Dangerously Irrelevant

Change resource 05

Dede, Honan, & Peters (Eds.). (2005). Scaling up success: Lessons from technology-based educational improvement.

How do we take successful programs and best practices serving a few classrooms or students and scale them up? This book tells us.

Change resource 04

Gladwell. (2002). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference.

Connectors, mavens, and salesmen. These are the folks you want as your allies. These people may or may not be in positions of formal leadership. Don't invite individuals to help facilitate change because of position or title. Invite them because others listen to them!

Change resource 03

Buckingham & Coffman. (1999). First, break all the rules: What the world's greatest managers do differently.

A really, really great book for leaders and change agents.

Change resource 02

Collins. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap... and others don't.

Local communities strongly believe that their schools are good. 'Good is the enemy of great.'

[see also Good to great and the social sectors]

Change resource 01

Pfeffer & Sutton. (2000). The knowing-doing gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action.

Countless leaders know what they should do. But yet desired change fails to happen. Here's why.

How much privacy are we willing to give up?

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

I’ve been reading Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing by Adam Greenfield. It’s a fascinating book and I’m learning a lot.

Greenfield’s essential premise is that in the foreseeable future sensors and transmitters can and will be embedded into everyday objects, ranging from the clothes on our body to the milk in our refrigerator to the blanket on our bed to the picture frame on our wall. This essentially makes the things we use everyday into quasi-digital devices. The rapid evolution, miniaturization, and affordability of RFID chips, and their incorporation into various aspects of life, is one example of this trend. The inclusion of GPS technologies in cars, cell phones, and watches is another. So is some of the work currently being done with mesh networks, smart dust, and the like. Once embedded, these sensors and transmitters will be able to communicate with each other and with more complex digital technologies like your home computer.

Why will sensors and transmitters be embedded into everyday things? Because, as Greenfield notes, in the battle between convenience and privacy, most folks are more than willing to give up some privacy for convenience. I saw this in action quite clearly during my visit to the Microsoft Home of the Future in 2006. A few illustrative examples:

• Imagine that your kitchen counter can discern what you put on it (milk, eggs, flour) and that a recipe appears on the counter surface informing you of the various things that you can make with those ingredients.
• Imagine that your electronic shopping list updates itself because the pantry has informed it that you’re running low on pancake mix.
• Imagine that a red light begins glowing on your bedside picture frame because the motion sensors in Grandma’s apartment haven’t registered any movement for the past six hours even though it’s mid-day.
• Imagine that the rooms in your house can sense the people who enter and adjust the art, lighting, temperature, etc. to reflect  individual preferences.
• Imagine the memory augmentation assistance that you could get from a sensor in your eyeglasses that could register the identity of the person walking toward you and quickly say into your ear her name and how you know her.

These are just a few of the many, many possibilities. Think medicine bottles and backpacks, toilets and toys, floors and doors, and…

Greenfield believes that the arrival of ambient informatics is inevitable. The power and potential will be too great for most people to refuse and, in many cases, the capabilities will be in place before folks even have a chance to think too hard about it and/or make objections. However, Greenfield also notes that we need to start thinking and talking about whatever social, ethical, and other concerns we may have right now. After these informatics are embedded and installed, it often will be too late because there are logic rules that are built into the construction of the sensors and transmitters. For example, maybe you don’t want your floor or front door or toilet ‘spying’ on you but you do want your refrigerator to do so. You need to think about that at the front end during the design and/or purchasing stage, not after the fact.

There’s a lot more I could say on this, but I’ll close with a strong recommendation that folks read Everyware. It’s a very different way to think about digital technologies and yet I agree with Greenfield that it will be our future. We need to start talking about this aspect of ubiquitous computing and we need to ask ourselves, “How much privacy are we willing to give up?”

Book review - Everything bad is good for you

I just finished reading Everything Bad Is Good For You. The author, Steven Johnson, makes a quite-convincing case that today's popular culture and media (video games, television, Internet, movies), rather than being 'cheap pleasures that pale beside the intellectual riches of yesterday,' are much more cognitively complex than what we had available to us just a decade or two ago. If you haven't yet read this book, I highly recommend it. Kottke.org has a short blurb on the book along with a number of excellent links to other resources and commentary.

One of my favorite parts of the book is at the beginning. First Johnson quotes Marshall McLuhan:

The student of media soon comes to expect the new media of any period whatever to be classed as pseudo by those who acquired the patterns of earlier media, whatever they may happen to be.

Johnson then hypothesizes what critics might have said if video games preceded books rather than the other way around:

Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the long-standing tradition of game playing - which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements - books are simply a barren string of words on the page.

Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him- or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new ‘libraries’ that have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently, oblivious to their peers.

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion - you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learning to ‘follow the plot’ instead of learning to lead.

As Johnson notes, these new forms of communication, participation, and learning have worth. They're not the vast intellectual wastelands that cultural critics often claim them to be. Reading still has a great deal of value, as Johnson clearly states in other parts of his book, but so do these other forms of media. We might sometimes wish that the subject matter or content matter of these media forms were different - for example, I personally wish that some video games weren't so violent and gory - but the bottom line is that the intellectual complexity of popular media is much greater than before. We would be better served to tap into the affordances of these new media forms rather than criticizing them simply because they're new and different.

I give this one 4 higlighters.

Education strategy

The Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project recently released a report titled An Education Strategy to Promote Opportunity, Prosperity, and Growth. After noting that approximately $874 billion per year is spent on education in the United States, the authors highlight the economic and educational benefits of universal preschool and rethinking our current system of financial aid for higher education. Here are some interesting quotes from the report…

Preschool

Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University and Isabel Sawhill of The Brookings Institution propose a program called Success by Ten. This program would give children from low-income families high-quality, full-time education for the first five years of life, and then would use proven-effective methods to give them extra help during their elementary school years. The early childhood program would be based on the successful Abecedarian Project; it could be thought of as “Head Start on steroids,” as it would combine, expand, and transform the Early Head Start and Head Start programs. Ludwig and Sawhill estimate that, if fully implemented, Success by Ten could increase GDP by up to 0.8 percent, while, on an individual level, bringing the dramatic benefits of Abecedarian - greater employment and college entry, reduced teen pregnancy and crime - to millions of American children.

Higher education

Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton, both of Harvard University, argue that the complexity and sluggishness of the federal system for distributing student financial aid creates serious obstacles to college attendance by making it enormously difficult for low- and moderate-income students to assess their eligibility for aid. Indeed, studies have found scant evidence that the federal program of grants and tax credits actually increases enrollment, in contrast to the proven effects of much simpler programs such as the Social Security Student Benefit Program and Georgia’s HOPE program. While the complexity of the current system is intended to target aid to those who need it most, Dynarski and Scott-Clayton show that a dramatically simplified aid process could nearly reproduce the current distribution of aid. Under their proposal, students could figure out their grant aid eligibility by looking at a small, simple table that fits easily on a postcard. In fact, the table would be put on a postcard and distributed through schools and the mail so that aid information could be simple, certain, and delivered early. Meanwhile, the application process could be as easy as checking a box on the family’s regular tax returns. Dynarski and Scott-Clayton estimate that their proposed program would increase enrollment among the grant-eligible population by between 5.6 and 7.4 percentage points.

The authors also discuss the teacher labor market and K-12 curricular experimentation, among other things. Even if you’re not interested in large-scale education policy issues, the report might be worth a quick read just to familiarize yourself with some of the ways national policymakers think about K-12 education.

Random thoughts on a Friday

A few random thoughts that have traveled through my brain today...

1. Next week I am giving two presentations at the Minnesota educational technology (TIES) conference. One is on administrator blogging. One of the new bloggers from our Principal Blogging Project, a principal who works in one of the wealthiest, high-achieving suburban school districts in the country, was going to Skype in with a webcam and talk to the audience for 10 minutes about his experiences as a principal new to blogging. He just e-mailed me to cancel - one of the reasons, he was chagrined to admit, is that there isn't a single webcam in the entire district. Yikes!
2. After reading David Warlick's post (and the accompanying comments) on 'fencing in the learning,' I am struck by how many different reasons we educators can come up with for not putting kids' needs first. As David said long ago, instead of asking What should we reasonably expect our education system to achieve in the next ten years?, we should be asking What should today’s children reasonably expect from our education system over the next ten years? Like David, I too think that our children have every reason to expect a lot more. If you haven't yet read The Rise of the Creative Class, check out the first few chapters and then think about this issue again after doing so. Or, alternatively, go watch Consuela Molina's video on digital kids in analog schools. I'm not just picking on K-12 here; it's just as bad, if not worse, in academia.
3. Sometimes people are too touchy. Let the little stuff go, I say. Don't we have bigger things on which to expend our mental energy?
4. If my 6-year-old can learn how to Skype me, and if a blog post is literally as easy as sending an e-mail, and if editing a wiki can be as simple as clicking on the Edit button, can someone remind me again what the learning barriers for adult teachers and administrators are to using these kinds of Web 2.0 tools?

Gallup questions

It's important to acknowledge when you have made a mistake. I made one that I definitely should have caught - as an attorney, I'm a little embarrassed about this one.

Michael Ayers of The Commonwealth Practice, Ltd. has helped me determine that the twelve Gallup questions I posted about in Are schools vibrant workplaces? are actually copyrighted by The Gallup Organization with the United States Copyright Office. Not only are the questions under copyright, apparently they're big business for Gallup. Gallup even sued another company to prevent it from using the questions in its own work with corporations. Apparently they're not just any questions, they're THE questions that corporations should ask to retain talented employees. Companies pay Gallup to administer employee surveys and/or for permission to use the questions. This means that I can't host an online survey for a school organization that wanted to ask its employees these questions without getting Gallup's permission first.

I don't usually find copyright issues very interesting, but this one has been illuminating for me (I guess because of my personal involvement). As an attorney, I think it's interesting to hear that Gallup is so protective of those questions. As I told Michael in an e-mail exchange, I think the concept of being able to copyright sentences or statements is a strange one. For example, could someone lay claim to the phrases, "How are you doing?" or "What do you think are the biggest challenges facing your organization?" It's not like this is a marketing / branding / commercial slogan ("Where's the beef?").

Nonetheless, even under a four-factor copyright analysis, Gallup would win if I used these questions without permission and it decided to sue me in court. It has an economic interest in this set of questions, one that's apparently large enough to justify it going all the way to the federal Eighth Circuit Court (one level below the United States Supreme Court) to uphold its claim.

Obviously I wasn't trying to set myself up in economic competition with Gallup. Indeed, I was actually trying to plug the concepts behind the questions and the book by Buckingham and Coffman (which is excellent, by the way, if you're interested in company climate / employee satisfaction issues).

In the end, it's too bad this is true. Schools aren't going to pay Gallup for this but some of them would really benefit from the information. It may be possible that I can work something out with Gallup for the occasional request by a K-12 organization.

So read the book if this is the kind of thing that interests you. It's superb. And please support Creative Commons.

Vibrant workplaces - Part 2

Yesterday I asked, "How strong and vibrant is the workplace we create for most educators?" As part of that post, I listed twelve questions from First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently that, when answered positively, have been strongly linked to success on organizational goals, organizational productivity, employee satisfaction, and employee retention. I concluded my post with an invitation for a few school districts to maybe survey their employees on these twelve questions. I even offered to host the survey.

I just wanted to note that this doesn't have to be at the school district level. These twelve questions are equally relevant at the school level, department level, or whatever. Focusing on the needs of employees is smart organizational strategy, however big or small the organization. A survey done within an individual school would tell that principal quite a bit...

Are schools vibrant workplaces?

A friend recommended that I read First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. Since the principalship is a classic middle management position, I thought I would check it out. So far it's pretty interesting - the authors' findings are based on interviews and other data collected by the Gallup Organization over the past 25 years from over 1 million employees and over 80,000 managers across a broad range of companies, industries, and countries.

Using factor analysis, regression analysis, concurrent validity studies, focus groups, and follow-up interviews to sift through the incredible mountain of data, the authors note that the strength of a workplace can be narrowed down to twelve questions that measure the core elements needed to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees.

As I look over this list, I wonder how teachers would respond to these questions? How strong and vibrant is the workplace we create for most educators?

[It would be interesting to have a couple of school districts give this survey to their employees, maybe breaking out the results by school building or job category. If anyone's interested, I would be willing to host the online survey for a few districts and have made an example survey. Contact me if you would maybe like to do this.]

Internet Resources

I have enjoyed serving as the first guest blogger for Dangerously Irrelevant.  I have benefited from the time to reflect on issues relevant to technology leadership in schools and I am reminded that thoughtful reflection takes time, something that many of us do not have much of.  I am going to use my last blog referencing a few websites that I have used in my teaching and service work with school leaders and teachers.  I am sure you have seen some of these, but I hope this introduces some of you to new and useful sites. As a parent of two young girls, I wanted to reference the starfall website because my daughters love using it as they learn to master reading.  Thanks for the opportunity Scott! DMQ

http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/

The IRIS (IDEA and Research for Inclusive Settings) Center for Faculty Enhancement was designed in response to a request from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. This national effort, serving college faculty working in preservice preparation programs, aims to ensure that general education teachers, school administrators, school nurses, and school counselors are well prepared to work with students who have disabilities and with their families.

http://reinventingeducation.org

The Reinventing Education Change Toolkit, based on the work of Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a Web site created by IBM to help education professionals be more effective at leading and implementing change. The Reinventing Education Change Toolkit was created through the collaborative effort of Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Goodmeasure, Inc.  The Change Toolkit helps you to: Diagnose your situation, Get quick, relevant advice, Poll your colleagues and get anonymous feedback about your progress, Read real-life vignettes from other educators about their experiences leading and managing change, Plan for your change initiative or project, Collaborate with your team and hold on-line discussions.

http://www.starfall.com/

The Starfall learn-to-read website is offered free as a public service. We also provide writing journals and books at a very low cost that can be used with the website or separately. Teachers around the country are using Starfall materials as an inexpensive way to make the classroom more fun and to inspire a love of reading and writing. Primarily designed for first grade, Starfall.com is also useful for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and second grade.

http://www.readplease.com

Read Please is a free downloadable text reading software program (PC only) that reads any text file aloud to students, e.g., text scanned into the computer with OCR (optical character recognition) software or downloaded from web sites, information posted on web sites, etc.

http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/home_tumblebooks.asp

Animated and narrated storybooks and games.