A physical place for virtual education

The coffee shop at Holland (MI) Christian High School

I am not one of those who wish to see the physical school disappear.

I am also a deep believer in the concept that contemporary (and future) technologies allow all the walls of the school to "fall," and that that is a good thing.

Where education really happens at Michigan State's College of Education

I was on Twitter with Eric Sheninger @nmhs_principal the other morning, and we were discussing this, because, as I think I said, as much as I like virtual learning, there is something essential about looking into the eyes of learners, of watching their body language, of touching them when they need that bit of humanity.

A long time ago I went to a "school without walls" - a free, open, project and passion-based high school. There was no required attendance. Most students took no classes in any given semester. I got English credit for working with the late night news guy on WVOX radio. Social Studies credit for watching and interviewing the homeless in Grand Central overnight. Others worked at the local hospital, or the city's parks department greenhouse, or, wherever.

But we had a school. We had a place to go. And almost all of us came there pretty consistently. We came there to hang out. We came there to talk. We came there to use the school's sports facilities. We came there because our girlfriends or boyfriends might be there...

But while we were there our teachers saw us, and talked to us, and sensed how we were doing. They pulled us into conversations. They might even make a suggestion or two. And while we were there we talked, and overheard. We were all doing different things and we talked about those things. I never read a book in high school, but I heard all about Beowulfand Steppenwolf, The Teachings of Don Juanand The French student revolt, American Notes for General Circulationand Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s, and many more. My math was mostly related to betting on football games (not kidding) but I would listen to debates about math theories from friends, and for the first time in my life, began to be interested.

The couch in The White Room, late 1970s

Now, our space was truly awful. It was supposed to be the "regular" school's third cafeteria, but not many kids stuck around for lunch, so it wasn't needed, and they gave us this huge white space - we called it "The White Room" - with the window area blocked off by a series of "classrooms" with walls that stopped a meter short of the ceiling. So we dragged a couch in, and a few chairs. Marked off a hopscotch game on the floor. Put up a 7-up clock. It stayed incredibly ugly, but... we still came.

Because that physical commons was important, and it still is.

Commons Area at New Tech Academy, Kent County, Michigan

So, I still want schools. That physical place is important. But I don't want ugly. I want beautiful and flexible and interactive. Kids should be free to come and go, but I'd like them to want to stay. Kids should have the tools they need there, and access to food and drink and other "comforts." And the faculty needs to be there too - not for supervision - but for interaction as students need and want.

So, start with effective wireless capabilities in your "Physical Space for Virtual Learning," and make sure 4G comes in well. Then build a Tool Crib of devices, ready to grab. Windows and Mac laptops, fully equipped and fully accessible. iOS and Android and WebOS Tablets. TabletPCs. Have lots of ways to hook those and student-owned devices up to big screens or projectors. Then make sure you have powerful desktops with great scanners and printers, production centers for student creativity.

Schiphol Airport Park, Amsterdam, Nederlands

Have lots of different kinds of seating. Tables and floor space for collaboration, and spaces - like music practice rooms - for solitude or quiet. The furniture should all be movable, and probably whimsical in some ways... no need for this to be a cold space.

"10 Forward" at Mozilla

And there needs to be place for play. Put an Xbox 360 in there (with Kinect), have real television availability, don't want to miss big football/soccer matches or great movies.

All the best companies know that a "work environment" works best when there is variety to the space, variety to the time, and variety in staff interaction. The same will be true at school. Staring doesn't usually help us, widening our vision does.

There are some other important ideas: Design so that lighting varies, bright, dim, warm, cool. The idea of uniform room lighting, pulled from turn-of-the-20th-century German factory design, has never been appropriate for human use. Our eyes get to relax and refocus when we move from bright to dim and vise-versa. Design so that noise levels can vary as well. Not everyone needs auditory chaos, but many do. serve everyone. Don't pick "50 year" furniture. Schools are always buying "stuff that lasts," and paying a fortune for it. And in many places we're stuck with these great deals from 1962. But human societies change, and our knowledge changes, and so we want our spaces to change. You'll probably do better going to Ikea and re-furnishing every other year.

And if you can't eat around it, or drink around it, just don't buy it. Education is messy - if your carpet or upholstery can't be easily cleaned, you've bought the wrong stuff.

Finally, think what you can bring to the space. Think of MeetUps linked to any possible subject of mutual interests. Hold Hack Days geared to music or games or teaching or anything. And invite the community in - local developers, local talents, local artists, writers, baristas, chefs, all while bringing yourselves to the community - never be afraid to UStream exciting stuff that is happening.

A tech meet up in a pub, how learning happens in this century

Virtual education should not be "the end of school." Rather, it is one great opportunity to re-imagine school. Please, don't make your alternative to the boring classroom a bunch of kids sitting home alone.

- Ira Socol

To discuss in class this week

There are two big things going on in the world this week, one fifty years old, one absolutely current, which should keep your students talking, and bring them into virtually every content area in engaging ways.

The single orbit of Vostok 1, April 12, 1961

On April 12, 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave the earth's atmosphere in Vostok 1. He went, obviously, higher above the earth's surface than anyone before him (327 km above sea level at the orbit apogee), and he circled the earth at 27400 kilometers per hour - the previous "world's fastest human" was USAF Maj. Joseph Rogers at 2,455.7 km per hour in December 1959.  It took Magellan's expedition, the first earth circumnavigation, just a fortnight short of three years to make their trip. 339 years later, Gagarin did it in 108 minutes.

Science and math obviously, history, geography, culture obviously? Was Gagarin's trip celebrated in the US on the 10th or 25th Anniversary? Why do your students think it wasn't? What will they discover if they investigate that? And what about writing? How might it have felt to sit atop that rocket? How might it have felt to know the science but have no other human who could possibly share the experience? Gagarin was a lover of poetry, did that help him?

Protester defies veil ban in Paris

Meanwhile, this very week, an enhanced ban on face veils goes into effect in France. The French have very little tolerance for personal public displays of religious practice, with laws limiting religious symbols in schools and other public spaces going back to the 1870s, and having been solidified in 1905 when, of course, the offending religion was Catholicism. Students in France, for example, are not allowed to publicly wear Christian symbols, Jewish symbols, or Islamic symbols.

This sounds shocking to Americans and Canadians, and a bit troubling to Brits, and possibly refreshing to the Irish, but the idea of a secular society is deeply ingrained in France.

Can your students really comprehend laïcité? To the French, or most Turks, the United States is almost a theocracy. "My goodness," a Turkish student at Michigan State University once told a group of high school students, "it says "God" on every piece of your money!" She was deeply offended. "That has no place in a democracy." She, a Muslim, was debating with a Muslim woman from Malaysia, the French and Turkish bans on headscarves in courts and on university campuses. These two women, from the same religion but vastly different cultures, were mutually outraged by the other's opinions. It was one of the best learning moments I have ever seen in a school classroom.

A respected friend told me last night, "but wearing the veil may be much more about culture than religion," which is true, as the paragraph above perhaps illustrates, but then, nations limit dress for cultural reasons all the time. In most places in America you'll get arrested - maybe even declared mentally ill - for walking around naked, even if it is 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees C) and you believe it's fine to be seen. Is that any different, in concept, than France's law? The assumption is "cultural offense" I guess. From a public safety point of view, at least you know a naked person isn't hiding anything dangerous.

I said to her, we have to understand the histories of these nations. In both France and Turkey democracy was created by - at least in the collective memory - overthrowing religion, the Church State of the Ancien Régime and the Church State of the Ottoman Empire (Yüce Osmanlı Devleti). As the US and Ireland object to royalty (despite Sinn Fein's Gerry Adam's role as a Baron), these nations object to religion in public.

In other words, the questions may not be as simple as some suggest, and the position of France may not suggest intolerance - France was, I will point out, among the only nations to unreservedly accept anyone fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s, something neither the US nor the UK would do.

What will your students say? How will they research this? Who will they ask? This is true critical thinking, and it surely involves language, history, culture, geography, science, maybe even the math of statistics.

Watching an eagles nest 24/7

Finally, if you have an Interactive WhiteBoard or projector in your room, it should be tuned to the Decorah Eagles when not otherwise in use these days. This is just one more webcam opportunity to give your classroom a "fantastic window" which encourages thought and learning. Watching this nesting pair raise their children is incredible, and it is not just a view of nature, but a critical look at the top of the food chain. The camera is on day and night, so wherever you are, its something to see.

And this introduces you to the "fantastic window" idea. Webcams are everywhere. You can watch cities, beaches and oceans, campuses, or from space. Don't keep that window closed.

- Ira Socol

Where does space begin?

There's a really cool weather balloon experiment video going around...

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

This is truly an awesome thing... but here's the question - did this balloon "reach space" as the Twitterverse and news commentators often suggested?

Let's look at another vision of this zone above the earth - 19-21 miles (30-34 km) above sea level...

"On Dec. 10, 1963, while testing an NF-104 rocket-augmented aerospace trainer, Chuck Yeager narrowly escaped death when his aircraft went out of control at 108,700 feet (nearly 21 miles up) and crashed. He parachuted to safety at 8,500 feet after vainly battling to gain control of the powerless, rapidly falling craft. In this incident he became the first pilot to make an emergency ejection in the full pressure suit needed for high altitude flights. "

from Wikipedia [cc]

How can our students decide? What does "space" mean? What does "atmosphere" mean?

And how can you introduce this discussion, a discussion with no clear answers, which you probably don't really know how to answer, into your classroom?

NASA's site has a couple of great resources - a flight data simulator and this little video, but maybe we need to challenge everyone in the classroom - a classroom of any age kids - with a few questions:

If, at 122 km above earth (75 miles) the Space Shuttle can begin to switch from using hydrogen thrusters (space control systems) to "aero surfaces" - that is, the wings begin to function, what does that suggest?

If the International Space Station flies at 278 km above the earth (173 miles), what does that suggest?

If meteors are burning up at about 90 km (55 miles), what does that suggest?

Pause here: Was the balloon in the top video a homemade spacecraft?

MIT students - who might be more exacting in language - called 93,000 feet "near space" a year ago...



...which was also the term Mr. Clapper's Chemistry class used...



Let's ask more questions then...

Is it oxygen which defines the line between atmosphere and space? Is it particles which reflect sunlight (giving earth its blue glow from space)? What does friction mean when we are speaking of "air"? Does a parachute depend on friction?

Can we experiment with friction from air, with aero surfaces, out on the playground?

What does friction look like outside the "atmosphere"?

And who began to figure this out? Where?

Pause again here: Was the balloon in the top video a homemade spacecraft?

The X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne went a bit over 100 km (62 miles) above the earth. Alan Shepherd, the first American "in space," went 116 miles (187 km) high. Yuri Gagarin, the first human "in space," went 105 miles (169 km) up. In the early 1960s the U.S. Air Force X-15 planes flew above 50 miles (80 km) 13 times and above 62 miles (100 km) twice.

What is 19 miles from your school? What is 50 miles from your school? What is 62 miles from your school? What is 116 miles from your school? Go out on the playground, create a 1 meter = 1 mile (or 1 km) scale, and look at the distances. Does that matter?

Now, you've got all sorts of math happening, atomic chemistry, physics, geometry, history, geography, and you've got to take advantage of all that.

But most importantly, you've let your students know that questions really don't have "right answers." That we humans are investigators. That we seek answers by looking widely. And your class will not be the same.

- Ira Socol

thanks to Mike Thornton for the question which began this conversation