Dangerously Irrelevant

Compare and contrast - Video games as educational tools

Dr. Jim Gee notes:

If learning always operates well within the learner's resources, then all that happens is that the learner's behaviors get more and more routinized, as the learner continues to experience success by doing the same things. This is good ... for learning and practicing fluent and masterful performance ... but is not good for developing newer and higher skills. However, if learning operates outside one's resources, the learner is simply frustrated and gives up.

Good video games ... build in many opportunities for learners to operate at the outer edge of their regime of competence, thereby causing them to rethink their routinized mastery and move, within the game and themselves, to a new level. Indeed, for many learners it is these times ... when learning is most exciting and rewarding. Sadly in school, many so-called advantaged learners rarely get to operate at the edge of their regime of competence as they coast along in a curriculum that makes few real demands on them. At the same time, less advantaged learners are repeatedly asked to operate outside their regime of competence.

[Video games] build into their designs and encourage good principles of learning … that are better than those in many of our skill-and-drill, back-to-basics, test-them-until-they-drop schools.

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. [pp. 70, 205]

In contrast, here are current teachers’ beliefs (click on graph for full report):

Want to advertise on my blog?

Advertiser

Hello,

We have a client in the e-learning sector who is interested in advertising on your blog. We find it relevant to our client and your blog to be of high quality. We are interested in buying links site-wide, homepage links, link within articles, or having you write about our client and linking to them. If you are open to doing so, we can also provide the content Please write back to me with your advertising rates and how much it will cost to sponsor a blog post on your site. Also, if you run other blogs, please send those to me too. We will be able to Paypal you immediately for these link placements.

Regards,
John

Me

Hi John,

Is $10,000 per sponsored blog post too expensive? I don't know what the going rate is these days for a sponsored post…

Advertiser

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the response. I think $10,000 for sponsoring a post is just too much. We can pay you $50 for sponsoring a post for our client.

Let me know if you are interested.

John

Me

That’s not enough. Thanks, though!

What I should have said

I appreciate your interest in my blog. However, please do me and my readers the favor of actually reading some of our blog conversations first to understand the focus of the blog and the issues that we address. If you then make me an offer that meets the needs of our community (rather than your company), I will at least give you careful consideration despite my general reluctance to accept outside advertising on the blog. Thank you.

Announcing the CASTLE Advisory Board

Thank you to everyone who expressed interest in serving on the CASTLE Advisory Board. We had many, many more applicants than we possibly could take. Although having too many people who are willing to serve is a wonderful problem to have as an organization, it also meant that we had to make some extremely difficult decisions. We will do our best to try and tap into everyone’s expertise in other ways…

Below is our new advisory board. As you can see, we strove for diversity of thought, professional role, and geography. Many of the individuals below also are bloggers (which probably isn’t too surprising).

Principals

• Dave Dimmett (Indiana). Assistant Principal, Harrison High School, Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation.
• Scott Elias (Colorado). Assistant Principal, Loveland High School, Thompson School District.
• Greg Farr (Texas). Principal, Shannon Education Center, Birdville Independent School District. Alternative School Administrator of the Year, Texas Association of Alternative Education.
• Dave Keane (Iowa). Principal, Keokuk High School, Keokuk Community School District.

Central office administrators

• Barry Bachenheimer (New Jersey). Director of Instructional Services, Caldwell-West Caldwell Public Schools. Google Certified Teacher. Ercell Watson Award (Educator of the Year), Montclair State University.
• Kurt Bernardo (Ohio). Technology coordinator, Orange City Schools. Ohio Technology Coordinator of the Year.
• Dr. Greg Davis (Iowa). Executive Director, Management Support Services, Des Moines Public Schools. Co-chair, Consortium for School Networking CTO Council.
• Dr. Shabbi Luthra (India). Director of Technology, American School of Bombay.
• Andy Torris (China). Deputy Superintendent, Shanghai American School.
• James Yap (New York). Director of Instructional Technology and Data Management, Ramapo Central School District.

Teachers

• Clay Burell (South Korea). English / Social Studies teacher and technology coordinator, Korea International School. Apple Distinguished Educator.
• Dan Meyer (California). Math teacher, San Lorenzo Valley High School, San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District. Cable industry Leader in Learning.
• Ben Wilkoff (Colorado). Virtual resource teacher, eDCSD, Douglas County School District. Edutopia / Yahoo! National Totally Wired Teacher Award.

Media specialists / technology integrationists

• Carolyn Foote (Texas). Librarian, Westlake High School, Eanes Independent School District.
• Tim Stahmer (Virginia). Instructional technology specialist, Fairfax County Public Schools.

Higher education

• Dr. Jon Becker (Virginia). Assistant Professor, Educational Leadership, Virginia Commonwealth University.
• Dr. Michael McVey (Michigan), Assistant Professor, Educational Media and Technology, Eastern Michigan University.
• Dr. David Quinn (Florida). Assistant Professor, Educational Administration and Policy, University of Florida.

National, international, and other organizations

• Rowland Baker (California). Assistant Superintendent, Santa Cruz County Office of Education. Co-director, Technology Information Center for Administrative Leadership.
• Dr. Stuart Ciske (Wisconsin). Educational consultant, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
• Dr. Ann Flynn (District of Columbia). Director, Education Technology, National School Boards Association.
• Wes Fryer (Oklahoma). Director of Education Advocacy (PK-20), AT&T. Apple Distinguished Educator.
• Doug Levin (District of Columbia). Senior Director, Education Policy, Cable in the Classroom. Treasurer, Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
• Sylvia Martinez (California). President, Generation YES.
• Ewan McIntosh (Scotland). National Adviser: Learning and Technology Futures, Learning and Teaching Scotland.
• Erin Reilly (Massachusetts). Research Director, Project New Media Literacies, MIT Comparative Media Studies. National School Boards Association 20 to Watch. Cable industry Leader in Learning.

Video - Learning to change

I think I may have just found the opening video for my Monday presentation to the Ames Noon Rotary.

Kudos to the Pearson Foundation Digital Arts Alliance and the Consortium for School Networking (and a hat tip to David Warlick) for a great resource!

Interview: Mike Vitelli, The Gaming Krib

As promised, here is my interview of Mike Vitelli, CEO of The Gaming Krib:

• Conversation 29: Interview with Mike Vitelli

Happy listening!

Dan Meyer is a Leader in Learning

Kudos to Dan Meyer for being named as a 2008 Leader in Learning by the cable industry! A complete list of the winners is at the Leaders in Learning web site.

My not-so-friendly library, boring teachers, and other marketing interactions

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

My city’s public library is a wonderful place. It hosts a variety of well-attended events, has a phenomenal children’s section, and serves as a real hub for the community. But its formal communications stink.

The very first time that you have an overdue book, the initial notice that you receive says that failure to pay your fines may result in being turned over to a collection agency. Ouch. When you request a book, the notification that the book is in says that failure to pick up the book promptly will result in a $0.50 fine. Huh? If you write a letter to the public library’s director highlighting the somewhat draconian tone of its communications, you receive a letter justifying the library’s terseness (trust me on this one). So despite all of the great things that the public library does, you’re still left with a bitter taste in your mouth.

Seth Godin reminds us that every interaction with a customer / client / patron / stakeholder / visitor is a marketing interaction. It’s an opportunity for us to build or erode our brand, a chance to increase or decrease the trust and goodwill of the people with whom we are interacting.

What’s this mean for schools? Well, it means that every time a parent walks away unhappy from an encounter at school, that’s a marketing interaction. Every time a teacher has yet another boring lesson, that’s a marketing interaction. Every time a school board member puts her personal agenda ahead of what’s best for students, that’s a marketing interaction. Every time a member of the community walks through an uninviting building, that’s a marketing interaction. And every time an administrator squanders an opportunity to be a leader rather than a manager, that’s a marketing interaction.

Schools do a host of wonderful things. But they also engage in a number of individual and organizational behaviors that chip away at the trust and goodwill of their internal and external communities. We can bemoan the lack of student engagement / parent support / community involvement / referendum votes all we want, but our actions probably led to the problem(s) in the first place. Putting forth a glossy spin on the surface (We’re the best! Support us!) does no good if we’re not willing to look at our underlying practices as the marketing interactions that they are.

Moving Forward - Blogs for special education teachers

Many of you know that I'm asking the edublogosphere to gradually help me flesh out the Moving Forward wiki so that it can be a valuable resource to presenters and others who are trying to facilitate change in schools. For example, in April we identified a number of high-quality elementary classroom blogs.

This week I'm asking for great blogs that are of interest to special education teachers (particularly special education teachers who are blogging themselves). By great blogs, I mean the kind that you might show in a presentation to persuade others of the power and potential of blogging for teachers of students with special needs. If you know of any such blogs, please add them to the wiki!

Painters ... pipefitters ... principals?

Why does it bother me so much to see principals on this list?

• St. Paul (MN) Public Schools Labor Agreements

Help out a superintendent. Deadline: noon today (Eastern)

Dennis Richards, a superintendent in Falmouth, Massachusetts, is trying to get the annual ASCD conference to recognize the power and the potential of the Social Web. Help him out by adding your name to the collaborators section of his proposal wiki (hint: don't pick the first blank row, choose one further down) and then passing this along. He's going to make his goal of 50; let's see if we can get the total over 100.

It'll only take you a couple of minutes. How often do you get a chance to help out a superintendent? Deadline: noon today (Eastern). Thanks!

Don't read this article

I really wanted to like the Creating Valuable Class Web Sites article in the May 2008 issue of Learning and Leading With Technology. I really did. I believe strongly that teachers should be incorporating digital technologies into their instruction and communication with students and parents, and I know that teachers can use all of the good ideas, best practices, and resources that we can provide. But then I read the article (hat tip to Sylvia Martinez and Bud Hunt) and I was completely dismayed…

As Sylvia and Bud noted on Twitter, many of the web sites presented by the author are quite dated. Geocities and Tripod: weren’t those big in the 1990s? Netscape Composer: Seriously? FrontPage: didn’t Microsoft quit selling that a while ago? The inclusion of such tools calls into serious question the currency, and thus credibility, of the author’s expertise.

The Resources section at the end was similarly lacking. Take a look at Blog Connection. It was one of the two best blogging sites the author could recommend for K-12 educators? And EdBlogger Praxis? The site that hasn’t been updated since February 2007? At least the author linked to eMINTS when it came to wikis…

Instead of tables of outdated web resources and an irrelevant resources section, the author should have included current tools rather than those from 5–10 years ago. Some discussion of the desirability of using outside, non-district-sponsored tools also would have been nice. Instead, the article reads like it was cobbled together by someone who’s rooted in the technology of yesteryear rather than today. This was an opportunity squandered. Is this stuff what the author teaches her students? Doesn’t ISTE have a responsibility to do some checking of article content?

Learning and Leading With Technology is supposed to be helpful to educators in 2008, not 1998. And usually it fulfills that function extremely well. I hate to say this - because I’m rarely critical in public of others (unless they’re clueless leaders who should know better) – but the author and the ISTE editors didn’t do their job with this one.

MIT New Media Literacies project needs some New England high schools

Erin Reilly, Research Director for the New Media Literacies project at MIT, is looking for some New England high schools to pilot test its new Teachers’ Strategy Guide, Reading in a Participatory Culture. Read over the description of the project, check out the web site, and then contact Erin if your school is interested in participating.

FYI, Erin rocks. I met her at the 2007 Leaders in Learning Awards in Washington, DC when she still was running Zoey’s Room. Now she gets to work with Henry Jenkins! Hope some of you can help her out…

Blocking the future

My latest article for the American Association of School Administrators is now online. Titled Blocking the Future, it’s only a page long but I’m really excited about it. Here’s an excerpt:

[S]chool district leaders have a critical choice to make: Will their schools pro-actively model and teach the safe and appropriate use of these digital tools or will they reactively block them out and leave students and families to fend for themselves? Unfortunately, many schools are choosing to do the latter. . . . I can think of no better way to highlight organizational unimportance than to block out the tools that are transforming the rest of society. Schools whose default stance is to prohibit rather than enable might as well plant a sign in front of their buildings that says, “Irrelevant to children’s futures.”

I’ve also made a handy SnipURL:

• http://snipurl.com/blockingthefuture

Hopefully this will be a useful reading for your administrators and teachers. Feel free to distribute liberally!