers are inventing education’s future

DISRUPTING THE SYSTEM

...this time, with Science!

THE HACKER ETHIC

n. 1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing open-source code and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible….” Jargon file, v. 4.4.8

CREATE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

• Wikipedia• StackOverflow, etc• FLOSS• Creative Commons• GitHub, etc.• Instructables, etc

CREATE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

• Wikipedia• StackOverflow, etc• FLOSS• Creative Commons• GitHub, etc.• Instructables, etc

JOIN FORCES

HackerspacesLUG, 2600 meetup, Amateur

Radio Club, DEF CON meetup

MentoringTeaching

JOIN FORCES

Askadv.com

Hackerhours

Thinkful.com

Hackhands.com

codementor.com

AirPair

HACK KNOWLEDGE TRANSMISSION

• Study learning sciences

(good place to start is ‘How People Learn’ by Bransford and Donovan, or

“Building a Better Teacher” by E. Green)

• Model expert learning

• Use augmented reality

• Invent something new

HACK KNOWLEDGE TRANSMISSION

• Study learning sciences

(good place to start is ‘How People Learn’ by Bransford and Donovan, or

“Building a Better Teacher” by E. Green)

• Model expert learning

• Use augmented reality

• Invent something new

INVENT THE FUTURE!

In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic

model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete“- R. Buckminster Fuller

BRICK IN THE WALL VS HOLE IN THE WALL

Thank you

Caroline D Hardin @carolinescastle caroline@ictwiki.org

"I'm a future-hacker; I'm trying to get root access to the future. I want to raid its system of thought." — St. Jude

IMAGE CREDITS:

EPISTEMOLOGY IS A REALLY LONG WORD

• ...this is a really short talk.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge and is also referred to as "theory of knowledge". It questions what knowledge is and how it can be acquired, and the extent to which knowledge pertinent to any given subject or entity can be acquired. (wikipedia)