Parents, take note: if you haven’t taken the time to explore your own state, your kids will suffer. The Wichita mountains are part of the Wichita Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge is home to free-range bison and longhorn cattle, prairie dogs, wild turkeys, and a plethora of other life. I just went down Sunday. The wildflowers are just starting to bloom and should be full within a couple of weeks. This is, by far, my favorite part of Oklahoma. I’ve just returned from a Sunday day trip. We drove around to the backside of Elk Mountain and hiked around Lost Lake. It was a joy to watch my daughter and friend run off trail and explore the rocks…

Pardon while I rant a bit on exploring… it never fails to amaze when I hear from my Oklahoma friends and friends of my family that they’ve never been to the Wichitas. I suppose it would be like growing up in Colorado and never visiting the Rockies. Democratic citizenship requires an appreciation of your home. To be engaged in your community starts in your own backyard. Kids should be encouraged to explore their neighborhood and town, and parents should take the time to visit their own state. If you don’t think your state has beautiful places to see, you need to open your eyes. Go visit your state tourism office. It’s not just for visitors.

Back to the Wichitas…The hiking is absolutely wonderful. There are numerous trails, often not clearly marked, so some guidance is valuable. The park office can help, but for those who haven’t grown up with the Refuge, Alan Thode’s book, Hiking the Wichitas, is worth every penny. I’ve visited at least twice a year for the past 20, and still have much to discover. May is the best time, IMHO, to visit, but I’ve been in every season and have never regretted the trip. If you’ve been, tell me your favorite places!

Targeting Oklahoma public school principals and superintendents, the seminar introduces the K20 Center’s IDEALS framework for whole school renewal using technology integration as a catalyst for change. For principals and superintendents, the two day seminar costs only $299 and the participants receive a laptop computer valued at $1500.

The seminar focuses on creation of professional learning communities (PLCs). PLC development is addressed through understanding the change process, sharing of successful models, and creation of action plans towards moving their own school or district towards a PLC. Action research, data driven decision making, and leadership skills are covered.

The K20 Center’s twist on this already successful idea is how technology integration can create a powerful catalyst for changing a school into a PLC. Classroom technologies (interactive whiteboards, student response systems, Powerpoints, classroom sound systems, etc.) are used through out the seminar to exemplify uses in teaching and learning. Participants create Powerpoint presentations, are given opportunities to word with Microsoft Word and Excel. They are provided a supportive environment to use their new laptops, find internet resources, and play with classroom technologies. Sessions are provided that demonstrate different technologies used in schools.

The sharing, networking, and modeling are powerful elements of the seminar. Each seminar (limited to approximately 40 participants) are divided into two cohorts that will continue networking beyond the two days. The seminar moves the leaders towards innovation adopters through use of technologies and sharing stories from their own districts.

School renewal efforts often overlook the necessity to provide professional development for school administrators. Change theory acknowledges the necessity for powerful leadership to lead change. Educational change that involves technology (as much does today) requires leadership that fulfills the role of technology adopters. The power of the program lies in creating a venue of leadership development to introduce the use of technology.

For more information, see the K20 Center website.

A popular catch phrase in higher education, Service Learning resonates well with Mr. Stengel’s ideas for a national service plan. I first heard of Service Learning through initiatives begun at our own K20 Center*. A web search shortly thereafter on the topic lead me to this excellent paper, Filling in the Moat around the Ivory Tower, by Vachel W. Miller and David K. Scott (Scott was a previous Vice Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Amherst). The authors write about the creation of an integrative university and the necessity for creation of social capitol. They make two fundamental points about social capital and Service Learning. First, the authors bring the power of service learning in creating a sense of community:

Social capital refers to the level of reciprocity and voluntary associations between individuals in a community…Social capital accrues as a result of engagement, and service learning increases the potential of relationships to form between students and the larger world.

The “larger world” could have referred simply to anything beyond the campus, but the impact of a global market is most often felt in those communities needing the most help. The second point is that Service Learning should come as part of one’s education:

It would be naïve to imagine that students, after years of schooling that disconnects them from community life, would leap into community service after graduation. In order for a service-orientation to become an enduring dimension of learning outcomes in college, we must model community engagement, value community engagement, and provide structured opportunities for community engagement.

Schooling is where is must begin. In creating citizens or education system has the best opportunity to mold a form of community service. Mr. Stengel in the Time magazine article provides one example (#5. Institute a Summer of Service) of middle school graduates beginning community service. I say it can start earlier. I see no reason to involve elementary students in service activities, whether they are providing service to their school community, or neighborhoods. Service Learning should be a part of the spectrum of education. In the same issue, Carolyn Kennedy writes:

In fact, an early investment in service can pay off over a lifetime. The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, a trove of high school-related trend data, found that 42% of young people who volunteered in high school did so again eight years later. And a recent study in the American Educational Research Journal identifies community service during high school as a strong predictor of voting and volunteering in adulthood.

Mr. Stengel’s fourth point, Create an Education Corps, should be embedded into learning from the second grade, at all schools. Students should expect to see teacher volunteers at every grade level, as well as students volunteering to be mentors and tutors for younger grades. I am amazed to see how much my six year old daughter looks up to the kids from second through fifth grade. I would be even more amazed to see the older kids in her classroom helping out. This is leadership development, democratic education, and where participatory culture should be.

The ninth point in the Time article, Start a National Service Academy, is another wonderful idea. The creation of a service academy that would rival West Point in the caliber of its students, yet provide the next generation of leaders solving community problems would be a first for our nation, a concept already in practice in other countries.

It’s time we create the structures in our education system that will lay the foundation for a future national service generation.

*The K20 Center does have a program to foster community leadership, the interdisciplinary Master of Arts degree with an emphasis in Educational and Community Renewal. It is a wonderful program that brings a full breadth of what makes a community and how to discover and tackle its needs. The program includes a required service learning project. The center is also working on service learning initiatives with OU’s College of Enginnering, and is planning initiatives with other colleges. Alas, we do not have a formalized program for K-12.

There are two ways to look at the explosive growth of the Internet: One is to celebrate the fact that in the 15 years since it became commercially available, what began as an obscure military technology morphed into a global phenomenon that is regularly accessed by over a billion people. The other is to ask why the world’s other five billion folks aren’t online yet.

Meraki Networks, Inc. is run by Sanjit Biswe who comes out of MIT. He and his company have created an intelligent access point, called Mini, that is both rugged and self-organizes its own mesh network. The WAP acts as a router if plugged into a network and a repeater if not and within 700ft outdoor of another Mini. The device has a current cost of less than $5 in parts (he’s currently selling them for $50). The devices are configurable to allow limited connections and even block connections if needed.

This isn’t a new idea. Other companies have been working towards universal access through mesh networks. But Meraki has something coming soon that I really like: Meraki Solar. There are few details about it on their website, but this has the potential to create access in rural areas globally. The hardware is a simple solution, but the idea is big, especially if it is robust.

Global access is key to my idea of democratic education. The rest of the hardware is another topic altogether. Kudos to the One Laptop per Child Project. I think the $100 laptop could be an excellent companion to the Minis, and unlike the $100 laptop, the Mini network would stay up regardless on the status of the laptops.

I’d encourage communities to create mesh networks whenever possible. Information should be shared and yes, I’d prefer my taxes going to universal access (I know, this is revealing my socialist side).