Social discussion of CS in K-12

["Wolske, Martin B" <mwolske AT illinois.edu>]

This is fantastic, George! We do indeed often think about it in academic 
terms with citations, and that’s not at all bad. But I like the "But for” 
approach for how it speaks to a broader audience in (dare I say) sound bites 
that highlight the breadth of our collaborative effort, especially as you’ve 
formatted it to have a parallel structure that highlights key contributions. 
As for finished, I hope it is ongoing as more people contribute both to the 
But for document and also to the growing collaboratorium that is CTRL-Shift!

On Feb 27, 2015, at 9:05 AM, Reese, George Clifford 
<reese AT illinois.edu>
 wrote:

> Hi Martin, 
> This has taken me a couple weeks to get to this, perhaps because I knew it 
> would take a while. And in the end, I could only get started, not finished. 
> Not sure what finished would mean. -George
> 
> 
> "But for the ....leadership.... contributions of... Judy Wiegand and Unit 
> 4,.... our collaborative projects would have struggled to...get off the 
> ground in working in the schools with computational thinking."
> 
> "But for the ....research.... contributions of... Maya, Quinn, Travis, Saad 
> and others,.... our collaborative projects would have struggled 
> to...document through careful collection of data the important changes 
> taking place at our partner school." 
> 
> "But for the ....teacher-oriented leadership of.... contributions of... 
> Todd Lash, Jessica Pitcher, and Minsoo Park,.... our collaborative projects 
> would have struggled to...happen AT ALL. Teachers who pick up the ball and 
> run, always in the face of huge obstacles in time and resources, are an 
> inspiration."
> 
> "But for the ....inspirational.... contributions of... those young students 
> at Kenwood.... our collaborative projects would have struggled to...feel 
> the validation of student success that you can see as you watch them work 
> together and learn."
> 
> "But for the ....relentless transparency.... contributions of...,Charles 
> Schultz,.... our collaborative projects would have struggled to...be 
> thoughtful of the implications in each of the steps in our collaboration, 
> remembering that there are constituencies beyond those who come to 
> meetings."
> 
> "But for the ....entrepreneurial-minded.... contributions of... Mike Royse, 
> Kerris Lee, Dan Ditchfield, and others,.... our collaborative projects 
> would have struggled to...have the gumption to jump in and do it."
> 
> "But for the ....creative.... contributions of... Katrina Kennett and .... 
> our collaborative projects would have struggled to...incorporate new 
> democratically-oriented ideas like EdCamp that provide a shot of energy and 
> broaden our discussion."
> 
> It feels to me that I could go on and on in this vein. ...
> 
> But I don't want to forget us at MSTE.
> "But for ... George and Michael's... contribution, our collaborative 
> projects would have struggled to...meet regularly to talk and share and 
> drink beer and coffee and celebrate." ;)
> 
> As you note, we typically do this with citations. It's interesting to think 
> of this in the context of traditional academic writing. One is inclined to 
> say things like the following: 
> Our collaboration was inspired by early strategic leadership (Wiegand et 
> al., Royse et al.,) and the receptivity and engagement of teachers (Lash et 
> al.) and most of all their students' energy (See Kenwood K-5 students' 
> presentations). Thankfully we have documented some of this through 
> systematic research efforts (Israel, et al., 2015) as well as regular 
> meetings and a growing intellectual eco-system around school transformation 
> and educational innovation. 
> 
> 
> George Reese
> Office for Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE)
> 505 East Green St. 
> Suite 102
> Champaign, IL 61820
> 217-333-6604
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: 
> ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
>  
> [mailto:ctrl-shift-bounces AT lists.mste.illinois.edu]
>  On Behalf Of Martin Wolske
> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 12:07 PM
> To: 
> ctrl-shift AT lists.mste.illinois.edu
> Subject: [Ctrl-Shift] But for...
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> As we prepare for the public engagement symposium, and as we work on 
> various writing projects, but also to further help us in our own 
> reflections on our wonderful work together, I'd like to propose a possible 
> group exercise. This was something suggested last fall at a session of the 
> Engagement Scholarship Consortium in relation to doing evaluation that 
> works to move beyond privileging the contributions and perspective of just 
> one entity. For this university group, in talking with funders, directors, 
> the university more broadly, they first highlighted the great successes of 
> the project overall. Then they described their contributions and concluded 
> by saying "But for our contribution, this project would not have been able 
> to..." while also highlighting in reports and presentations the other 
> contributors and stating "But for the contribution of this partner and that 
> partner, this project would not have been able to..." We already are 
> expected to do this by highlighting the academic literature that informed 
> our work. 
> This group is working to extend that to equally privilege community and 
> university partners contributions.
> 
> I would be extremely curious to hear from each person on this list 
> reflections, sent as a series of emails or as one attached reflection 
> document, on the questions:
> "But for your own contribution, our collaborative projects would have 
> struggled to..."
> "But for the ________ contributions of ________, our collaborative projects 
> would have struggled to..." (where the first blank is the ways in which 
> contributions were made and the second blank is who specifically made those 
> contributions)
> 
> For the second, this might include past teachers or mentors, books and 
> articles you've read, etc. as well as a person or organization active in 
> our work today. Who do you see stepping up to the plate to make a 
> contribution, and how? Who contributed in important ways in the past to 
> influence your ideas, attitudes, behavior, etc. that are now having an 
> influence on our work today?
> 
> I suspect the story isn't just or perhaps even primarily the digital 
> technologies and coding that's happening, but the organic community, both 
> adult and child/teen peer, that has been developing, and it would be 
> fascinating to get a better sense of the layers of connections that 
> comprise the community. Perhaps this exercise would help begin bringing 
> that to light???
> 
> -- Martin
> 
> --
> Martin Wolske, Senior Research Scientist and Adjunct Faculty Graduate 
> School of Library & Information Science University of Illinois at 
> Urbana-Champaign
> 337 LIS Building, 501 East Daniel Street Champaign, IL  61820
> 
> 217-244-8094 (office) 217-244-3302 (fax) 217-840-7434 (cell) Google 
> Hangout: martin.wolske; Twitter: @MartinBWolske; Blog: 
> http://mwolske.wordpress.com
> 
> 
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