Who Owns the Learning

Who Owns the Learning Assignment

Alan November, is recognized internationally as a leader in education technology.  As a practitioner, a designer, and an author, Alan has guided schools, government organizations, and industry leaders as they plan to improve quality with technology. Alan was cofounder of the Stanford Institute for Educational Leadership Through Technology and is most proud of being selected as one of the original five national Christa McAuliffe Educators. He has worked with educators all over the world to build learning communities that will empower children to lead more of their own learning.  In "Who Owns the Learning?", author Alan November uses his Digital Learning Farm education model to show teachers how technology allows students to take ownership of their learning, create their own learning tools, and participate in work that has meaning to them and others. In this model, every student is a teacher and a global publisher. 

In the introduction to "Who Owns the Learning?" readers will quickly be introduced to an incident that Mr. November encountered during his time as the director of an alternate school within Lexington High School. On the last friday night of the school year, a student was caught breaking into the schools computer lab. When Mr. November arrived at the computer lab, he realized that nothing had been broken or stolen. Instead, Mr. November found one of his students, Gary. He quickly learned of Gary's interest in computers and realized that Gary had been breaking into the computer lab to write a program. Gary was not breaking into the computer lab to cause trouble, he was doing so to work on his self-taught programing skills. 

Mr. November was aware of Gary's mediocre academic performance as well as his attendance record. Mr. November allowed Gary to take the computer home for the weekend to complete a semesters work of one of the schools programming courses. Mr. November was shocked to receive all of the work on Monday morning. Gary earned a C for the course. However, the grade was not important to Gary. Gary had taken incredible joy in setting his own goals and solving his own problems. 

Gary explained, the key to his success was that the computer provided him with immediate feedback about how his program worked. His observation of immediate feedback motivated Mr. November to understand how technology had the power to fundamentally empower students to own and lead their own learning. Mr. November then decided to design and teach his own computer course. 

His course was titled "Community Problem Solving Through Technology". This course challenged students to identify a real problem in the community and find existing technologies that could help deal with it. Mr. November shocked his colleagues when he announced that his students would be completely responsible for finding their own problems to solve throughout the course. 

During the time that Mr. November began his course the Apple II had just been released, and the first databases, word processors, graphic programs, and spreadsheets were hitting the markets. Mr. November and his students worked together to learn how to use the new technology. 

Mr. November began inviting members from the community into the classroom for student interviews. This really increased his students' excitement for their projects. With the help of the interviews, all of his students eventually identified a community problem that could be solved with technology. 

According to Mr. November this project and his students, brought him some of the most rewarding experiences he has ever had as a teacher. For the first time in his career, some students wanted to continue to work on their projects during summer vacation. Gary was not alone. Students loved working with technology. However, their drive was fueled by two important conditions: they wanted to have some ownership in the learning process, and they wanted their work to have purpose. These students wanted to make a contribution even if they initially struggled with the challenge of identifying their own problems to solve. 

Throughout the rest of the book Alan November outlines a number of ideas for creating learning experiences that engage students by enabling them to contribute to the curriculum as well as to their community at large, and, in the process, develop essential skills in problem solving, critical thinking, creative collaboration, and global communication. Alan November calls this the Digital Learning Farm.