Dangerously Irrelevant

The future of print, part 3

Here's another envisioning of the forms that traditional print publications are going to take as tablet eReaders and computers become more prevalent. This one is from Penguin Books and shows what some interactive experiences might look like for younger children. 

Previous installments in this series were:

• Yes, this is the future of magazines (and newspapers and books and ...)
• The future of magazines, part 2

Thanks to Fast Company for leading me to this video. Happy viewing!

The status quo no longer suffices: An open letter to the Ames (IA) School Board

The Ames (IA) Community School District – my kids’ district – is hiring both a new superintendent and a new high school principal for next year. Below is the letter I just sent the school board members. I thought some of you might be interested. Everything I do has a Creative Commons license, so feel free to use as desired. Also available in Microsoft Word (.docx) and/or Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format!

——-

March 7, 2010

Fellow Ames citizens and Board members of the Ames Community School District,

I am the coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University and the director of the nation’s only center focused on preparing technology-savvy school leaders. I also am a parent with three children in the school district. With the pending departure of Dr. Beyea and Mr. McGrory, you have the chance to hire both a superintendent and a high school principal that share a new vision for P-12 schooling. I sincerely hope that you will avail yourself of this unique opportunity.

The economic imperative

We currently are living in times of exponential change. Not only have digital technologies radically transformed how we conduct our professional and personal lives, they also are destroying entire segments of our society. Non-location-dependent manual labor jobs are increasingly offshored to the developing world, coordinated through technology-suffused global supply chains. Many service jobs also are increasingly fungible, able to be located anywhere in the world that has an Internet connection. The next two decades will see many complex service jobs broken up into component parts, much as we did in previous decades for manufacturing work. Once these tasks are disaggregated, they will be done by lower-skilled workers who can do these discrete components of the overall work, facilitated by software. In other words, many high-paying service jobs will turn into globalized piece work. Since the service professions represent 60% of our nation’s economy, the impacts of this are going to be quite significant. Our school system must prepare graduates for our new economic reality.

The educational imperative

We are creating a new information landscape for ourselves, something that we have not done as a society in centuries. The printing press removed third-party intermediaries (the king’s messenger, the priest) between average citizens and access to information. This new revolution is disintermediating the creation of information, allowing us all to be content creators, not just recipients.

We no longer live in an information push-out world where we passively receive information that is broadcast out to us by large entities. We all now can have a voice. We all now can be publishers. We all now can find each other’s thoughts and ideas and share, cooperate, collaborate, and take collective action. Time and geography are no longer barriers to working together. This too is destroying entire segments of our society.

Long-existing barriers to learning also are disappearing. We now have the ability to learn anything from anyone, at any time, anywhere. Our informal learning is exploding. Formal learning institutions are scrambling to reinvent themselves for the new digital paradigm. Our school system must prepare graduates who are masters of our new information landscape.

The status quo no longer suffices

We are blessed to live in a community whose families possess a tremendous amount of intellectual and social capital. We have a community that understands science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) issues like no other in the state. Our community is not just globally-aware but globally savvy, with international experience and understanding rarely found outside of large cities. We have a community that deeply cares about its children’s education. These are powerful assets, but we cannot afford to be complacent. The status quo no longer suffices.

The technological and information revolutions that now are occurring are upending everything. Our society is being reshaped in significant ways, and the process is just getting started as digital tools and environments continue to advance at a rapid pace. Every information-oriented societal sector - journalism, banking, medicine, politics, travel agencies, music, higher education, television, and real estate, just to name a few - are finding that transformative reinvention is the cost of survival in our current climate. Schools shouldn’t expect that they somehow will be immune from the same changes that are radically altering other information-oriented societal sectors. We can’t continue to pretend that these revolutions aren’t going to affect us too, in compelling and as yet unknown ways.

Dr. Tony Wagner, Harvard University, notes that there are two achievement gaps in this country. The first is the gap between the educational experiences of middle-class children and those of most poor and minority children. The second gap is that between what even our very best schools are teaching and testing versus what all students will need to be successful in today’s globally interconnected, technology-suffused, information economy. The new educational paradigm requires an emphasis on critical thinking, collaborative problem-solving, creativity and innovation, information fluency and media literacy, data synthesis and analysis, and the applied use of many other higher-level cognitive skills, much more frequently than we currently are doing in our classrooms.

Our students and schools have a tremendous track record of academic success here in Ames. We have many things of which to be rightfully proud. But the second global achievement gap that Dr. Wagner so aptly describes will increasingly be an issue for our schools and our community if we do not transition from a system in which student success is judged by mastery of lower-level cognitive work to one that emphasizes to a much greater degree the skills of higher-level thinking and real-world application.

Future-oriented leadership

The Board has an opportunity this year to fill two critical positions with educators who understand the new landscape that I have described above, who may even have a track record of success at preparing students for the demands of the next half century. The Ames Community Schools already are an exemplar for many of the state’s school districts. Given the tremendous assets that we have in this community, with the right leadership we not only could do what’s right by our kids but also be an exemplar for the nation and the world. I am hopeful that you will see this hiring opportunity for what it is and act accordingly.

If you are interested, you may view my presentation to the National Education Association Board of Directors on this topic at www.3dwriting.com/mcleod. My presentation to the Dubuque School Board is available at http://bit.ly/c3NnNt. I also would be happy to talk further with the Board about this at any time.

Thank you.
 
Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D.
dangerouslyirrelevant.org/bio.html
dangerouslyirrelevant.org/contact.html

BlogBall10 - Edublogger fantasy baseball returns for Year 3! [registration due March 21]

It's spring training for Major League Baseball and that means it’s time for another season of edublogger fantasy baseball! Last year’s champions, Vinnie Vrotny and Rick Heitmeyer, have their trophies and hopefully will be back to defend their titles (we had enough participants for 2 leagues last year). I shall return as well, hoping to improve on my annual late-season collapse.

Same rules and league settings as the two previous years. A trophy for the winner(s). Friendly banter, potential bragging rights, and loads of baseball fun could be yours!

If you’re interested, complete the BlogBall10 online registration form no later than March 21, 2010. First come, first serve. You must have an active education blog to participate. We'll make as many leagues as we can fill. Opening Day is April 4!

TEDxASB and TEDxNYED: Getting YouTube channels into iTunes

Yesterday was the TEDxNYED event in New York City. Many of us watched the LiveStream online.

Last week was the TEDxASB event in Mumbai, India. I had the pleasure of both attending and speaking.

Both events had some great speakers (I’ll let you decide if I was one of them!). Other TEDx events do also, and many of the videos will be uploaded to the TEDxTalks YouTube channel for others to see after the fact.

I wanted to get the TedxTalks YouTube channel into iTunes, but didn’t want to download each video individually. Could I get the YouTube RSS feed into iTunes? Yes, with RSSHandler! [click on image for larger version]

Simply put the URL of the YouTube feed into the box, change the format to MP4, and click on the Generate button. Voila! A feed that you can put into iTunes as a podcast subscription. You can do this for any YouTube user’s video channel. Awesome!

Hope this is helpful. Happy viewing!

Notes from India: Pictures and Tweets from ASB Unplugged and Mumbai

For those of you who are interested, here is the Flickr photo set for ASB Unplugged, a February 1:1 laptop conference for international schools that was sponsored by the American School of Bombay in Mumbai, India. You may recognize a few edublogger faces like Vicki Davis, Julie Lindsay, Doug Johnson, Kim Cofino, Susan Sedro, Nick Sauers, and others!

And here is the Flickr set of the pictures I took of India while I was there (these also are intermingled in the ASB Unplugged set above). I also took some video.

And here is the Flickr set of the pictures of India that I took two years ago when I was there for the inaugural ASB Unplugged event. I also took some video.

Finally, here are all of the Tweets from this year’s conference:

• Twitter search for #asbup2010
• Google spreadsheet of Tweets

Why don't schools with the biggest challenges have access to the biggest talent?

Rethink Learning Now asks:

Why don't schools with the biggest challenges have access to the biggest talent?

Answer My answer:

Because as educational systems we allow individual teacher preferences and/or union seniority systems to trump what’s best for kids.

If the Number 1 school influence on students’ success is the quality of their teachers, the fact that we often (usually?) give our most disadvantaged students our least-qualified instructors is an indictment of all of us.

Many districts across the country are laying off teachers right now. This would seem an especially critical time to ensure that the kids who need the best teachers get them. Instead, prepare for another summer round of the ‘dance of the lemons’ (or ‘pass the trash’). Shame on us.

[hat tip to Carolyn Foote for the video]

Literature in 60 seconds?

I got an e-mail from the folks at 60second Recap about their service. They use video trailers to summarize - and/or interest students in - great works of literature.

Check out the new book trailer for Night by Elie Wiesel. Do you think the trailer will make more students interested in reading the book (I thought it was interesting that they said “watch to find out,” not “read to find out”)? Also, here’s a complete series of videos for George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Many more are available at the site.

What do you think of these videos? Are these viable alternatives to the venerable CliffsNotes or the more recent SparkNotes or eNotes? Do these types of services fill a valuable function for students? If so, would it be more valuable for students to make these themselves?

Notes from India: Educators as risk-takers

I just returned from ASB Unplugged, a 1:1 school laptop conference hosted by the American School of Bombay in Mumbai, India. If you can imagine nearly 300 educators from international schools all across the world - all talking about technology integration and implementation, effective instruction, and empowering leadership within the context of 1:1 laptop programs - then you probably can guess what a great time I had. I was in charge of the leadership strand of the conference. Jamie Fath and Nick Sauers, whom many Iowa educators know from the Transitioning and Boot Camp training that CASTLE is doing with the School Administrators of Iowa, accompanied me. The conversations that the three of us had with the international educators were extraordinarily robust, meaningful, and insightful. My time in India sparked some thinking about educators and risk-taking…

Part 1: International educators are risk-takers

One of the things from the conference that resonated with me was the international educators’ willingness to take risks. If you’ve been teaching the same thing in the same school for the past 15 to 20 years, it may seem like a fairly big deal when someone then comes in and asks you to start integrating this technology stuff into your daily teaching practice in a meaningful way. On the other hand, if you’ve already packed up your entire family and headed off to work in Nairobi, Kenya - and then Caracas, Venezuela - and then Budapest, Hungary - and then Doha, Qatar - and then Shanghai, China - you’ve already taken the enormous risk of repeatedly uprooting your entire lifestyle and adjusting to a new school, city, and country. For international educators who already have proven themselves as risk-takers, being asked to pull technology into their educational practice may not seem as big a deal.

So I think one of the biggest assets these international schools have - even more than their globally-minded students and parents and their tremendous financial resources (tuition often is upward of $30,000 per student) - is that they have buildings full of educators who already have established themselves as risk-takers. It seems to me that a school full of people who are willing to try things - to ‘give it a go,’ if you will - is extraordinarily well-poised to be successful in a rapidly-changing climate such as that in which we now live. The challenge for those of us who don’t work in such schools is how we create this kind of learning climate within our own organizations.

Part 2: Wouldn’t Google’s CSI event be a good model for educators?

Google has an annual event called Crazy Search Ideas (CSI), for which employees bring their most offbeat ideas about Internet search to the table for vetting. This is a classic technique to foster innovative brainstorming. Why don’t schools do this? I’m sure that front-line educators have plenty of out-of-the-box ideas that might potentially be breakthroughs for school organizational and/or instructional logjams. Until we find ways to empower school employees’ risk-taking and innovation - and then scale successes to the larger school system - we’re never going to become the true learning organizations that we need to be.

Part 3: Assessing educators’ willingness to take risks

I’m working with an ISU honors Psychology student, Hana, to identify assessments of individuals’ proclivity to take risks. What we’d like to do is run some educators against the assessment(s) to see if they’re more likely to be high or low risk-takers. We may even do some comparative work where we also assess professionals in other industries. If your school or organization might be interested in participating in this project, please drop me a note in the next couple of weeks.

Seth Godin: It's easier to teach compliance than initiative

Ordinarily we bloggers don’t repost someone else’s entire blog post. But I just had to for this recent post by Seth Godin, It's easier to teach compliance than initiative. Read it and weep.

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It's difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it's a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They're pretty good at it.

To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.

Of course, now that's all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

ComETS 2010 - Academic blogging communities, extreme presentation makeovers, and 21st century learning in universities

Iowa State University held its second annual ComETS symposium a couple of weeks ago. Faculty, professional staff, and a few outside folks gathered together to talk about technology integration and implementation in higher education.

Building a community of practice through blogging

Below is my 10–minute ‘lightning strike’ presentation, Building a Community of Practice Through Blogging. I didn’t have my ‘A game’ that day and wasn’t as energetic a presenter as I usually am. I also spent too much time on the ‘creating a listening station’ portion and not enough time on the ‘participating in the conversation’ portion. That ratio was supposed to be 50–50, not 75–25. Despite all that, I think that the presentation came out pretty well and is a solid introduction to RSS and blogging communities for academics. Here’s a quote from my talk:

Most academics have yet to realize the power of social media. . . .

The reason we go to academic conferences is for the conversations. It’s not for the research presentations because you know how good those are. And it’s not to access the papers because we can get those in other channels. It’s to be around other people and have those conversations in the hall and after the sessions and at dinner and so on that solidify our relationships with people. Well, now we can have those conversations year-round. All we have to do is choose to be part of the conversation.

Extreme presentation makeover 

My faculty colleague, John Nash, also gave a lightning strike presentation titled Extreme Presentation Makeover. He took some slides from our rejected UCEA presentation proposal and went to town. [Note to self: always present before John, not after, because he’s a hard act to follow!]. He also has a blog post about his presentation. Here’s a quote from his talk:

The other thing that we generally fail to think about when we give presentations is a call to action. What is it that you want someone to do after you’re done?

All of the symposium videos are available at the ComETS symposium web site and also are being uploaded to the ISU YouTube channel. 

Charting our course: Exploring 21st century learning

Our keynote for the symposium was Malcolm Brown from Educause. Here are my notes from his talk:

"Improvement in postsecondary education will require converting teaching from a 'solo sport' to a community-based research activity." - Herbert Simon

Technology predictions v. course charting

The pace and scale of Internet change is unprecedented, so it's very hard to wrap our heads around it. 

Every second 1,157 videos are uploaded to YouTube.

2.2 million e-mails sent every second

What Colleges Should Learn from Newspapers' Decline

iTunes has many academic lectures / lessons

So does Academic Earth

I love this line from the Kaplan University video: "?"

Funny thing about paradigm shifts: If we knew what the next paradigm was, we'd already be there.

Where is the student in all of this?

The opportunity is in increased student engagement [Do most profs at research universities really care about increased student engagement? If so, they haven't really showed it to date.]

How we learn, National Academies Press

Discussed the impact of the printing press

The 3 Cs of mobile computing

1. Content - delivery, anywhere anytime, ebooks, etextbooks, etc.
2. Collaboration - language learning, formative assessment, first-hand data collection, etc.
3. Community - student authors, leveraging messaging, enhanced polling, etc.

Angela Maiers: We haven't invited our students to be creators or co-creators of content.

Malcolm just cited quick penetration of clickers as examples of higher ed moving more quickly on the tech front

'Some' is not a rebuttal

Expanding from those that already are technology-inclined to those that need to be

I think that all colleges and universities should have technology communities like ComETS at ISU and at University of Wisconsin-Madison. I said to Jim Twetten, who’s heading the ComETS efforts here:

I like ComETS because it's an opportunity to learn from other ISU educators, both faculty and professional staff, across campus who are doing interesting things with digital technologies. The annual ComETS symposium gives us an opportunity to intersect face-to-face in a variety of different ways. The ongoing ComETS listserv connects us and allows us to share and discuss in between symposia. We're off to a good start. Now the challenge becomes: how do we expand from those that already are technology-inclined to those that need to be? The latter group is much larger than the former...

You can see some backchannel conversations from the symposium by searching for the Twitter hashtag: #comets. Happy reading!

Our April 7 Iowa 1:1 Institute (I11I) is full!

Just a quick post to note that registration for our Iowa 1:1 Institute (I11I) on April 7 is now closed. We hit our mark of 500 attendees last week despite doing very little publicity.

I’m excited. This conference has grown very organically (we’ve used Edubloggercon as a model; thanks, Steve Hargadon!). It’s going to be a great day!

Should Orange County (FL) Public Schools have a social media policy for educators?

[This is the text of an e-mail I just sent the 7 board members for the Orange County (FL) Public Schools.]

Dear OCPS School Board members,

Greetings from the freezing state of Iowa!

I read with interest the recent Orlando Sentinel article on educators, students, and social media. Before you forge ahead with any policies that target any specific technologies (whether they be cell phones, messaging formats, or online social media tools), I would encourage you to read my short blog post on this:

• No Facebook for you!

The key point of the post is that tools and technologies both change and actually are irrelevant to the underlying issue of inappropriate teacher behavior. If you feel as a board that your existing policies are insufficient (and I would be surprised if what you need already isn't in place), I hope that at least you will not frame them in terms of specific technologies (per my reasoning in the blog post).

I would be happy to discuss this with some or all of you if so desired. All my best.

What's RIGHT with the edublogosphere?

Continuing the conversation from yesterday when I asked “What’s WRONG with the edublogosphere?”, today I invite you to share what you think is RIGHT in our not-so-little edublogger world.

   What’s right with edublogging?
   (or, if you like, What’s right with the edublogosphere?)

Please share your thoughts, either in the comments area or as a post on your own blog (leave us a link in the comments area, though!). As Darren Rowse notes, this is a great opportunity to deconstruct the medium. Share whatever you want as long as it is positive. If you’ve got something negative to say about the edublogosphere, see the post from yesterday.

I’m looking forward to seeing your thoughts!

What's WRONG with the edublogosphere?

Darren Rowse had a brilliant idea to ask, “What’s wrong with blogging?” I think we should ask this about the edublogosphere as well. So…

   What’s wrong with edublogging?
   (or, if you like, What’s wrong with the edublogosphere?)

I invite you to share your thoughts, either in the comments area or as a post on your own blog (please leave us a link in the comments area, though!). As Darren notes, this is a great opportunity to deconstruct the medium and get some stuff off your chest that frustrates you about the edublogosphere. Share whatever you want as long as it is NOT positive (as Darren says!). Also, it probably would be more polite if you wrote about general issues rather than go after particular bloggers (if you must do the latter, go easy on me!).

I’m looking forward to seeing your thoughts. Note that tomorrow I’ll ask you what’s RIGHT with the edublogosphere!

The future of magazines, Part 2

Sports Illlustrated offered its thoughts on what an electronic version of the magazine might look like. Now Wired has done the same. As the iPad and other similar devices permeate society, will we still call these magazines?

The zealous monitoring of students and teachers continues

In October 2007 I wrote:

[M]any administrators dispense with students' 4th Amendment rights in the name of 'safety.' They know what the law says, but community pressures or perceived dangers outweigh Constitutional rights. Many of these administrators are in schools with no history of violence or threats. But Columbine freaked everyone out - if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere - so anything goes when it comes to student rights.

The zealous electronic monitoring of P-12 students and teachers continues. Some is legal, some is not. The use of webcams to monitor students at home without their or their parents’ knowledge is likely illegal. The use of Web monitoring and/or keylogging software to keep track of teachers’ online usage is likely legal, although it fosters a culture of employee distrust. Complicating all of this is school organizations’ obligation to ensure environments free of bullying and sexual harassment.

Too many administrators – driven by spurious media reports, parent anxiety, desires for control and order, and a natural tendency to avoid controversy and cover their asses bases – are all too willing to sacrifice educational opportunities and/or essential liberties in the name of ‘safety.’ Of course we pay a cost for this, one that isn’t discussed nearly enough.

It is unclear at what point we will say, “Enough!” Right now the end to this is nowhere in sight. I’m afraid we’re going to look back one day and ask, “What have we done to ourselves in the name of safety?”

Related posts

• Surveillance society, safe schools
• Cell phone cameras in the K-12 classroom: Punishable offenses or student-citizen journalism?
• Classroom cameras
• Agreement and trust

My answers on the ISTE SIGAdmin survey

The ISTE SIGAdmin just asked its membership two questions. Here are my answers…

1. How has the Internet changed thinking?

The Internet has allowed distributed thinking (and thus learning) to become more visible, thus facilitating conversations (and thus learning) and connections and collaborations that previously were impossible.

2. What Web 2.0 tool do you find most helpful in your administrative work?

Google Reader is without a doubt the most useful tool in my technology arsenal. As much as my blog is doing for me (and it's doing lots), I'm watching over 500 feeds in my Reader - organized by topical folders - and my learning (quantity, quality, rate) is astounding me right now.

What would you have said?

Our April 7 Iowa 1:1 Institute (I11I) is filling fast!

Just a few weeks after publicizing our first-ever Iowa 1:1 Institute (I11I), we already have over 300 people who have registered to attend on April 7. Our registration is capped at 500, so if you’re interested, sign up soon! Oh, did I mention that attendance is FREE?

Angela Maiers has agreed to be our keynote speaker. It looks like Wes Fryer will be coming to do a few sessions. The CASTLE staff will be in action as well.

What else are we doing that day? Well, how about a couple of Web 2.0 Smackdowns, a TweetUp, and a variety of role-alike conversations for teachers, administrators, and board members? And some space set aside for an ‘unconference.’ And, of course, lots of good sessions from 1:1 laptop districts in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Illinois. And whatever else we come up with…

Stay tuned. Hope to see you in Des Moines in April!

My fall sabbatical: What should I do? Where should I go?

 

I am extremely pleased that Iowa State University approved my request to take my first-ever sabbatical this fall semester. I will be spending the bulk of my time away working on a book or two. I have a multitude of ideas that are extremely eager to get out of my head and into publication!

In addition to my writing, I also will have time to do a little bit of traveling, in the fall as well as next spring and summer. So I’m looking for some interesting opportunities, particularly chances for me to learn and/or teach in places that I’ve never been before. If there are people / places / programs that I should go see in action, or events for which I should consider attending / presenting, please let me know! Right now my schedule for next year is almost completely wide open. [Note: depending on what the opportunity is, I might need assistance with travel funding!]

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions that you have!

CASTLE adds 3 new blog partners!

As part of our never-ending quest to tap into the potential of social media to enhance the practice of school administrators (and the university programs that prepare them), I am pleased to announce that CASTLE has added three new blogs to its portfolio. Two of the three blogs have been in existence for a long while; the third is a new blog by a faculty colleague.

Are we trying to become the Weblogs, Inc. or Gawker Media (or Education Week) of the edublogosphere? No, not exactly. But we ARE trying to assemble a portfolio of blogs that meet the various technology and/or leadership needs of practicing school leaders.

Our blogs

Here are the blogs that we’ve initiated to date (and their topical focus):

1. Dangerously Irrelevant (technology, leadership, and school reform)
2. LeaderTalk (school leadership; group blog)
3. Edjurist (school law; group blog)
4. 1to1 Schools (1:1 laptop programs; group blog)

To this mix, we’ve now added the following (which fill in a few significant topical areas in which we were lacking)…

5. Virtual High School Meanderings (online schooling)

Dr. Michael Barbour, an Assistant Professor at Wayne State University, has been blogging about online schooling for years. As you’ll see if you read it for a while, if it has to do with online schooling, you’ll likely find it at Michael’s blog. Michael posts A LOT; the comprehensiveness of information he provides is astounding. Michael also maintains a virtual schooling wiki or you can follow him on Twitter. Michael’s blog soon will be renamed Virtual School Meanderings to reflect the growth of online schooling in earlier grades. 

Here are some representative posts to get you started:

• Idaho needs our attention
• Documenting Clovis - End of semester edition
• The impact of opencourseware on paid enrollment in distance learning courses
• Virtual schooling in the news
• Virtual schooling presentations at SITE

6. Educational Games Research (educational gaming)

John Rice is an educator, author, and speaker, as well as a doctoral student at the University of North Texas, who has been blogging about educational gaming since February 2007. I am a learner in the area of educational gaming so I always gain a lot from John’s posts. John does a nice job of looking at K-12 and higher education and also includes a post now and then on corporate simulations, serious gaming, and the like.

Here are some representative posts to get you started:

• Learning STEMs from McLarin’s Adventures in Oklahoma
• Animating the news: How videogame technologies can alter our perceptions of real live events
• How to design an educational video game: Three important considerations
• Study: Reaction times lowered via video games
• Toy spy robots: A practical way to teach programming

7. School Finance 101 (school finance / policy)

I have known Dr. Bruce Baker, school finance professor extraordinaire, for many years. Bruce is a fantastic scholar. His interests extend far beyond school finance to include a variety of policy and leadership issues. Those of us in educational leadership academic circles know that Bruce is not afraid to take on the establishment and confront uncomfortable political and educational truths. I was delighted to see that Bruce started blogging more extensively last fall and was even more pleased when he agreed to join us. Bruce writes about deep, significant school funding and/or policy issues, but does so in a way that’s accessible to those of us who aren’t experts in this area. You also can find Bruce on Twitter.

Here are some representative posts to get you started:

• Racial achievement gaps and within-district funding inequity
• Why do states with the “best” data systems have the worst schools?
• Pondering the usefulness of value-added assessment of teachers
• NCTQ teacher quality ratings: Where’s the “quality?”
• New Jersey teacher salaries: Spiraling out of control?

I encourage you to subscribe to all three of these blogs for a while. There is some really important information and thinking coming out of all three of these channels. I can guarantee that you’ll learn a lot and gain some valuable resources for your own work.

Next steps

What lies ahead for the CASTLE blogs? Well, we will be shifting a couple of our existing blogs over to WordPress, so you’ll see some visual changes and added functionality in the next few months. We’re going to add some new authors to our group blogs, particularly LeaderTalk and 1to1 Schools. And we’re in conversations with our sponsor, the University Council for Educational Administration, about initiating a blog that deals with school leadership for social justice. If you’ve got some other suggestions for us, or know of a blog that might be a good addition to our portfolio, let me know!

Happy reading!

Do teachers (and professors) have an obligation to be interesting?

Any thoughts on this?

Are Iowa's teacher retention efforts worth the money?

Like most states, Iowa is concerned with the retention rate of its new teachers. Over the past decade Iowa has instituted a number of different efforts to combat new teacher turnover, including:

1. participation in a 2-year induction program by every new teacher;
2. an annual statewide mentoring and induction institute;
3. an annual awards program that recognizes outstanding new teacher mentoring and leadership;
4. a mentoring and induction network that operates through our Area Educational Agencies (AEAs);
5. a mentoring and induction statewide steering committee;
6. development of a mentoring and induction model that districts and AEAs can implement; and
7. at least one statewide survey of new teachers, mentors, and administrators.

As the latest report from the Iowa Department of Education notes, Iowa’s efforts have improved its new teacher retention rate. Of the 3,520 first- and second-year teachers that began the year in 2007-2008, 3,243 (92.1%) returned in 2008-2009. Only 277 new teachers left the profession. If Iowa was still losing new teachers at the 2001 rate (87.5%), we would have lost 440 teachers instead. In other words, all of the above activity resulted in a net retention gain of 163 teachers.

How much is too much? The cost of each net new teacher retained.

How much did all of this cost? Well, the Iowa Department of Education allocation table shows that in 2007-2008 the Iowa Department of Education spent $4,678,050 on payments to new teacher mentors and their districts or AEAs (Item 1 above). The costs for Items 2 through 7 were covered by grants and other funding sources. This means that Iowa spent $28,700 for each net new teacher retained (total cost / 163) for Item 1 alone, never mind whatever additional expenses there were for Items 2 through 7.

Of course this raises the question of whether the net gain was worth the financial outlay by the state. Most of us are in favor of trying to improve new teacher retention and school district educator induction. At some point, however, the cost becomes too prohibitive for the gain achieved. Is this how much we should spend for each net new teacher retained?

Punya Mishra goes head-to-head with the Kaplan University commercial

Many of you may have seen this commercial for Kaplan University. It made the rounds in the edublogosphere because of its message about change, talent, and learner-centered instruction. I’ve used it myself in several presentations to higher education folks.

Now Dr. Punya Mishra, of Michigan State University and TPACK fame, offers his take on the commercial as he reflects on his own new graduate program. I think you’ll enjoy his 2-minute video. Happy viewing!

Some early (and good) edublogosphere conversations about Google Buzz

In case you missed the news, Google’s latest service, Buzz, is now available to most users of Gmail. Here are three Google Buzz conversations from which I’m learning a lot:

• Bud Hunt
• Will Richardson
• Ben Wilkoff

I love how dynamic and helpful the conversations are about this new tool. It makes me feel sorry for folks who aren’t tapped into these types of channels for learning.

Here is Google’s video explaining Buzz. More information is available at the Google Buzz web site.

Video - Online learning

Here’s a 10-minute video I helped make that advocates for P-12 online learning. Created by Intermediate District 287 in Minnesota, which heads up the Northern Star Online collaborative, the video features Mike Smart, 2007 Minnesota Teacher of the Year, and a number of other Minnesota educators and students. The video will be used for educational and policy advocacy purposes with community members, parents, administrators, and legislators.

Here’s my favorite statement I made in the video (at 7:20):

One of the things I think we have to ask ourselves as school leaders is ‘What’s our moral imperative to prepare kids for a digital, global age?’ Right now we’re sort of ignoring that requirement. . . . I think you would take a look at much of what we do in our current schooling system and just toss it and essentially start over. So the question for school leaders and for policymakers is ‘How brave are you and how visionary are you going to be?’ And you don’t even have to be that visionary. Just look around right now and see the trends that already are happening and just project those out and see that it’s going to be a very different world.

Happy viewing!

Video - The Class

Here’s the latest educational technology video that’s making the rounds. I know a few professors like this!

“If you are here, why are we Skyping?”

Grading student projects: Separating content from delivery

I am a big fan of student choice. When students work on projects, I think that they should have as much choice as possible regarding both the topic and the delivery. Choice increases student buy-in and ownership.

Teachers allow choice of topics, not delivery

When teachers and I talk about integrating technology into their lessons, I encourage them to try and build in more choice for students. Most teachers already allow students to choose topics of study, at least some of the time. For example, students are allowed to pick a historical figure, select a mystery book, decide what they sculpt out of clay, and so on.

Fewer teachers seem to be comfortable with student choice of delivery. For any given project, how students show their learning often is tightly circumscribed. Teachers, not students, typically decide whether the end product will be a written report, diorama, oral presentation, mobile, clay sculpture, poster, etc. Teachers, not students, determine what the evaluation criteria will be for delivery, often in excruciating detail. I have seen many of these delivery mechanism evaluation rubrics: they’re normally designed to be student-proof. There’s very little leeway for student decision-making and thus, in the teacher’s mind, error.

The digital technologies that we now have available to us open up a wealth of new ways for students to show their learning. Many of these tools also make it easy for students to work collaboratively. I think there is growing pressure on teachers to open up student delivery choices to include many of these new digital learning options. Parents and students see what the possibilites are and wonder why they aren’t available in their local classrooms.

The need to separate content from delivery

As teachers move in this direction, I think it’s going to be increasingly important to help teachers learn how to separate content (what students need to learn) from delivery (how students show they have learned). Often the two are intertwined in teachers’ minds, and it is hard for many educators to partition grading of the learned content from grading of the delivery mechanism.

I also have heard from teachers that, even if they’re amenable to - and/or experienced at - giving separate grades for content and delivery, they don’t know how to grade effective delivery when students use digital tools. Over time the teaching profession has evolved general ideas about what ‘quality’ looks like when it comes to a written report, a poster, or an oral presentation. Fewer instructors know what they should look for to determine the quality of a video, collaborative mind map, wiki, or photo essay.

It might be helpful for a group of teachers (and students) to come together to create a set of quality rubrics for various common digital tools. Those content-neutral rubrics could then be applied to relevant student work, regardless of subject area. Obviously these rubrics would have to be age-sensitive; what we’d expect from an 8-year-old would be different than what we’d look for from a high-schooler. Also, there may be certain projects for which the creation of a ‘content-neutral’ delivery evaluation rubric is infeasible because the content and delivery are too tightly intertwined. For many situations, however, I think that these rubrics could be incredibly useful.

We need to figure this out

I think we’re going to have to wrap our heads around this as educators. Our tools for exhibiting our learning are going to continue to proliferate. We can’t just keep assigning the tried-and-true, analog-only solutions that we still see dominating current classroom practice.

I confess that to date I have exhibited a lack of flair for creating these types of rubrics, so I’m not sure I’m the one to look to for examples. Others, I know, have a real gift for making rubrics; at least some of them have to be tech-savvy enough to take this task on. Doea anyone know of folks who are doing good work in this area? Do you have other thoughts on this topic?

Photo credit: Making the grade

Many service jobs will become globalized piece work

I’m reading a fantastic book right now: Futurecast, by Robert Shapiro. In the section on globalization, Shapiro notes that the first waves of globalization primarily affected manufacturing. Millions of American jobs were 'offshored' in the 1970s and 1980s as global companies set up factories overseas instead of here in the U.S. For all of the current rhetoric about ‘Benedict Arnold’ corporations that offshore jobs, they essentially have to since their competitors are doing so. Few companies can survive in a hypercompetitive global economy when they’re paying labor rates 5 to 25 times that of the competition. FYI, the average manufacturing worker earns between $21 and $25 per hour in the USA, France, and Japan. Contrast that with the average hourly rate of a manufacturing employee in Korea ($14), Taiwan ($7), or Mexico ($3). Or recognize that factory workers in China or India earn an average of less than $1 an hour. It’s easy to see why any manufacturing job that can be offshored probably will be offshored.

Although manufacturing has been an important component (about 20%) of the American economy, the services industries are a much larger segment (about 60%) of our economic productivity. Shapiro notes that in the next 10 to 15 years, we’re going to see this employment sector dramatically impacted by globalization and offshoring due to advances in software. It is now possible to take many complex service jobs and break them up into component parts, much as we did in previous decades for manufacturing work. Once these tasks are disaggregated, it becomes much easier to train lower-skilled workers to do these discrete components of the overall work, facilitated by software. In other words, instead of companies needing highly-paid American workers, developing countries ‘will be able to train millions of their young people to carry out discrete subsets of those jobs’ (p. 103). Corporations ‘can divvy out the pieces of larger service jobs to any number of professional staffs, connected through Internet networks, and then assemble the results in one place’ (p. 104) [again, like in manufacturing]. As you can imagine, the impacts of this on the American economy are going to be quite significant.

Yet another reason to teach our students to be adaptive and for them to spend as much time as possible on higher-level cognitive work (i.e., the kind of work that can’t be turned into piece work).

"Just tell me what to do"

Seth Godin wrote today that:

People are just begging to be told what to do. There are a lot of reasons for this, but I think the biggest one is: "If you tell me what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not mine. I'm safe."

I think another big reason is that most people spent at least 12 years of their life being deeply socialized in the “just tell me what to do” model.

We know that schools strongly emphasize compliance in the name of order and discipline. We know that the fact-regurgitation model that still dominates schooling mostly leads to the student mentality of “Just tell me what to do to get a B,” rather than “Inspire me to follow my passions and interests and learn more about this on my own.” We shouldn’t be surprised when our graduates take that mentality with them into higher education and/or the workplace.

Great Scott!

A baker's dozen of great Scott blogs…

1. Dilbert Blog, Scott Adams
2. Scott Berkun, Scott Berkun (wrote a fantastic book, BTW!)
3. Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider, Scott Kelby
4. HELLO, my name is Blog!, Scott Ginsberg
5. The Social Media Marketing Blog, Scott Monty
6. Laughing Squid, Scott Beale
7. World in Motion, Scott Erb
8. ISO50, Scott Hansen
9. Higher Edison, Scott Schwister
10. Smeech.net, Scott Meech
11. Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?, Scott Elias
12. Dangerously Irrelevant, Scott McLeod (yours truly)
13. edu.blogs.com, Ewan McIntosh (technically a Scot, not a Scott)

Not a bad read in the bunch!

Update: I can't believe I forgot to include Scott McCloud.com by Scott McCloud. He was born Scott McLeod, just like me. Embarrassing!

Iowa 1:1 Institute and Iowa 1:1 Network

Iowa’s first-ever conference dedicated solely to P-12 laptop programs, the Iowa 1:1 Institute (I11I), will be on April 7, 2010 at the Polk County Convention Complex in Des Moines. Administrators, teachers, media specialists, technology staff, and other educators are all encouraged to attend.

Registration is FREE.

• Learn more about the Institute
• Register to attend (registration is now CLOSED)
• See who else is attending
• Register to present  (no commercial sales pitches allowed)

Also, the Iowa 1:1 Network is growing rapidly. Learn more and join yourself!

Van Meter students wow the Iowa legislature

On January 28, several students in the Van Meter Community School District demonstrated to Iowa legislators the work that they are now able to do as a result of the district’s 1:1 laptop initiative. Sandra Dop, the Department of Education’s 21st Century Skills Coordinator, wrote about the encounter:

When the legislators asked, “So what can we do to get out of your way and let you go?”, I nearly cried.

I will forever be proud to have witnessed it!

Will the legislators follow up their words with action? I can be hopeful, can’t I?

No early impacts on the NEA

Last month I gave an inspired presentation to the Board of Directors for the National Education Association (NEA), our nation’s largest teachers union. As you can see from the NEA’s latest poll of its members, apparently I didn’t have much impact on its thinking, at least at this early stage. There is absolutely no recognition in the survey of the dramatic technological and information-related changes that we’re experiencing. [sigh]

Something's screwy with Feedburner?

According to Feedburner, here are the subscriber numbers for Dangerously Irrelevant for the past 7 days. Either Feedburner’s got a glitch in its monitoring/reporting or people are finally discovering my brilliance (it’s about time!). Anyone else seeing this?

Knowledge and meaning

In case you missed them, here are a couple of slides that Darren Kuropatwa recently posted in the Great Quotes About Learning and Change Flickr pool:

Slide credits

• Knowledge isn’t in our heads
• People construct meaning

School law feeds (and other resources) for Google Reader

This is the message that I just sent my Education Law and Ethics students (the two cohorts are in Des Moines and Mason City, Iowa). Thought I’d share here too…

———

Time to set up Google Reader!

1. Watch this video:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

2. Go to www.google.com/reader. Sign in with your new Gmail account info if need be. Once you’re in, click on the gray ‘Add a subscription box’ (top left). Paste in the first URL below. Repeat for each of the remaining links on the list. When you’re done, you should have 11 ‘feeds’ in your subscription list (bottom left). Click on a specific feed name to see items from just that one. Click on ‘All items’ (top left) to see all 11 feeds mixed together.

• http://www.nsba.org/RSS/MainMenu/SchoolLaw/LegalClips.aspx
• http://www.edjurist.com/blog/ (a CASTLE blog)
• http://educationlaw.foxrothschild.com/
• http://www.schoolsecurityblog.com/
• http://miketully.net/blog/
• http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/
• http://specialeducationlawblog.blogspot.com/
• http://jeffmarcus-specialedlaw.blogspot.com/
• http://www.detentionslip.org
• http://twitter.com/ELAOffice
• http://twitter.com/aimeebissonette

3. My goodness, what have we done? Well, we’ve just saved you time by putting ten school law-related feeds into one place. Now you’ll be up to date on all of the latest school law news and you’ll only have to go to one location (www.google.com/reader) rather than ten! Try to visit Google Reader at least once or twice per week just to stay current.

4. Note that you can add other feeds to Google Reader too! For example…

• http://feeds.feedburner.com/dangerouslyirrelevant (my blog)
• http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/ (another CASTLE blog)
• http://www.desmoinesregister.com/rss (click on an orange button, then add that URL to your Reader)
• http://www.globegazette.com/news/ (click on an orange button, then add that URL to your Reader)
• http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/
• http://content.usatoday.com/marketing/rss/index.aspx
• http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/index.html
• http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/rss/index
• http://www.news.iastate.edu/rss/
• http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Des+Moines+IA+USIA0231?lswe=des%20moines,%20ia&from=searchbox_localwx
• http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Mason+City+IA+USIA0541?lswe=mason%20city,%20ia&from=searchbox_localwx

5. Start looking for the letters ‘RSS’ and/or the little orange RSS symbol on web sites. Those tell you that you can add that site’s content to Google Reader, meaning one less place you have to visit separately on the Web. Use Google Reader to ease your personal, professional, and academic lives. See the attached file for ways you can supercharge your Google Reader experience!

6. Get in touch if you have questions / difficulty!

Google Reader Tips (click on image for larger version)

Does ASCD EDge have a chance?

I usually am pretty impressed with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). I find that its books typically are of high quality. One of the best conferences I ever attended was an ASCD conference. I am a long-time ASCD member, subscriber to its SmartBrief e-mail newsletter, and reader of its Educational Leadership magazine and Inservice blog and Twitter feed. In other words, ASCD does good work.

That said, I confess that I am a little skeptical about the long-term chances of ASCD’s new online community, ASCD EDge. As you can see below, it’s a very sophisticated and comprehensive site. The ASCD Web team clearly has put a lot of thought and effort into the community. But I am not sure that educators need another freestanding social networking space. I know that I already have trouble staying on top of the ones in which I’m currently enrolled (on a side note, there are WAY too many good Ning communities out there!). I know that others find it difficult to keep up as well.

The social networking dilemma: Use someone else’s service or build your own

The challenge for an organization like ASCD that wants to tap into the benefits of social networking for its members is that it has two options:

1. Create a visible presence in someone else’s social network (e.g., a Facebook community), or
2. Create its own social network.

ASCD has decided to go with Option 2. In order for ASCD EDge to be a success, ASCD has to persuade large numbers of people to spend time in its online space rather than one that appeals to both educators and non-educators. Personally, as much as I like ASCD, I’m pretty unlikely to put my status updates and blog posts and photos and videos and discussions in a place other than Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, or some other more general space that has larger network effects. I’m guessing that most other folks will be hesitant as well, particularly if other educational organizations like NASSP, NAESP, and AASA, etc. decide they need to create their own proprietary social networks too.

I don’t know how many active EDge members ASCD needs to consider this community a success. It may be that it only needs a few hundred or thousand to justify the time and expense. If anyone call pull off a proprietary social network for educators, it’s likely to be ASCD. It will be an interesting experiment to watch over time and I hope that ASCD regularly reports out membership numbers, levels of activity, unique user visits, and other usage statistics.

Screenshots from ASCD EDge (click on images for larger versions)

 

Recommendation

I will close with one suggestion for ASCD, which is that it resets all subscription options (see, e.g., below) so that their default status is unchecked rather than checked. If we want to sign up for these communication channels, we will. Until then, ASCD should assume that we don’t want more unsolicited e-mail rather than that we do.

You need leverage (aka "Why I blog")

Seth Godin says: 

If you want to change people, you must create enough leverage to encourage the change to happen.

I’ll be making this argument when it’s time for me to go up for promotion…

Hey, AERA! Most researchers are terrible presenters!

The American Educational Research Association (AERA), the world’s largest educational research organization, recently adopted some ‘important changes’ to improve the quality of its annual conference. As AERA notes, the purpose of the changes are to ‘enhance the quality of the Annual Meeting as a forum for communication and dissemination of new knowledge.’

Take a look at the document. Notice anything missing? I do. It’s any recognition whatsoever that the vast majority of the presentations are horrendously painful, characterized by terrible PowerPoint, boring monotone delivery, inadequate pacing, and a lack of emphasis on the needs of attendees rather than presenters.

If AERA is going to focus on improving the quality of its attendees’ conference experiences, shouldn’t it at least pay some attention to the elephant in the room, which is most researchers’ poor presenting skills?

Unemployment in Iowa

[Cross-posted at the Iowa 1to1 Network]

As the following chart illustrates, more Iowa workers were employed in May 2008 than in any other month in the past two years. Since then, Iowa has lost 65,700 jobs and gained 7,000, for an aggregate total of 58,700 jobs lost. The Construction and Manufacturing sectors represented about 20% of all of the jobs in Iowa in May 2008, but have represented nearly 60% of all the job losses since then. In other words, those two sectors are hemorrhaging jobs at a rate of about 3 times their representation in the state economy. Most other sectors’ losses have been roughly proportionate to their representation in the Iowa economy. Two sectors, Financial activities and insurance and Educational and health services, have actually seen employment gains since May 2008.

What implications do these data have for us as educational organizations?

[Click on image for larger version]

Transform the instructors first?

Here’s a short Twitter conversation that I had with Mary Zedeck on Wednesday:

I’ve been thinking about the question that I asked Mary. I wonder how many P-12 teachers or postsecondary faculty have had transformative experiences using technology. In other words, how many of them have personally intersected with some of the world-changing and paradigm-shifting possibilities that are out there? And for those who have, how many of them really understood what happened (i.e., how many recognized the bigger implications of the event that they personally experienced)?

Can we realistically expect educators who have not personally had (and understood) transformative technology experiences to create such experiences for their students? If not (and I’m guessing not), what implications does this have for our preservice and inservice training efforts?

ISTE 2010 keynote - Jeff Piontek named as winner

It’s been an interesting few months for ISTE’s 2010 conference keynote project. We have seen twists and turns (what happened to Kevin Honeycutt?), candidates such as Jeff Piontek that were surprising (at least to much of the edublogosphere), more than a wee bit of snarkiness, and, unfortunately, some allegations of vote rigging and some downright rudeness. All in all, it’s been very similar to a political election!

Well, it’s over. Jeff Piontek has been named as the winner. In many ways, I don’t envy him. Now the pressure is on him to deliver a keynote that appeals to the thousands of diverse personalities that will attend ISTE in Denver. In addition, he has to give what may be the most scrutinized ISTE keynote ever. From all accounts, it appears that he will rise admirably to the occasion.

As most of you know, I supported Chris Lehmann for this keynote process. I have no regrets that Jeff was named instead and am looking forward to his keynote (I don’t have anything against Jeff; I’ve never met him; I just know that Chris is great). He may be relatively unknown to the edublogosphere (and I, too, wish he was a more visible user of social media since he writes about and advocates for it), but by all accounts he’s a fantastic leader who’s doing amazing things for kids in his school organization. In the end, that’s all I wanted – for the keynote to affirm the importance of leadership and, if possible, to represent the administrators like Jeff and Chris that are creating the new future of P-12 schools.

I challenge those of us in the edublogosphere to leave our preconceptions at home. Jeff deserves an honest chance to win our hearts and our minds rather than us prejudging him before he even gets a chance to speak.

Thoughts on ISTE’s process

I’m still not sure how to think about ISTE’s process. During Round 2, when we were able to discuss candidates, Chris was the clear leader. During Round 3, when we were not able to discuss candidates, Jeff was the clear leader. What does that mean? I have absolutely no idea.

I know others have been critical, but I’m glad that ISTE took a leap and tried this keynote crowdsourcing project. I’ve enjoyed observing and writing about the experiment and intend to fully enjoy listening to Jeff this June. See you in Denver!

Roger Wilcox, Pam Moran, and other school administrators on YouTube

Roger Wilcox, principal of West Cedar Elementary School in Waverly, Iowa, has a burgeoning YouTube channel that he’s using to communicate with his local community:

Here are three superintendents – Pam Moran, Phyllis Harrington, and Marcus Newsome – who also are using YouTube to get their messages out:

This stuff is easy

Given how easy it is these days to post online video (think YouTube QuickCapture and a webcam, Flip cameras, etc.), I’m baffled that more administrators aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity to speak directly to their communities on a regular basis. Forget newsletters, e-mail listservs, or blogging; just turn on the video camera and start talking!

There are numerous benefits to being in regular communication with internal and external stakeholders. The use of online video to connect, explain, build goodwill, create enthusiasm, be transparent, share student work, highlight teacher excellence, tell a story, etc. is a powerful but untapped possibility for most school leaders. Videos don’t have to be polished or professional. Simple, honest, direct communication usually is more meaningful, anyway.

Dive in! 

School leaders, take the plunge: Turn on the webcam or Flip camera and start talking from the heart. You won’t regret it.

[P.S. Teachers can do this too. Dump that paper classroom newsletter. Instead, start a weekly broadcast to your families!]

Update: Dave Meister is off to a good start with this!

Our kids don't have a choice. And neither do we.

Will Richardson says:

[T]his generation of kids in our schools is the first not to have a choice about technology. Most of us grew up in a time when technology was an add on, and for many of us, we still see it as a choice, especially in education. (Just the other day I was at a meeting of about 25 school leaders and teachers to discuss how social learning tools can be infused into an inquiry based curriculum and only one person was using technology to take notes…me.) I look at my own kids and I know that technology will be a huge part of their learning lives because a) they want it to be and b) they’ll be expected to be savvy users of the devices of their day to communicate, create and collaborate (among other things.) They’re not going to be able to “opt out.”

and

We may not feel comfortable in a world filled with technology. We may not like the way it’s changing things and, even more, how fast it’s changing things. We may not like the way it pushes against much of what we’ve been doing in schools for eons. But our kids don’t have a choice. And if we’re going to fulfill our roles as teachers in our kids lives, neither do we.

New feature: What would you like to see me write about?

I added a Skribit widget to Dangerously Irrelevant yesterday that allows me to take input from blog visitors about what they’d like to see. Here’s what it looks like on the blog (widget is on left-hand side):

Here’s what it looks like on the back end (click on image to see larger version):

Will this be of use to our community? I guess it depends on how much visitors use the widget. I think it has potential but only time will tell!

Given that my primary blog themes are technology, leadership, and school reform, what would you like to see me write about?

Education Trust: Four ways of thinking about achievement gaps

The Education Trust has come out with a nifty little report, Gauging the Gaps: A Deeper Look at Student Achievement, that examines different ways of thinking about achievement gaps. Although EdTrust uses NAEP data to illustrate its points, this could be done with any achievement data.

EdTrust outlines four different perspectives when considering achievement gaps. Each has its own merits, but together they have more power than simply using one or two of them in isolation. At the end of the report, EdTrust includes several NAEP data tables that show the progress of each state along each of these perspectives.

Perspective 1: Simple gap narrowing

“Have absolute gaps in mean performance between groups decreased over time? Nationwide, low-income students and students of color perform, on average, below their peers. So it is imperative to evaluate whether we’re helping these young people catch up.” (p. 2)

Perspective 2: Progress for all

“Have all groups of students gained over time? Our country needs to improve achievement for all students and accelerate gains for those who lag behind. Reading performance for low-income fourth grade students nationwide inched up by four points from 2003 to 2007. This represents movement in the right direction but at far too slow a pace. Some states, however, improved much more rapidly than the nation as a whole.” (p. 3)

Perspective 3: Gap size

“What is the current size of the gap between groups? In addition to examining how far a state has come in closing the gaps and looking at whether all students are gaining, it’s important to know the extent of the gaps that remain. The current-year size of a state’s gap suggests how far we have to go until race and income no longer play a significant role in student achievement. Nationally and in every state, low-income students trail their higher income peers in reading performance. Yet a closer scrutiny of state data shows that some are closer to achieving equitable results than others.” (p. 4)

Perspective 4: Group comparisons across jurisdictions

“How does each group of students currently perform compared with their counterparts in other jurisdictions? Although many assume that certain groups of children perform about the same no matter where they attend school, comparisons of group performance across jurisdictions can reveal striking differences. In fact, dramatic variations in the achievement of similar groups of children occur across states or from one district to the next.” (p. 4)

What do you think?

How does your school organization think about achievement gaps? Does it predominantly use only one or two of these perspectives? What could be done to increase your organization’s capacity to use more or all of these perspectives? Is all of this even worthwhile?

If the leaders don't get it, it doesn't happen

As I’ve said many times:

If a teacher gets it, a classroom changes. If a principal gets it, the whole building begins to change. If a superintendent gets it, the whole district begins to change. [And, if state or federal policymakers get it, the statewide or nationwide climate begins to change.]

Seems obvious, right? So why are so many government / corporation / foundation educational technology reform initiatives (money, time, training, energy, vision) focused on teachers, who at best are usually informal leaders, rather than formal leaders such as principals and superintendents? Do they want systemic change or just something they can tout for public relations purposes?

I’m all for investing in students and teachers when it comes to educational technology. But if we don’t also set aside some dedicated resources for formal leaders, the kind of changes we need are never going to happen.

13 technologies I can't live without

We all have technologies that are absolutely essential to our day-to-day lives. Here is a baker’s dozen of mine…

1. Google Reader. It took me a while, but I’ve now organized all of my feeds into category folders in Google Reader. I now can simply click on a folder name, scan the post titles for anything that grabs me (I keep Google Reader in List view, not Expanded view), star anything that I want to read and/or blog later, and then click on Mark All as Read to clear the list. I’m currently staying on top of 434 feeds and it takes no more than 30 to 45 minutes per day. If I get behind, no worries. I just clear it all out and figure that topics will come back around if they’re really important.
2. Google Chrome. Chrome is quite simply the fastest Internet browser out there, both in terms of page loading and initial startup. Google Chrome feeds my need for speed. Firefox seems to drag in comparison. Chrome’s new ability to handle extensions is rapidly eroding Firefox’s plugin advantage.
3. MiFi. I replaced my wireless broadband USB modem with a Verizon MiFi wireless hotspot. Now, rather than only one computer having Internet access through Verizon’s cell phone network, my family can connect up to five devices, including laptops, cameras, iPod Touches, etc. The coolness of this struck me when we were driving East this winter as my wife checked her e-mail on her laptop, one of my sons played an Internet game on my laptop, and my daughter downloaded new apps for the iPod Touch, all at the same time. Nice!
4. BlogJet. I don’t always have Internet connectivity when I want to work on a blog post. BlogJet is a powerful desktop blogging client that allows me to work on posts whenever I want. I like that it allows me to post to multiple blogs and it is much easier to use than TypePad, WordPress, or Movable Type. I also use BlogJet occasionally as a HTML editor.
5. iPod Touch. We have two iPod Touches in our family. When I can pry one of them out of my kids’ hands, I’m increasingly using the Touch instead of my laptop. My two favorite apps are MobileRSS (an awesome RSS reader) and Kindle for iPhone. Although I’m still buying nonfiction books, I’m purchasing and reading more fiction on the Touch rather than buying paperbacks. I don’t have an iPhone because AT&T’s coverage in Iowa is abysmal; I often pair the Touch with the MiFi if I need Web access.
6. SnagIt. There are lots of different screen capture programs out there, many of which are free. I have yet to find one with the functionality of SnagIt. I use it to capture images from the Web, Adobe Acrobat, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, and so on.
7. PhraseExpress. If you haven’t yet used text-expanding software, I promise it will make your life easier. Once you have it set up, you simply type in an abbreviation or short phrase and - presto! - an entire sentence or paragraph appears! I use PhraseExpress for all sorts of things, including customizing my e-mail signature and replying to all of the Did You Know? (Shift Happens) inquiries that Karl Fisch and I get.
8. EverNote. I’m using EverNote more and more to take notes, capture snippets from the Web, etc. I’m sure that I’m only using a small portion of its functionality. I like that I can access my content from my laptop, the Web, and/or my Blackberry.
9. LastPass. This is a password manager and form-filler for my Internet browser. I like that LastPass keeps its files on the Web, meaning that my wife and I no longer need separate files on our respective hard drives.
10. Readability. If you haven’t yet tried the Readability bookmarklet for your Internet browser, give it a shot. I use it far more than I expected to. It’s been a godsend to one of my older relatives whose vision is not what it used to be.
11. Notepad++. Notepad++ is my favorite Notepad replacement software. I use it to get rid of unwanted text formatting, do basic HTML editing, etc.
12. Readtwit. I stumbled upon Readtwit because of a tweet from Will Richardson. Readtwit turns your Twitter stream into a clean RSS feed. If there’s a hyperlink in the tweet, it also shows you the first 2000 characters of the target web page; this is incredibly useful. Try Readtwit for a week in your favorite RSS reader. You’ll be hooked too.
13. Launchy. I’m much faster on the keyboard than on the mouse. Launchy allows me to launch programs, files, etc. with a few keystrokes. My wife: “How did you open that program so fast?” Me: “I can’t tell you all my computer secrets. Then you won’t need me any more!”

I use every one of these technologies nearly every day. They make my life easier, more efficient, and more effective. What are you using that improves your day-to-day productivity and well-being?

Related posts

• 8 indispensable items for presenters
• My computer setup

Want to know what I'm reading online?

For those who are interested in what I’m reading online, here are is a number of the RSS channels in my Google Reader account (some blogs are in multiple channels):

• 1 to 1 schools
• Blogs that deserve a bigger audience (DABA)
• CASTLE blogs
• CASTLE’s list of great blogs for busy administrators
• Education
• Educational leadership
• Educational technology
• Higher education
• Iowa
• Law
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• School law
• Technology

You too can subscribe to these channels by using the RSS feed at each link. These channels are fluid; I add and remove individual blogs all the time!

Taking others' assessments: How brave are your educators?

So here’s a crazy idea…

• Ask teachers in your building to bring a recent quiz or test to the next staff meeting. Make sure their names are on the assessments they bring.
• Mix up all of the assessments in a big pile and hand them back out. Each teacher gets one. No one is allowed to get a test that’s in his or her subject area (i.e., no English teacher is allowed to take any other English teacher’s test).
• They spend 20 minutes taking the test that they have in hand.
• Return the test to the teacher that created it. That teacher then grades it and returns it to the one who took it.

What would this do?

• It would allow educators to see how others are assessing.
• I’m guessing that many teachers are going to miss a bunch of stuff, at least in secondary schools. Which then leads, of course, to the issue of:
  
  Most of us would consider ourselves successful adults and yet we couldn’t answer a lot of this. What does that mean for our teaching and our students’ learning? 
  
  Follow-up questions might include How important is the stuff we’re teaching? and If this stuff is important, why did we miss so many? and If this stuff is not important, why are we teaching it?

I think this could prompt some good internal discussion for a teaching staff. Thoughts? Anyone done something like this?

Note: A few years back, the College of Education and Human Development booth at the Minnesota State Fair had ten sample questions from the 8th grade state assessment. Those of us staffing the booth tried to get fair attendees to answer the questions to see how they’d do compared to what the state expected middle schoolers to know. We couldn’t get anyone to do it; the number of takers was extremely low. There were lots of nervous laughter and comments, though…

Related posts

• “Knowing the parts of a neuron isn’t really that important.”
• 4 tales out of school (see Thutmose III)