![Connected global youth and the Online Model United Nations movement [guest post]](http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/donut-300x224.jpg)
by Lisa Martin | Dec 8, 2013 | Guest Bloggers, International, Leadership and Vision, Online Learning, Social Media, Tech Integration |
I became an educational entrepreneur by accident. A humble social studies teacher and Model United Nations (MUN) director by training, I am now working with students in over 50 countries to develop one of the most innovative global ed programs around: Online Model United Nations, or O-MUN for short. Up until 2011 there had never been a fully online version of this popular academic simulation. While precise estimates are unknown, it is likely that close to half a million students – grade 6 through university – engage in MUN each year. Tapping into this enormous community and undertaking the complex task of developing a free and open program for youth around the globe has changed my views on education, technology, and youth forever. And along the way, I have learned a few lessons that are as telling about the state of education and our comfort/discomfort with student-empowering technology as it is about the actual online debates program itself. So a bit of background is in order.
The first attempt at online MUN was done while I was a teacher at a private, for-profit online high school. I decided to start a Model UN club as my required extra-curricular activity. Using my Blackboard Collaborate classroom, I quickly realized that I needed a model to show my students. With the help of a co-collaborator, we rounded up a dozen students from around the world to test the viability of this platform. For nineteen hours, wave after wave of students found us, logged in, and tested out the room’s features, and found them to be fun and engaging. Many of the very procedures we use in our program today were discovered and tested in that first open session. I went to sleep that night with my computer on, listening to the chatter of students in Singapore and Malaysia troubleshooting how to vote or submit amendments. I woke the following morning a changed educator. Like a thunderbolt, I knew I had fallen into something potentially huge. With barely-above-average tech skills and a fair amount of MUN experience, I set out on a path to develop an online, global debating program for high school students. Two successful debates later, my online school’s administration and corporate leaders began to catch the online MUN fever too, and that is when trouble started.
The response of my school was to pull the plug on the entire program. I was then entrusted to a minder and told not to publicly speak about the program. Attorneys were called in to assess how this program could be patented and monetized. Figures were bandied about, with a princely $235 subscription fee per student the likely price for access to this online debates program. The program was to be run from behind the school’s enormous firewall, and developed in isolation and away from a larger international student population. People with no experience in MUN were put in charge of developing the program. So with the core values of this program at stake, and marginalized within the school for which I had developed the program, I made a tough decision. I walked away from my job and my expensive online classroom – the great enabler of the program. With no good alternatives in sight, and taking very seriously my non-compete clause, I sat it out for a year and, in September of 2011, relaunched the idea as O-MUN, a not-for-profit global education program offered up to students for free. (O-MUN’s vision can be found here.)
I tell this story in order to set the stage for what happens next. Without resources, we patched together free and open source technology tools to meet our growing needs. Having to innovate as we went along, our operating costs were (and remain) negligible. We won an online Blackboard classroom in a contest hosted by Steve Hargadon. With that one precious room as the cornerstone of our program, we launched O-MUN. There was no institutional backing and very limited ability to connect with a larger audience; in fact, most of the over-25 crowd studiously ignored us during that first year. But we grew because students found us, primarily via our growing community on Facebook. When our debates were small, we wrung our hands, put our heads together, and tried to figure out the next plan of attack. For the students who got actively involved that first year, they worked together to innovate our leadership structure, down to the positions needed and what their job descriptions would be, how to run our Facebook communities, and what worked/didn’t work with Google Docs. Students actively developed our website, our banners and graphics, and our training and moderating programs, so critical for a student-driven organization. No one made students do this. They certainly didn’t do it for grades. This was in the era of pre-digital badges, so they didn’t even get that (they do now, but more on that later). Most would never meet one another face-to-face, but the O-MUN community esprit des corps soared that year, as did the social currency that binds communities together: inside jokes, shared mythology and legend, even a currency and theme song.
In the waning days of 2013, I look back at what has been O-MUN’s true international debut: a partnership with THIMUN, exposure and collaboration with a small but growing number of organizations, and a proliferation of programs driven by the demand and ideas of students around the world, working collaboratively, simply for the sheer love of MUN and their O-MUN community: a middle school and university level program, the first online model International Court of Justice, national programs in places like Taiwan , Singapore, Turkey, and France (and more on the way), a recently-launched French language version of O-MUN, with Arabic planned for 2014. The frosting on the cake has been O-MUN’s travel teams, proving to others as well as ourselves that online activity can translate into real, face-to-face skill development and opening a path for participation that normally would have been denied students without an online avenue to connect with the larger MUN community.
This week members of our community will share how Online Model United Nations has impacted them, professionally and personally, as delegates and as human beings. I believe they are the voices that educational thought leaders, teachers, administrators, and parents need to hear. What is driving O-MUN’s development is far removed from what we often talk about in education circles. It is my hope that the O-MUN story adds a fresh perspective to the global education conversation.
Previously in this series
Lisa Martin is a 20+ year educator who has worked in places as far flung as the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, San Diego, and, now, Amman, Jordan. She is the Co-Founder and Director of Online Model United Nations and would love to connect with like-minded educators. You can find her just about everyplace online, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
by Scott McLeod | Dec 7, 2013 | Guest Bloggers, International, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Online Learning, Social Media, Tech Integration |
FYI, over the next week or so I am turning my blog over to Lisa Martin and the students who help her run the Online Model United Nations (O-MUN) program. Many of you may be familiar with the Model UN program and know what a wonderful experience that is for students. Now imagine taking that program and extending it online and across multiple continents and time zones!
The O-MUN story is an incredible tale of perseverance, creativity, and student empowerment. I hope that this guest series will get you thinking about some possibilities and that you’ll interact with Lisa and these amazing students over the next few days.
by Scott McLeod | Dec 5, 2013 | Leadership and Vision, Mind Dump, Our Changing World, Social Media, Youth and Media |
George Couros says:
“Kids don’t have enough balance.”
“We are dumber because of technology.”
“People are disconnected from one another because of how we use technology.”
“Technology kills our face-to-face interactions.”
In my travels, I have heard all of these arguments.
…
You will hear people say things like “Twitter is stupid.” Just to clarify, Twitter is a thing and can’t be stupid. It is the equivalent of a student not understanding math and then saying “math is stupid.” It is often our lack of understanding that leads us to make statements like this, which I made myself. One of the questions that I ask people when they make these remarks is, “from your use of Twitter, tell me why it is stupid?”, which is sometimes followed by, “Well, I have never used it.” That would be the equivalent of me saying that a Lamborghini handles terribly. I could say that, but I have never experienced driving one, nor have I ever done any research on the vehicle.
via http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/4271
by Scott McLeod | Nov 26, 2013 | 21st Century Skills, Leadership and Vision, Our Changing World, Social Media, Workforce and Economy |
Kakul Srivastava says:
Millennials are more likely than any other previous generations to daily access their outside-of-work networks to get work done. The forces of micro-entrepreneurship are increasing making each of us our own “corporation,” reliant on our outside networks to make things happen. Finally, as our previous work experience becomes increasingly irrelevant to our future work problems, our real asset to bring to any endeavor becomes our network.
Will Richardson adds:
for most of us, our PLNs are “sharing networks” in that the main currency in our connections are links and or ideas that, in theory at least, amplify our own learning about whatever it is we’re interested in. But seeing our networks as “critical to getting our work done” is a step up for most
What are we doing as school leaders to foster our students’ and educators’ development of ‘get stuff done’ networks? Usually nothing.
Image credit: Although you’re far…, Aphrodite
by Scott McLeod | Nov 14, 2013 | Leadership and Vision, Mind Dump, Social Media |
Seth Godin says:
If you’re eager for change, every bit of information and every event represents an opportunity to learn, to grow and to change for the better. You hear some advice and you listen to it, consider it (possibly reject it), iterate on it and actually do something different in response.
On the other hand, if you’re afraid of change or in love with the path you’re on or focused obsessively on your GTD list, then incoming represents a distraction and a risk. So you process it with the narrative, “how can this input be used to further what I’ve already decided to do?” At worst, you ignore it. At best, you use a tiny percentage of it to your advantage.
via http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/11/your-incoming-process.html
by Scott McLeod | Jun 9, 2013 | Social Media |
Although my Twitter birthday is April 11, 2007, it took me four tries over at least a year’s worth of time before I really understood how to make it work for me. Since then it’s been an invaluable resource for my professional and personal growth, both as a learning channel and as a resource dissemination vehicle.
Three days ago I hit the milestone of 25,000 subscribers. I realize that following someone on Twitter doesn’t require an enormous effort, but nonetheless that’s a big number. The numbers of people who follow me on Twitter and read my blog are roughly equal now. Thank you, each and every one of you, for including me in your learning networks. I’m humbled every day by your willingness to connect with my ideas and resources and am grateful that we live in a time when we have so many different options for global communication, connection, and learning.
Just 40,151,317 more to catch Justin Bieber!
by Scott McLeod | Jan 1, 2013 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Online Learning, Our Changing World, Social Media |
The same movement that we are seeing toward open educational resources in higher education also is permeating P-12. Many educators have happily tapped into the incredible learning opportunities that are available to them and their students. Our ability to be powerful learners has never been greater.
Lost in all of the eagerness around consumption, however, is a concurrent felt need to contribute. Many educators are willing to take and use free resources as they find them, but far fewer create and share resources for the benefit of others. This lack of reciprocity undercuts the ethos of sharing that helped create – and now sustains – the vigor of our new online information landscape.
One of the best things that we can do to improve our local and virtual learning communities is to take seriously our ability and obligations to be contributors to our shared global information commons. We should do this ourselves as educators and we should have our students do this too.
How often do you, your staff, and/or your students contribute something online (with a Creative Commons license) to benefit others? What can you do as a leader to foster an environment of sharing and giving back, not just taking and using?
Drop me a note if you’re a principal or superintendent who is ready to think seriously about this. I’d love to chat with you.
Image credit: From proprietary to open
by Scott McLeod | Dec 20, 2012 | Mind Dump, Social Media |
I agree with Levi Bryant’s recent post on the matter of cynicism. We have every reason to be skeptical of social media. There is no doubt that ideolgical and capitalistic motives lie behind the arguments for social media. Hell, in most cases, such motives are front and center. Should we be skeptical of Instagram or Facebook or Coursera? I think so. But should we be skeptical about the premise of networked sociality in itself? Or should we be looking to adapt/invent practices for this environment? Levi writes that as a result of cynicism “We thus strangely find ourselves in the same camp as the climate change denialists, the creationists who use their skepticism as a tool to dismiss evolutionary theory, and those that would treat economic theories as mere theories in the pejorative sense and continue to hold to their neoliberal economics despite the existence of any evidence supporting its claims. We critique everything and yet leave everything intact.” It’s a bold argument perhaps, as it equates what we imagine as the height of intellectual behavior (critique) as functionally equivalent to some of the more blantant examples of what we would term anti-intellectualism. However, I think the same thing could be said for our treatment of social media.
Alex Reid via http://www.alex-reid.net/2012/12/academic-cynicism-social-media-and-the-fate-of-the-humanities.html
![5 videos on connected learning from the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub [VIDEOS]](http://connectedlearning.tv/sites/connectedlearning.tv/files/DG_Macarthur_r03-960_0.jpeg)
by Scott McLeod | Nov 2, 2012 | Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World, Research and Evaluation, Social Media, Tech Integration, Videos, Youth and Media |
Here are four very powerful videos from the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub that are guaranteed to make you think hard about learning, teaching, and schooling. You can watch them all in less than half an hour. My quick notes from the videos are included underneath each one…
Engaged (7 minutes; Connie Yowell)
- we are fundamentally starting with the wrong questions
- we start with learning outcomes – and content defines everything – rather than “what is the experience we want kids to have?”
- our core question is around engagement; if you ask “is a kid engaged?”, you have to pay attention to and start with the kid
- we have to make room for curiosity, we don’t have enough opportunities for kids to take things apart and wonder about them
- little opportunities to fail and iterate are also opportunities to play with identity
- we need opportunities to explore who we are in the world and how the world works, particularly as teenagers
- we so decontextualize learning for kids, we’ve forgotten we have a passion for learning
- in school they could care less, but in complex games kids demand that they learn how to do something so they can move on
- as adults, we have to deeply connect content and students’ activity, otherwise learning has no meaning
Everyone (7 minutes; Mimi Ito)
- we give responsibility for learning to professionals instead of remembering it’s the fabric that frames all of our interactions with everybody
- connected learning networks force us to fundamentally rethink what we think is the problem and goal of education
- it’s about expertise that’s widely distributed; anybody can help somebody else get better at something
- if you have an educational system that always tell students what to do, you’re not building their capacity to make effective learning choices themselves
- we used to have capacity bottlenecks for learning, so you had to go to school or a library – now we don’t have that problem but we still act as if we do
- education isn’t bound to particular institutions anymore, it can happen anywhere
- how does a kid find a mentor or peer that helps them develop their interest, make their interest relevant, find a sense of purpose, etc.
- how do we use the capacity of the network to bring people together who want to learn together?
- everybody can participate in a connected learning model
- the great side benefit of interest-based, connected learning is that it fosters social connection and well-being: fulfillment, belonging, and purpose
Play (7 minutes; Katie Salen)
- play creates for people a reason for them to want to engage
- body and spirit are transformed by play
- play is a state of being, a very different state of mind, openness to ideas and other people
- not a closed, rules-bound place – the openness of the play space is extremely important
- play is one of the most fundamental human experiences
- play is a practice space, we play to get better at something, it helps us build confidence
- kids are driven to want to share with you what they’re doing, what they’re making, what they’re learning
- at school, we cordon off a time for play (recess) and then you’re not doing that anymore
- when you get older, play becomes embedded in objects (video games), you can activate play when you pick up that object
- when we’re young, play is the frame for how we experience the world
- adult life becomes about a set of responsibilities rather than a way of engaging your soul in the world
Creative (5 minutes, Nichole Pinkard)
- we’re just now getting to the place in America where we realize it needs to be different everywhere, not just in some places
- we have to completely overhaul how we think learning happens, where it happens, and what people are capable of
- technology transformations show us the world is going to be different
- they are going to have to be more nimble and more proficient with technology to communicate and to learn, or they’ll be a new form of illiterate
- we no longer live in a world where you can only write and read text and you will be successful
- we have to teach these new literacies and then let kids be creative in how they express themselves with these literacies
- schools always have been about ‘the right answer’
- now we care more about how kids find information, think about information, communicate information
The DML Research Hub also has an 8-minute summary video, Essence, which includes some of the best pieces from each video above plus some new stuff.
- there’s no longer a promised future for all kids
- how do we create environments that delight learners at all ages?
- open up the question of who contributes to learning
- how do we help kids grow up to become curious, engaged citizens?
- kids say over and over that schools are (merely) a node in their network of learning
- we have an embarrassment of (information) riches but we still have to figure out how to bring those pieces together
- learning principles need to start with the idea of connectedness
Finally, be sure to check out the core values, learning principles, and design principles of connected learning:
- Core values: equity, social connection, full participation
- Learning principles: interest-powered, peer-supported, academically oriented
- Design principles: production-centered, openly networked, shared purpose
See also the infographic below. There’s a lot here to digest. Thoughts?
