Dangerously Irrelevant

Soliciting submissions for new P-12 technology leadership research award

We are soliciting submissions for a new award honoring the best research article of the year related to P-12 technology leadership issues. The article may be published or unpublished, empirical or conceptual, but must be of publishable quality in a peer-reviewed academic journal and must pertain to P-12 school technology leadership, administration, and/or policy. Professors, graduate students, and other researchers in educational leadership, educational policy, instructional technology, and other fields are encouraged to submit any article written or published between August 1, 2006 and August 1, 2007. This award is co-sponsored by the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) and the UCEA School Technology Leadership SIG.

The award recipient will be formally recognized at a brief ceremony during CASTLE's session at this year's UCEA convention in Alexandria, VA. The awardee also will receive a plaque and $250 toward conference travel or other expenses. Submissions will be reviewed anonymously by a five-person committee of professors and practitioners. Articles should be submitted as e-mail attachments to Dr. Scott McLeod, Director of CASTLE, at [email protected] no later than August 24, 2007. Applicants will be notified of their status by September 15, 2007.

Please contact Dr. McLeod if you have any questions about this award. Feel free to pass this notice on to additional listservs and other entities that may be interested.

Top edublogs - August 2007

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

Back in January, when I had been blogging for five months but was still a blogosphere fledgling, I am embarrassed to say that I made a post that purported to present the top 30 edublogs as measured by Technorati rankings. The more time that passed since that post, the more chagrined I became at how laughably naive I was (I only analyzed 66 blogs!). So I decided to try again...

Step 1: Define the size of the education blogosphere

This in itself is a challenging and important task. No one knows exactly how big the education blogosphere is because it’s both dispersed and hidden. Here’s how my two phenomenal research assistants, Jenni Christenson and Eric LeJeune, and I tackled the issue:

• We started with CASTLE’s participant lists from LeaderTalk and our Principal Blogging Project, January’s education blogosphere survey, and the messages I received from my aforementioned January post on top edublogs. This garnered us a few hundred blogs.
• Then Jenni and Eric combed scores of education blogs’ blogrolls. We found over one thousand blogs this way.
• They dug through blogger lists like the ones at Support Blogging, BlogBridge, and ScotEduBlogs and got hundreds more.
• With the gracious assistance of all three organizations, Jenni and Eric scraped blog URLs from November Learning Communities, Edublogs,  and Class Blogmeister and found hundreds more.
• In the area that Edublogs uses to communicate with its users, James Farmer posted a link to an online form for us and we got another 224 that way.
• And so on… In other words, we tried to find every list, edublog hosting service, blogroll, etc. that might have new blogs that we hadn’t found yet.

Then we had the joy of finding and eliminating duplicates. Ugh.

Technorati lists 14,854 blogs with a tag of ‘education.’ It lists 23,807 blogs with a tag of ‘school.’ James informed me that Edublogs alone is hosting over 50,000 educator blogs, most of which are private and classroom-oriented. As you’ll see, we didn’t get anywhere near that many URLs.

How many edublogs are there? Over 50,000. How many are in this analysis? Over 3,600.

Step 2: Rank the blogs we found.

This was easier. Jenni and Eric copied each blog URL into the search box at Technorati.com and then entered into our spreadsheet the blog’s Authority (i.e., how many blogs have linked to it over the last 6 months) and Rank (i.e., overall rank among the tens of millions of blogs that Technorati monitors; lower is better). For example, at the time we checked, Patrick Higgins’ blog, Chalkdust, had an authority of 40 and a rank of 153,160. Many blogs had an authority of 0 or had nothing listed at all for either factor.

Step 3: Sort and present the results.

After doing a lot of cleanup (eliminating more duplicates!), we sorted by rank and authority. Here are some example results (click on the images to see the full-size charts)…

As you can see, Inside Higher Ed is the most popular edublog on our list according to Technorati’s Rank feature. Rounding out the top 30 is Infinite Thinking Machine.

If you look at the Authority of the top 204 edublogs, you’ll see the classic long tail distribution. The top blog, Inside Higher Ed, had nearly 2,400 other blogs link to it over the past six months. In contrast, the blogs near the end of this graph only had 45 blogs link to them. About two-thirds (2,542) of the blogs on our list had 0 blogs link to them in the last half year. Only 264 averaged more than 5 external links per month.

Caveats and disclaimers

1. Exactly what constitutes an ‘education blog’ is a matter of interpretation. Jenni and Eric looked for blogs by teachers, principals, superintendents, school librarians / media specialists, technology coordinators, education professors, education critics / commentators, and the like. They had to make some tough choices but tried to include anyone that blogged regularly and often about education. If you think they included a blog that shouldn’t be on the list, get in touch.
2. As hard as we tried, I’m sure we still missed a bunch of folks. If you’d like to be included in our next analysis (hopefully January 31, 2008), please complete the online form.
3. There are many reasons why educators blog and Technorati numbers are just two of many metrics of success. If you’re happy blogging, by all means keep it up! If you’d like more traffic, this list of tips is a good place to start.
4. Technorati numbers were compiled over a 2–week period in late July. All blog rankings and authority numbers are approximate and already out of date.

Next steps

If you want to play with the data yourself, download the Excel file. Please link back to this post or send me your findings so I can see what you come up with!

I’d like to do this twice a year, so the next time should be in January 2008. As the list grows bigger, it gets more unwieldy and time-consuming. If you’d like to lend a hand, get in touch. If you have any suggestions for how to expand this analysis or do it differently, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

8/1 Correction: The data for Education Week, The Fischbowl, and eSchoolNews were erroneously omitted. The two graphs above, as well as the downloadable Excel file, have been updated to reflect the data for these two sites.

Something big is coming...

Come back next Wednesday to find out more...

[Photo credit: http://tinyurl.com/ajbch]

Coding online communication to detect sexual predators

Some of you may remember that I’m headed to Iowa State University in about a month. I ran across a story on its news service last week about Chad Harms, a professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, who has been doing research on how online sexual predators ‘groom’ their child victims and how their online communication can be coded to detect predatory behavior. Read the story and follow the links. This looks like interesting stuff, particularly if you could automate the coding so that it could be done by computer software.

ROTW: Assessing students with disabilities

The latest installment of the Report of the Week (ROTW) comes from Education Sector:

• Labeled: The Students Behind NCLB’s ‘Disabilities’ Designation

Here’s a quote from the report:

[B]ecause the majority of special education students have disabilities that do not preclude them from reaching grade-level standards there doesn't seem to be a need to rollback NCLB's accountability measures for students with disabilities. To the contrary, doing so could hurt such students by reducing schools' responsibility for ensuring that they are taught to high standards.

Happy reading!

ROTW: Cyberbullying and online teens

My latest Report of the Week (ROTW) comes from the Pew Internet and American Life Project:

• Cyberbullying and Online Teens

Here’s a quote from the report:

There’s one MySpace from my school this year. There’s this boy in my anatomy class who everybody hates. He’s like the smart kid in class. Everybody’s jealous. They all want to be smart. He always wants to work in our group and I hate it. And we started this thing, some girl in my class started this I Hate [Name] MySpace thing. So everybody in school goes on it to comment bad things about this boy.

Happy reading!

ROTW: Connectivity

The latest Report of the Week (ROTW) is actually two reports, both related to Internet connectivity.

The first report, brought to my attention by David Warlick, comes from the Communication Workers of America:

• Speed Matters: A Report on Internet Speeds in All 50 States
  (also see the handy interactive map)

Here’s a quote from the report:

[C]ountries like Canada, Sweden, and South Korea have better, faster Internet connections. People in Japan can download an entire movie in just two minutes, but it can take two hours or more in the United States. Yet, people in Japan pay the same as we do in the U.S. for their Internet connection. Not only do they have the technology for higher speeds, but a larger percentage of people in those countries have access to high speed connections. The United States has fallen to 16th place behind other industrialized nations in high speed Internet access.

The second report, brought to my attention by Andy Carvin, is from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

• Home Broadband Adoption 2007

Here’s a quote from the report:

Currently, 71% of adults use the internet at least occasionally from any location; of these, 94% have an internet connection at home. Among adults with a home internet connection, 70% go online using a high-speed connection, versus 23% who use dialup. . . . 27% of all adults do not use a computer at work, school, home or elsewhere.

Happy reading!

ROTW: Digital equity

My latest Report of the Week (ROTW) comes from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) 2007 Digital Equity Summit:

• A National Consideration of Digital Equity

Here's a quote from the report:

Educators must recognize connections between the digital divide and achievement gaps in order to reframe digital equity as an essential component of school improvement plans. However there are still a substantial number of educators who only have a superficial understanding of the role of technology in facilitating student learning. As a result, “teachers and, in some cases, administrators lack willingness to embrace new technology and ways to use digital content in learning environments,” asserted one participant. If they use technology, it is part of an enrichment activity instead of an integrated instructional component.

Happy reading!

ROTW: Parents, children, and media

I've been laying low for a few days, giving Did You Know? 2.0 the opportunity to get some traction. So far, so good, although I don't expect it to get as much attention as the first version did.

Anyway, on with the show. It's time for the third installment of my new Report of the Week (ROTW) feature. This week's report is from the Kaiser Family Foundation:

• Parents, Children, and Media

Here's a quote from the report:

Most parents aren’t very happy with the amount of sex or violence in the media today. Two-thirds say they are very concerned about the amount of inappropriate media content children in this country are exposed to, and many believe media is a major contributor to young people’s violent or sexual behaviors. In fact, a strong majority would support government regulations on the amount of such content during the early evening hours. . . . At the same time, the majority of parents see inappropriate media primarily as someone else’s problem: only one in five (20%) say their own children are seeing “a lot” of inappropriate content. The proportion of parents who are “very” concerned about their own children’s exposure to sex or violence on TV - while still high - has declined steadily over the past nine years.

I think the Kaiser Family Foundation has a number of great reports. If you haven’t seen them, also check out their reports on media in the lives of 8–18 year-olds, how kids’ media use helps parents cope, and how Internet filters affect the search for online health information.

Happy reading!

ROTW: Equity and NCLB

It’s time for the second installment of a new feature here at Dangerously Irrelevant, one that I’ve oh-so-creatively titled Report of the Week (ROTW).

This week’s report is from the Campaign for High School Equity:

• A Plan for Success: Communities of Color Define Policy Priorities for High School Reform

Here’s a quote from the report:

Often, schools serving high-poverty or predominantly minority communities do not receive the resources that their more affluent counterparts receive. Such disparities must be eliminated in order to guarantee that all students are equally well-prepared for success in life.

Like most other Reports of the Week, this is listed under the Reading and Research and Evaluation categories. Happy reading!

Who makes up the edublogosphere? - Part 1

Are edubloggers mostly white and middle class? What proportion of edubloggers have advanced degrees in instructional technology?

Brian Grenier wants to find out the answers to these and other questions. If you're an education blogger, please

1. complete his quick survey (if you're really bold, put your blog URL in the comments area!), and
2. spread the word via your own blog so that others will complete the survey too.

Let's help Brian get a decent set of data. These questions would have been great to include on my Education Blogosphere Survey in January!

ROTW: Virtual high schools

Okay, it's time to try out a new feature here at Dangerously Irrelevant: the Report of the Week (ROTW). Can I find and feature an interesting education-related report each and every week? I think I can!

This week's report is from Education Sector:

• Laboratories of Reform: Virtual High Schools and Innovation in Public Education

Here's a quote from the report:

There has been no shortage of solutions for improving the nation’s public schools. School leadership, teacher quality, standards, testing, funding, and a host of other issues have crowded reform agendas. But an important trend in public education has gone largely unnoticed in the cacophony of policy proposals: the rise of a completely new class of public schools - “virtual” schools using the Internet to create online classrooms - that is bringing about reforms that have long eluded traditional public schools.

All Reports of the Week will be listed under the Reading category (and, in most instances, the Research and Evaluation category). Happy reading!

Requa v. Kent School District

[cartoon made with stripcreator; click on the image to see a larger version]

Read more about the case (and see the YouTube video). Then check out the post at BoardBuzz. Am I missing something here? Sure, it was rude and inappropriate. But was it materially and substantially disruptive to the classroom environment?

Tech-savvy superintendents - Your input is requested

I have a research team that's going to spend the summer interviewing as many of the eSchoolNews technology-savvy superintendents as we can. eSchoolNews has named 10 tech-savvy superintendents for each of the past 7 years, so our total number of interviews could be as high as 70.

We're trying to learn what makes these superintendents tick: how they think about digital technologies, what makes them different from other superintendents, what they do in terms of internal support and training, etc. We'd love to have your input as to what questions we should ask these folks.

Got a great idea for an interview question we should ask these superintendents? If so, please post it as a comment below. Thanks!

Be careful, be critical

[cross-posted at Moving at the Speed of Creativity]

eSchoolNews has a fantastic letter from the editor regarding the federal government's recent evaluation of learning software for schools. The editor lambasts reporters' overblown headlines, inappropriate and overbroad conclusions, and failure to adequately criticize and critically reflect upon the report and its accompanying publicity material.

There was a recent dust-up at Dangerously Irrelevant as well regarding information sources for Did You Know?. As we all do our own original writing or write about others' work, these are important reminders that we need to be careful, thoughtful, and appropriately critical before we put information out into the easily-searchable, publicly-findable blogosphere.

NAESP chimes in

The National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP) has chimed in on the U.S. Department of Education's recent study comparing the effectiveness of different educational software packages:

Are you considering upgrading educational software in your building? Before you do, consider the Department of Education’s recently released report on the impact of educational technology on student learning.

Please note the absence of any critical analysis or commentary whatsoever. (sigh)

Fingerprints and mental health checks

Here is an e-mail I just received from the Executive Director of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Definitely worth a read if you're interested in privacy issues...

April 6, 2007

Dear AERA Members:

As final bags and boxes are being closed for the 2007 AERA Annual Meeting, I want to update you on an important matter for education researchers working under federal contracts. Over the course of this past year, the U.S. Department of Education has taken new steps to implement security clearance procedures for contractor employees. Several AERA members informed the Association and expressed serious concern that the process is intrusive and unwarranted for non-classified research. Articles on the topic have appeared recently in The New York Times and Education Week (www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/02/21/24checks.h26.html).

Over many months, AERA has been investigating this situation and pressing for greater understanding. Since September, we have been engaged in discussions with numerous federal officials at the Department of Education and other federal agencies as well as working with other research organizations (in particular with the American Association for the Advancement of Science) and individuals in the scientific community to scrutinize this issue and learn as much as we can. President Eva Baker described some of these activities in the January/February 2007 issue of Educational Researcher (http://er.aera.net/).

The actual clearance procedures required of contractual personnel vary by the risk level assigned to a position, but minimally require employees on contracts who are designated low risk to submit fingerprints. Low risk positions include those on a contractor’s research team who conduct statistical analyses, but have no access to personally-identifiable information. Contractor employees in moderate-risk positions must provide a release for credit information and may also be asked to sign a release allowing investigators to ask specific questions of an individual’s health care provider regarding prior mental health consultations. Researchers who collect or have access to personally-identifiable information or sensitive, but unclassified information are considered moderate risk under current Department of Education Directive OM:5-101, Contractor Employee Personnel Security Screenings.

Our goal has been to understand the authority underlying the changes, determine whether the situation is unique to the Department of Education, and to effectuate change where needed. Our efforts in the fall, for example, led the Department of Education to indicate that the directive would be revised and its implementation examined. Most recently, the Department of Education also confirmed that the medical/mental health release was not required for moderate-risk positions (at least as an initial step). At our urging, agency officials agreed to add an instruction to this effect so that contracting officers and contractors would be aware of this at the onset.

An overarching concern is about the appropriate scope of security clearance procedures. The security measures being implemented by the Department of Education may reach beyond what was originally intended under Presidential Directive HSPD-12, the key authority often cited by federal officials as extending security clearance procedures to contractors. Both the Directive and the Office of Management and Budget guidance for implementing the Directive focus on contractors who access federal facilities and critical information systems, not researchers who are engaged in primary data collection or use of these data in the field. We are seeking an interpretation from senior federal officials regarding the intended reach of the Presidential Directive and anticipate receiving clarification quite soon.

Our fact gathering thus far indicates that security clearance procedures vary by agency. The National Science Foundation, for example, does not typically require security clearance screenings for contractors who collect data or prepare analytical products for the agency. At the National Institute of Justice, only those contractors who need access to federal buildings or information systems must generally undergo security clearances. Currently, the U.S. Department of Education - relying on Directive OM:5-101 - requires a security screening process for all contractors employed for 30 days or more. Although, as noted above, this Directive is currently in the final stages of revision, Department officials have indicated that the changes are directed to clarifying the intent of the policy as it is currently being practiced - that is, that it covers all contracts.

We remain concerned about the collection of credit information and fingerprints for researchers who work in the field and have no access to federal facilities or information systems. While we recognize and appreciate the renewed efforts of federal officials to provide the best protections possible for personally identifiable information collected by researchers - and indeed, we as an Association are continuously engaged in exercises and initiatives to improve privacy and confidentiality protections - the measures must be balanced and appropriate to the circumstances.

In a post 9-11 world, there could be a reasoned need for those performing work for the federal government in federal facilities or on federal data bases to undergo security clearances at a level appropriate to the types of access. The issue of the appropriateness of security clearance procedures that are broader in scope ultimately hinges on whether there is a compelling basis to do so. The federal government has an interest in supporting research and attracting researchers - whether working under grants or contracts - of the highest quality and creativity. We take the view that any constraints need to be the minimum necessary to achieve legitimate goals. Thus, we await clarification of the scope of the security clearance requirements and the rationale underlying them. Our next steps depend on what we learn.

For now, I want to keep you, our members, informed and to let you know that this topic - as a matter of sound research policy - is very much on the active agenda of staff and of strong interest to AERA Council and the AERA Government Relations (GR) Committee. Both Council and the GR Committee have this topic on their business agendas at the Annual Meeting. Meanwhile, please e-mail me if you have knowledge or experiences that we should be aware of as we continue to address the issue of security clearances for contractual research employees.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Chicago.

Warm regards,

Felice

Felice J. Levine, PhD
Executive Director

Unengaging elementary classrooms

One of the largest studies ever done of United States classrooms (over 2,500 elementary classrooms) has found that

• elementary students spend over 90% of their time working alone or listening to the teacher (rather than, for example, working collaboratively with peers);
• most kids had a healthy classroom 'emotional climate' but that only about 1 in 7 kids had a consistently high-quality 'instructional climate' all three years studied; and
• the typical teacher scored only 3.6 out of seven points for 'richness of instructional methods,' and 3.4 for providing 'evaluative feedback' to students on their work.

The study's findings are reported in this week's Science magazine.

Minnesota is below average

Minnesota is used to being at the top. Our accolades include being one of the best states in the country in which to raise a family, being at the top on child and adult health measures, and being one of the highest states in terms of adult educational attainment. The state consistently is at the top when it comes to academic achievement on national and international tests as well. But when it comes to K-12 technology we're not doing so well.

Last year Education Week gave Minnesota a D when it came to K-12 technology policy and practice. This year its annual Technology Counts issue bumps Minnesota up to a C but notes that the state is still below the national average. Here are some of the relevant tables from the Minnesota report (click on each for a larger image):

You can see from the charts below that we lag the nation as a whole when it comes to closing the digital divide (click on each for a larger image). On average, our poor and/or minority students have less access to instructional computers than do similar students in other states.

How did your state do? Visit Education Week to find out.

The hits just keep on coming

To quote Casey Kasem: 'the hits just keep on coming.' Only in this case, the hits aren't so good (at least not for American education).

In case you haven't been keeping track, here's a list of some recent reports that bemoan our schools' inability to prepare globally-competitive citizens. Continuing our country's long-standing tradition, committees, commissions, and task forces have been scrambling over each other to issue the latest update on our schools' ineptitude:

• 2005 - Business RoundTable - Tapping America's Potential: The Education for Innovation Initiative
• 2006 - Committee for Economic Development - Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U.S. Economic and National Security
• 2006 - Council on Competitiveness - Competitiveness Index: Where America Stands
• 2006 - New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce - Tough Choices or Tough Times
• 2006 - Partnership for 21st Century Skills - Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce
• 2006 - United States Department of Education - Meeting the Challenge of a Changing World: Strengthening Education for the 21st Century
• 2007 - Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century - Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future
• 2007 - ETS - America's Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation's Future
• 2007 - Phi Delta Kappa - Education in the Flat World
• 2007 - United States Chamber of Commerce - Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness

This doesn't include magazine articles, speeches, interviews, and other activities along these lines. We might be in danger of losing our global lead on some measures, but I'm guessing we're still ahead of everyone else when it comes to task force and commission reports!

Did I miss any? Are we seeing similar activity in other countries?

Social justice

Many of my educational leadership colleagues across the country would say that they are working in the area of social justice. They write articles with titles like Expanding the landscape of social justice: A critical ecological analysis; Leadership for social justice and equity: Weaving a transformative framework and pedagogy; School leadership reforms: Filtering social justice through dominant discourses; and Educational leadership and social justice: Practice into theory. From conferences and other interactions, I know these folks and can say with complete certainty that they all are absolutely top-notch scholars. I also know each and every one of these articles is well-researched, well-reasoned, well-regarded, and well-meaning.

That said, I’m troubled by the fact that educational leadership folks (faculty and K-12 leaders both) aren’t talking more about digital technologies and future employability when they talk about social justice. Indeed, I rarely hear mention of technology at all within these contexts. I’d like to see more discussion in both K-12 and higher ed about the future world that disadvantaged kids are going to live in and what we need to do to boost their digital participation, citizenship, and employability opportunities.

NCLB is framed as social justice legislation, but its basic premise is that boosting disadvantaged students’ performance on industrial-era skills is socially just practice. Similarly, we talk about the digital divide mostly in terms of giving kids access to computers and the Internet and not so much in terms of teaching them how to be effective participants in a technologically-suffused, globally-interconnected future.

It’s not enough to give disadvantaged students access to digital technologies. They also need opportunities to learn to use those technologies in ways that will enhance their opportunities to be fully-functioning members of our future society. Disadvantaged students are the ones most in need of these pedagogical opportunities because their families and communities are less likely to have the means to provide such opportunities outside of school. I read a quote from someone (and I dearly wish I could remember who said it) that said something like “poor kids have things done to them by computers, while affluent kids get to do things with computers.” The author’s premise was that even when disadvantaged students get to use computers in schools, too often it’s for drill-and-kill, repetitive, basic fact work rather than them getting to use computers in creative, collaborative, problem-solving ways. I think the author was deadly correct regarding many, many schools.

Many of us education bloggers write a lot about transforming classroom practice to reflect the needs of a new world: we often call it ‘School 2.0.’ Is School 2.0 the ultimate social justice issue for disadvantaged students? Is School 2.0 the most critical social justice issue of our time if disadvantaged students aren’t going to be left even further behind than they already are? If so, why aren’t we framing more of our technology initiatives and discussion in this way? Where’s our moral imperative?

This post also is available at the TechLearning blog.

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.

Learning Spanish virtually

Yesterday I uploaded our third CASTLE Conversations podcast. I interviewed Julie Sykes, a doctoral student here at the University of Minnesota, about her Spanish Pragmatics Project, which is using virtual world software (like Second Life) to help postsecondary Spanish students learn how to communicate effectively with native Spanish speakers. Screenshots are included with the podcast.

The intent of CASTLE Conversations is to interview folks that have expertise and are doing interesting things but may not have much national visibility. Keep giving us feedback and let us know what you think. As always, we're interested in your nominations for interviewees. If you know someone interesting that you think we should interview, get in touch!

Happy listening!

Yesterday I uploaded our third CASTLE Conversations podcast. I interviewed Julie Sykes, a doctoral student here at the University of Minnesota, about her Spanish Pragmatics Project, which is using virtual world software (like Second Life) to help postsecondary Spanish students learn how to communicate effectively with native Spanish speakers. Screenshots are included with the podcast.

The intent of CASTLE Conversations is to interview folks that have expertise and are doing interesting things but may not have much national visibility. Keep giving us feedback and let us know what you think. As always, we're interested in your nominations for interviewees. If you know someone interesting that you think we should interview, get in touch!

Happy listening!

Scholarship 2.0

As an untenured professor at a major research university, of necessity I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about 'writing' and 'publication.' I’ve blogged about some of this before. I’m essentially caught between two worlds: the dynamic, interactive, freewheeling, rough-and-tumble, unmoderated cosmos of Web 2.0 and the slower-moving, calmer, peer-reviewed realm of traditional academic publishing. It’s often a difficult tension, particularly for those of us who are using these new communication and collaboration tools but whose tenure decisions are being made by peers that are not active technology users. Recently several higher education organizations have explicitly noted the strain and advocated for some reconsiderations of what it means to write, to publish, and to reach an audience.

• MLA Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion: Departments and institutions should recognize the legitimacy of scholarship produced in new media, whether by individuals or in collaboration, and create procedures for evaluating these forms of scholarship. (p. 5)
• 2007 Horizon Report: Academic review and faculty rewards are increasingly out of sync with new forms of scholarship. The trends toward digital expressions of scholarship and more interdisciplinary and collaborative work continue to move away from the standards of traditional peer-reviewed paper publication. New forms of peer review are emerging, but existing academic practices of specialization and long-honored notions of academic status are persistent barriers to the adoption of new approaches. Given the pace of change, the academy will grow more out of step with how scholarship is actually conducted until constraints imposed by traditional tenure and promotion processes are eased. (p. 4) 

George Siemens has noted that

The central filtering agent is no longer the teacher or institution. It’s the learner. Think about what that means to our education system as we know it today. It changes everything . . . . [A]s educators, we are not grasping (or prepared for) the depth of the change that is occurring under our feet. If it's happened (breaking apart the center) in every other industry - movies, music, software, business - what makes us think that our educational structures are immune? And what does it mean to us? What should we be doing now to prepare our institutions? Ourselves? Our learners?

He also notes that

Information validity is increasingly determined by the views of many individuals, not the select domain of a few [e.g., Amazon book reviews or Digg or Technorati rankings] . . . . [E]xpert-bases systems have value, but their value diminishes simply because no single person can keep up with today's information. A network, however, can.

Of course this has major implications for the academic concept of peer review (which is under fire on some fronts). I wonder when the egg is going to crack in academia. Two years? Five? Ten? And how do we retain our hedgehog concepts of research and scholarship while simultaneously adapting to the realities of a new era?

FYI, I highly recommend the Horizon Report, which highlights six technologies that will have major impacts on higher education in the next one to five years.

Assessing 21st century skills

If we’re going to teach Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy skills in schools, we need ways of determining whether or not those skills have been learned by students. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills notes that answering the question ‘How do we measure 21st century learning?’ will be critical as we try to prepare students who can be productive citizens in the new technology-suffused, globally-interconnected economy.

Over in the United Kingdom, the British government’s Key Stage 3 ICT Literacy Assessment for 12- and 13-year-old aims to assess higher-order thinking skills in conjunction with ICT use. For example, as part of a task to draft and publish a journalistic article, students must use search engines to collect and analyze employment data, e-mail sources for permission to publish their information, and present data in graphic and written formats using word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software, all within a simulated computing environment. Student actions are tracked by the computer and assessed for both technical and learning skills such as finding things out, developing ideas, and exchanging and sharing information. If you’re interested, you can download a demonstration file and see for yourself.

Other interesting projects in the U.K. include Northern Ireland’s Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment A-Level Examination in the Moving Image (students must create and assess digital film clips), the Ultralab International Certificate in Digital Creativity (students must defend their digitally-produced film, artwork, and music to a panel of peers and professionals), and the eViva e-portfolio initiative (online space where students can receive feedback on their research and communication, data analysis, and presentation skills). If anyone in the U.K. is reading this post and has experience with any of these assessments, I’d love to hear your perspectives in the comments section.

Over here in the United States, ETS also is attempting to create new assessments of 21st century learning skills. I had a chance last fall to get a personal demonstration of the ETS ICT Literacy Assessment. Like the Key Stage 3, ETS’ assessment is a scenario-based test. This is a completely new paradigm for ETS, which the ETS representative said is challenging but also exciting for its psychometricians to try and wrap their heads around. I encourage you to visit the demo site and see how the test works. It may not be ideal, but I think it’s a lot further from your typical standardized test than one might expect. It’s an interesting attempt to blend both the technology and information literacy skills needed by future generations and at least offers some food for thought. Also check out the News and Research links to find out more about the results from ETS’ pilot tests.

We will see the birth of many new 21st century assessments in the years ahead. Like these early attempts, most of these assessments will be performance-based and thus will avoid some of the objections we hear about current standardized tests. Most, if not all, also will utilize the multimedia, simulation, and tracking power of digital technologies to create more authentic assessments of real-life tasks. It should be an interesting journey.

Credits

Much of the information in this post, including some very close paraphrasing, comes from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills report, Assessment of 21st Century Skills: The Current Landscape. If you’re interested in 21st century learning skills, this report should be an important addition to your reading list.

Other resources

• Partnership for 21st Century Skills
  • Framework for 21st Century Learning
  • Assess21
  • Publications
• Calls to action
  • Are They Really Ready to Work? [Partnership for 21st Century Skills]
  • Tough Choices or Tough Times (executive summary or full report) [New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce]
  • Rising Above the Gathering Storm (executive summary or full report) [The National Academies]

This post is also available at the TechLearning blog.

"Open source" problem-solving

Listen to this post!

David Warlick blogged a bit about this idea last June, but I thought it was interesting that one of the most popular articles in 2006 from Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge series was the one titled Open Source Science: A New Model for Innovation. The article discusses using open source software development ideas to address previously-unsolvable scientific problems. The article is definitely worth a read, as are several other of the top articles from last year.

It would be fascinating to use this model in a school system. For example, a school or district blog could throw out a question (e.g., How can we better engage parents? How can we improve the academic achievement of non-English-speaking students? How can we cut our heating and electricity costs?), and solicit solutions from educational experts, other experts, the general public, etc. Obviously you'd have to sort the wheat from the chaff and, in some instances, there might need to be some way of providing an incentive large enough for folks to participate. Nonetheless, I think the idea has some power if implemented thoughtfully.

Does anyone know of a school or district that is doing this right now and seeing positive effects?

Please remember the leaders

Listen to this post!

The December 2006 issue of NASSP Bulletin has an article by Drs. Chien Yu and Vance A. Durrington, assistant professors at Mississippi State University, on practicing and preservice administrators’ perceived levels of proficiency on ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). The researchers surveyed 57 aspiring administrators and 16 practicing administrators who were serving as their mentors. The professors asked the respondents to rate themselves on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 regarding their perceived ability to perform the NETS-A standards and performance indicators. So what did the researchers find out?

In the researchers’ own words, “there were no significant differences between mentors’ and mentees’ perceived ability to the criteria for each standard.” That’s another way of saying that the folks mentoring the administrator newbies said that they knew no more than the folks they were mentoring when it came to technology-related leadership issues. Ouch.

The other interesting finding was that both the mentees and the mentors rated themselves above average on every standard. For example, the mentees’ average responses ranged from 3.32 to 3.75 across the six standards, while the mentors’ averages ranged from 3.21 to 3.78. The overall average for the mentees (3.61) was slightly higher than that of the mentors (3.58).

Now the number of participants in this study is small, particularly on the mentor side of things, but nonetheless the results are both depressing and inspiring. Depressing because there’s not going to be much good mentoring occurring on the technology leadership front when the mentees know more than the mentors. And, of course, inspiring <insert sarcasm here> because it’s good to know that there’s above-average technology leadership occurring in these participants’ schools. You know it is because they said it was.

This study raises a couple of thoughts in my mind:

• First, never rely on participants’ self-ratings as evidence of anything, at least not without corroborative evidence from elsewhere. For example, for our study of data-driven decision-making readiness here in Minnesota, we asked similar questions of teachers, principals, and superintendents. If teachers said they were using formative assessments for student progress monitoring, we wanted to check their responses against what the administrators in their district said. If administrators said they were modeling data-driven practices for staff, we wanted to see what the teaching staff thought. You get the idea. In this study the authors didn’t comment on the validity of the averages, they simply reported them, so at least they didn’t make the same mistake that was made in this NASSP article, in which the researcher asked principals to rate themselves and then used those self-reports to conclude that “principals with technology training are stronger leaders in this realm.” Again, just because participants say it doesn’t make it true.
• Second, I’m guessing that the finding of no significant differences between practicing and preservice administrators probably is pretty accurate, despite the methodological concerns that I have raised. I personally think that honest, accurate self-reporting would have resulted in much lower averages, but my own experiences working with schools show that teachers know at least as much about technology leadership as principals. Whatever leadership knowledge advantage principals have is typically outweighed by the technology advantage that teachers, who are generally younger, often possess. The bottom line, however, is that neither group knows much because neither group has received much training.

As I near the end of this post, I’ll give a nod to our own Principals Technology Leadership Assessment (PTLA). As far as I know, the PTLA is still the nation’s only psychometrically-validated assessment of principals’ technology leadership inclinations and activities. The PTLA was created to help assess principals’ actual behavior (as opposed to simple self-ratings of proficiency). Although the PTLA also is based on self-perceptions, the questions ask principals about their frequency of action, not just how good they think they are. This was the closest we and the American Institutes for Research could get to a performance assessment without direct observation, collecting a portfolio, etc. If you’re interested in using the PTLA, contact me. The PTLA is free to K-12 school organizations and educational leadership preparation programs; we’ll even host the online survey for you.

Happy New Year, everyone. As you work with schools on various technology-related issues, please remember the leaders. As I said in my very first post at Dangerously Irrelevant, sustainable success in schools never occurs without effective leadership. There are innovative, technology-using educators in almost every school and district. Their potential impact runs smack into the brick wall of their administrators’ lack of knowledge and/or training. We need more effective technology leaders in formal administrative roles like principal or superintendent. We need them now.

This post is also available at the TechLearning blog.

Chart week - Teacher professional development

Today is the last day of Chart Week here at Dangerously Irrelevant. Today’s post addresses teacher professional development regarding classroom Internet usage. All data are from the recently-released NCES report, Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2005.

Professional development for use of the Internet in public school classrooms

The chart below shows that 83% of public schools said that they or the district offered professional development to teachers on classroom Internet use in 2005.

Of course, just because professional development is offered doesn’t mean that teachers participate. The data below show that in 2005 only about a third of districts said that they were able to get more than 75% of their teachers to participate. Another third or do said that less than one-fourth of their teachers participated in such training. These numbers were slightly better than in 2002.

There are a variety of reasons why teachers might not participate in professional development related to classroom use of the Internet. The training offered might not be worthwhile or at convenient times, teachers might feel they have more pressing professional development needs, etc. However, in an era when information / media / Internet literacy have become vitally important, these numbers are at least somewhat concerning.

So what did we learn?

Here are the rest of the posts from Chart Week:

• Monday - Internet access in public schools
• Tuesday - Student laptops and wireless classrooms
• Wednesday - Length of student laptop loans
• Thursday - Internet safety

What did we learn this week? We learned that most schools and classrooms have wired connections to the Internet but that classroom wireless penetration is stagnant. We learned that student laptop usage is minimal, both overall and even in schools where students get to use them. We learned that significant percentages of schools fail to have students or parents affirmatively sign that they have read and understand acceptable use policies. And today we learned that teacher professional development may not be furthering our goals related to information and media literacy.

As in other areas, these data show that we have work to do.

Chart week - Internet access in public schools

Today kicks off Chart Week here at Dangerously Irrelevant. Today's topic is Internet access in public schools and public school classrooms. All data are from the recently-released NCES report, Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2005.

Public schools with Internet access

Just over a third of public schools had Internet connectivity in 1994. Within six years that figure had reached 98% and today pretty much every public school is connected to the Web.

Public schools with broadband Internet access

NCES started tracking in 2000 whether schools' Internet connections were broadband or narrowband. Broadband is defined as T3/DS3, fractional T3, T1/DS1, fractional T1, cable modem, or DSL. Narrowband is defined as ISDN, 56KB, or dial-up. All but 3% of public schools now have broadband connections to the Internet.

Public school classrooms with Internet access

It's one thing for a school to be connected to the Internet. It's another for the classrooms within the school to be connected. We have made a lot of progress in this area too. Only 6% of public school classrooms lack an Internet connection.

We have made great strides in terms of getting schools connected. I think sometimes we forget what a massive task it was to get all schools wired.

Schedule for the rest of the week

• Tuesday - percentage of public school classrooms with wireless Internet connections; percentage of public schools lending laptops to students
  
• Wednesday - length of time public schools lend laptops to students
• Thursday - technologies and procedures used by public schools to prevent student access to inappropriate material on the Internet
  
• Friday - professional development for use of the Internet in public school classrooms
  

The future of academic publishing

As a professor at a large research institution, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of academic publishing. While this topic may not seem to be of interest to many of you who are K-12 educators, in the end I think the implications around this issue are worth considering by all of us.

As we know, the Internet is revolutionizing publication. No longer need you be a large publishing company or a mainstream media corporation to reach a significant audience with your text, images, photographs, audio, and/or video. Search engines, blogs, social networking sites, RSS aggregators, and other tools already are connecting the content of millions to audiences of billions. These tools have only been around for a few years; imagine what it’s going to be like a decade or two from now. This story has been told before, by others with more expertise and experience than me, but it’s worth noting that this revolution has been slow to permeate academia.

The traditional publication paradigm of higher education is still alive; the “publish or perish” mantra still holds true. Professors publish articles, preferably in peer-reviewed journals, and others (arguably? hopefully?) read them. Articles are typically accessed by strolling down to the local university library and making a photocopy, accessing a PDF version of a print article via an online institutional subscription-only service, or by requesting a copy of an unavailable article via interlibrary loan. All three of these mechanisms inhibit access to cutting-edge (as well as ordinary or irrelevant) scholarship by the general public, practitioner audiences, individuals at resource-poor institutions, etc. After all, who wants to get out of bed, go to the university library, find parking (always difficult), search through the stacks, and make paper copies? No one. Not even undergraduates who live on campus want to do this. Even if you know what you’re looking for, it’s too cumbersome compared to the Internet.

In addition to time, effort, and access drawbacks, this system has other disadvantages. For example, because the joint processes of peer review and print publication take months or years to occur, scholarly research in cutting-edge, fast-changing subject areas (think technology, biomedicine, genetics, etc.) often is out of date by the time it’s printed. This is especially true of research that investigates the utility or capabilities of technology solutions. By the time research into the effectiveness of some technology is conducted, written up, submitted for peer review, revised, submitted again for peer and/or editorial review, revised again, submitted once more, formatted for printing, actually printed, and then mailed out to individual and library subscribers, the technology solution may have undergone several version changes, been bought out by a larger competitor, disappeared altogether, and so on. The fast pace of change in the world of technology and a few other fields is ill-served by the traditional publishing paradigm.

So what do I think the new academic publishing paradigm might look like?

• Scholarship will be more open. Rather than being locked down by academic publishers, future scholarship will be available to all who are interested. The proposed Federal Public Research Act (S.2695) is a first step in that direction. The Act basically requires all federally-funded research to be made freely and publicly available online within six months of publication. Academics love this idea - information wants to be free - but, as you can imagine, it is facing stiff opposition from publishing companies.
• Scholarship will be more available. Not only will more articles be publicly accessible, they also will be easier to find. Inclusion of the world’s research base in Internet search engines opens up scholarly knowledge to everyone on the planet, not just those with specialized training or skills. Similarly, hyperlinking has great promise. Imagine being able to get a source cited in an article by simply clicking on the link.
• Academia will require a different conceptualization of what constitutes scholarship. Right now most printed journals require that authors follow certain writing, structural, formatting, and citation conventions. The world of the Internet allows for limitless possibilities, particularly in terms of style (multimedia versus print) and length (there are few size restrictions online). Can a digital video, or an interactive web site, or some other kind of online resource be as scholarly and rigorous as an article that’s printed text? Absolutely. University experiments with multimedia “digital dissertations” give us some idea of what this might look like.
• Academia will require a different conceptualization of peer review. When an article literally can be made available to everyone worldwide, what constitutes appropriate review? When scholarship can be conducted and posted by anyone without going through traditional gatekeeping mechanisms, who is considered the peer review group? Is there still a place for high-level scholars to weigh in regarding the quality of the work? Should any and all visitors be allowed to comment and let the chips fall where they may? Nature already is experimenting with some alternative peer review paradigms. Others will follow.
• Academia will require a different conceptualization of quality. Rather than an article’s worthiness being judged by the opinions of a few “experts,” it may be judged by the number of page visits, or number of comments, or number of trackback hyperlinks, or its usage by and impact upon practitioners…

There’s more I could probably write here, but these notions come to mind immediately. Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages to all of this - we will gain some things but lose others. Ultimately, however, making researchers’ work more accessible, and more accountable, to the public should have positive effects for schools and the people who work in them.

This post is also available at the TechLearning blog.

We need DDDM evaluation panel participants

See below - a message I sent out over a few listservs - thought I'd post it here too. Please forward on to others and consider participating yourself (if appropriate). Do some good - earn $50!

--------------------

Dear colleagues,

We are looking for teachers, principals, assessment directors, and district technology coordinators who are interested in formative assessment and are willing to participate in an evaluation panel. The purpose of the panel is to review and contribute to the design of a formative assessment tool. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Education - its purpose is to design an affordable tool that would assist teachers with data collection and analysis on teacher-created and other formative assessments to help improve student achievement.

Each session will be no more than 1 hour long and will be conducted via webcast. Educators will receive a $50 stipend for participating.

Teachers from all subject areas are welcome. Sessions will be conducted in early October and early November. Please view the schedule at the end of this message for exact dates and times.

Educators can participate from home or from school. To participate in the webcast, each participant will need a phone to call into the discussion (toll-free) and a computer to see the presentation. Most individuals should be able to easily get into the web conference, but you may wish to check these system requirements:

• A stable 56k, cable modem, ISDN, DSL, or better Internet connection
• For Windows users: Internet Explorer 5.0 or newer, Netscape 6.0 or newer, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 or newer (JavaScript and Java enabled)
• For Mac OS X users: Safari 1.3 or newer, Firefox 1.5 or newer on PowerPC G3/G4/G5, Firefox 1.5.0.2 or newer on Intel (JavaScript and Java enabled)

If you are interested in participating, please reply to this e-mail as soon as possible by clicking the reply button and typing in your answer to each of the questions below - please address your e-mail to [email protected]. A confirmation message with the toll-free phone number and the web link you need to access the webcast will be sent to you.

• Your name?
• Your position? (teacher, principal, assessment director, district technology coordinator)
• If a teacher or principal, are you in an elementary, middle or high school?
• If you are a teacher, what subject do you teach?
• In what state are you located?
• Session date/time that is your 1st preference? (see below)
• Session date/time that is your 2nd preference? (see below)

Thank you in advance for your assistance with this important project that aims to create helpful tools to meet educators’ data-driven accountability needs. Please share this message freely with other educators.

Dr. Scott McLeod, Assistant Professor
University of Minnesota

----------------------

Session Dates / Times (all times Eastern)

Elementary School Teachers:

Oct 16 - 7:30 to 8:30 PM EST 

Oct 17 - 8:30 to 9:30 AM EST 

Oct 23 - 7:30 to 8:30 AM EST

Oct 25 - 9:30 to 10:30 AM EST

Nov 6 - 7:30 to 8:30 AM EST

Nov 8 - 9:30 to 10:30 AM EST

Nov 9 - 8:30 to 9:30 AM EST

Nov 10 - 10:30 to 11:30 AM EST

Nov 13 – 7:30 – 8:30 PM EST

Middle School/ Jr. High Teachers:

Oct 16 - 8:30 to 9:30 AM EST

Oct 16 - 7:30 to 8:30 PM EST 

Oct 17 - 10:30 to 11:30 AM EST

Oct 23 - 9:30 to 10:30 AM EST

Nov 8 - 7:30 to 8:30 AM EST

Nov 9 - 10:30 to 11:30 AM EST

Nov 10 - 8:30 to 9:30 AM EST

Nov 13 – 7:30 – 8:30 PM EST

High School Teachers:

Oct 16 - 3:30 to 4:30 PM EST

Oct 17 - 6:30 to 7:30 PM EST

Oct 23 – 8:30 – 9:30 PM EST

Nov 13 - 3:30 to 4:30 PM EST

Nov 14 - 5:30 to 6:30 PM EST

Nov 15 - 4:30 to 5:30 PM EST

Nov 16 - 8:30 to 9:30 PM EST

Principals:

Oct 16 - 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST

Oct 24 – 6:30 – 7:30 PM EST

Nov 13 - 10:00 to 11:00 AM EST

Nov 14 - 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST

Nov 14 - 7:30 to 8:30 PM EST

Nov 15 - 12:00 to 1:00 PM EST

Nov 16 - 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST

Assessment Directors:

Oct 17 – 8:30 – 9:30 PM EST

Oct 24 - 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST

Nov 6 - 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST

Nov 7 - 4:00 to 5:00 PM EST

Nov 8 - 3:00 to 4:00 PM EST

Nov 9 - 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST

Nov 15 - 7:30 to 8:30 PM EST

Technology Coordinators:

Oct 17 – 8:30 – 9:30 PM EST

Oct 25 - 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST

Nov 6 - 3:00 to 4:00 PM EST

Nov 7 - 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST

Nov 8 - 1:00 to 2:00 PM EST

Nov 9 - 4:00 to 5:00 PM EST

Nov 15 - 7:30 to 8:30 PM EST

Note: If none of the above dates/times work for you but you’re interested in participating, please e-mail [email protected] with preferred dates and times. We may be able to add more sessions.

What does "technology integration" mean?

This question is at the heart of a dissertation one of my advisees is undertaking.  In fact, she successfully defended the proposal today (congrats, Jennifer!), so I thought I'd share some thoughts on this while the ideas are fresh in my mind.

The genesis of the study was my observation that I had heard the term "technology integration" used regularly, had read a lot about it, and had even studied it, but did not really have a firm grasp of what it really meant.  A quick review of the literature made it clear that most of those who studied and/or wrote about technology integration failed to define or operationalize the term.  Furthermore, where there were efforts to define technology integration, those definitions varied greatly and were either too vague or too narrow (in my opinion).

For me, this was enough justification for a study that would systematically create an operational definition of technology integration.  But, most of the discussion at today's dissertation proposal hearing revolved around why such a study was important.  In other words, why is it important to create a theory/model/definition of technology integration?  My advisee did a nice job of addressing these sorts of questions, and ultimately a number of reasons were discussed.  Certainly, there are empirical reasons for creating an operational definition of technology integration.  That is, for those of us that study technology integration, it would be helpful to have a comprehensive framework or template or lens to use.  For the world of educational practice, though, the main justification for this study is that clarity and/or understanding leads to action.  Or, vice versa, a lack of clarity and/or understanding can stifle action.  So, the argument goes, if we want technology integration to happen (and we do!!!) it is important to provide teachers and administrators with a clear and comprehensive road map or picture of what technology integration looks like.

Interestingly, the Superintendent of the district in which my advisee works has convened a technology roundtable to revisit/revise the district's "Technology Integration Plan," which, itself, fails to really define what is meant by technology integration.  So, this study will satisfy the requirements for a dissertation for my advisee, but the findings will also become a real reference piece for the district's technology plan.  I love when dissertation work has real and practical implications.

Ultimately, the theory/model/definition of technology integration that comes out of this dissertation will emanate from the data yielded through a deep and systematic review of the literature.  However, I have some biases going in.  One major bias is that I think a theory/model/definition of technology integration must be broad and comprehensive.  My sense is that most educators and researchers think too narrowly about technology integration.  For some, the focus is on access and infrastructure (i.e. we've integrated technology if we make it a part of our teaching and learning space).  For others, the focus is on curriculum and teaching (i.e. we've integrated technology if it is used to support teaching and learning in the content areas).  For me, technology integration includes both of these aspects...and more.  According to the American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary (as referenced on dictionary.com), integration is defined as, "[t]he state of combination or the process of combining into completeness and harmony." 

I hope that the theory/model/definition of technology integration that comes from this study takes into consideration notions of completeness and harmony.  I look forward to seeing what the data say and to sharing what my advisee and I learn.

Minnesota DDDM readiness study

Since David posted about one of his data-driven decision-making (DDDM) projects yesterday, I thought I'd chime in with some info about a massive DDDM initiative underway here in Minnesota...

The Minnesota Statewide DDDM Readiness Study is an attempt to answer two basic questions:

• Are Minnesota teachers and administrators ready to engage in data-driven education?
• What needs do Minnesota educators have as they work to integrate data into their daily practice?

To try and answer these questions, paper surveys were sent out to every public school principal, superintendent, and technology coordinator in the state of Minnesota, including charter schools. In addition, surveys were sent out to five randomly-selected teachers in every public school building. Participants had the option to complete the survey online instead of on paper. A total of 13,850 surveys went out for this initiative; we've heard back from over 4,200 educators across the state. The next phase of the project hopefully will be to complete some follow-up interviews.

We're currently doing the first round of data analysis. If you're interested in the survey instruments themselves, they're available here:

• Teacher survey
• Principal survey
• Superintendent survey
• Technology coordinator survey

We believe this is the first statewide DDDM needs assessment in the country and we are delighted that the Minnesota Department of Education saw fit to fund this project. If your state has interest in using the surveys we created, we have the ability to host those online for you. The general URL for the project is www.minnesotadatasurveys.org.

Data-Driven Decision Making and Change

I have learned much about data-driven decision making (DDDM) from Dr. Scott McLeod.  He is an acknowledged authority on DDDM and is especially knowledgeable about frequent formative assessment. My own interest in DDDM is focused on how individuals can use data to lead change in schools and create cultures that are more data-driven.  I wrote a monograph for NASSP in 1999 entitled "Using Data for School Improvement".  At the time I could see where the winds were blowing in the US in regards to school accountability.  Looking back, I don't think I could have predicted how far along that continuum we have traveled.

In principle, most all of us believe in the ideals of DDDM which Scott has discussed extensively on this blog.  The problem is that for many policy makers and even educators, the only "data" that counts in DDDM are student test scores.  While I agree that academic success should be the primary focus, this perspective dismisses so much of what teaching and learning is really about.  My first grade daughter is an incredible artist (yes I am biased) and has been inspired by a wonderful public school art teacher for the last two years, but I worry that talent may not be nurtured in future grades because schools are divesting from art, music and other "non-academic" subjects to devote more resources for reading and math.

To investigate my interest in the relationships among DDDM, leadership, change, and school culture, I spent part of last year creating a survey instrument to assess teacher perceptions.  I have used the survey "Data-Driven Decision Making in Schools" in ten schools so far and I have begun factor analysis procedures.  One of the high school principals whose school completed the survey indicated that she has used the results to create her own professional development plan for personal growth.  She is building on her strengths as a leader of DDDM and is formulating action plans to address areas of concern.  I hope to conduct in-depth research and use this instrument to help school leaders understand teachers' beliefs and learn what their teachers know or do not know about DDDM.  The initial data that I have analyzed does not paint a positive picture.  Not only are teachers lacking the knowledge about DDDM and concepts like frequent formative assessment. The data also indicate that teachers and even principals in many schools do not have access to the data that they need to make informed decisions about instructional practice. These are organizational and structural barriers that have to be addressed.

While educators sometimes complain about the application of business related research and theory to educational organizations, I have found much in this literature that has informed my work in DDDM.  I am especially impressed with the Balanced Scorecard concept by Kaplan and Norton and the practical application that it holds for education.  I am about to submit a manuscript for publication with one of my doctoral students, examining the relationship between DDDM and the Balanced Scorecard. Speaking of manuscripts, I have to take my leave to edit one now. DMQ

Framing the issue correctly

This eSchoolNews article discusses the recent Wall Street Journal article criticizing one-to-one laptop programs and contrasts it with ISTE's new book highlighting successful laptop programs. Here's the problem...

The article title says that educators and parents are "split on the effectiveness of one-to-one learning." The concerns stated in the article, however, are not with the effectiveness of the learning that is occurring but rather the effectiveness of the teaching that is occurring and/or the lack of appropriate supervision / security measures by schools. Framing the issue incorrectly leads to incorrect solutions.

For example, if the laptops aren't being used well instructionally by teachers, isn't it a wrongheaded solution to give the laptops to them instead of the students? Aren't there better (and fairly obvious) solutions to the actual problem? Similarly, if students are using laptops inappropriately, isn't that an indictment of the school's acceptable use policy and enforcement thereof? If we're going to raise issues with one-to-one computing, we should at least be clear and fair about what the real issues are (e.g., like cost).

As Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE, notes in this article, and as David Warlick has noted elsewhere, soon the idea of students having to "go somewhere" (e.g., to the computer lab or to get a laptop from the cart) rather than having the technology with them 24/7, is going to seem awfully antiquated. Anyone else feel that this article, which actually spent very little verbiage on the supposed issue of student learning, was a little sloppy?

Latest news on the digital divide

The latest report from the feds reminds us that there's still a lot of work to be done to close the digital divide. Here are a few highlights from the report:

• 91% of school-age children use computers. The usage gap between white children and black children is 7%, the gap between white children and Hispanic children is 8%. Small gaps also exist for American Indian children and children with disabilities.
• In contrast, only 59% of school-age children use the Internet. The usage gap between white children and black children is 20%, the gap between white children and Hispanic children is 23%. Large gaps also exist for American Indian children, children with disabilities, children whose parents only speak Spanish, and children in poverty.
• Children with well-educated parents are more likely to use the Internet. For example, children with parents who have some graduate education are twice as likely to use the Internet than children whose parents did not complete high school. Similar trends exist for family income.
• Urban children are less likly to use the Internet. Suburban children (63%) and rural children (59%) use the Internet at similar rates. Only half of central city children use the Internet.

Perhaps most importantly, the federal data remind us that we cannot assume that students have computer and/or Internet access at home.

• Certain demographic subgroups are more dependent on schools for computer access. More students use computers at school (83%) than at home (68%). There is only a 7% school-home computer usage gap for White students. In contrast, the school-home computer usage gap for Black students is 36%, for Hispanic students is 32%, for American Indian students is 40%, and for students with disabilities is 21%. Large school-home computer usage gaps also exist based on educational attainment and family income level; in fact, students with well-educated and/or higher-earning parents have equal or better rates of computer usage at home than at school.
• Certain demographic subgroups are more dependent on schools for Internet access. Students use the Internet at school (43%) and at home (45%) at roughly equal rates. About 10% of students said they access the Internet from a public library and 9% of students use the Internet at someone else's house. White and suburban students are more likely to use the Internet at home; Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and rural students are more likely to use the Internet at school. Children with well-educated parents and/or higher family incomes are more likely to use the Internet at home, while children with less-educated parents and/or lower family incomes are more likely to use the Internet at school.

The federal data obviously are a few years behind but I'm guessing that these general patterns persist today. There's a wealth of information in the federal data tables for anyone who's interested.

Online predators: Overblown threat?

Much conversation has occurred in the educational blogging community about DOPA. One of the arguments against DOPA that hasn't popped up that much is the fact that the perceived problem may be largely overblown. While it's obviously important to keep children safe and protect students against online predators, it's also equally important to keep the issue in proper perspective. Consider the following:

• Fewer children are being sexually solicited online than five years ago (see the full report by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Crimes Against Children Research Center, and the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention)
• Only about one-fifth of online sexual solicitations occur on non-home computers (see p. 18 of the full report; this remaining fifth would include schools, libraries, etc.)
• Students who come across sexual predators and cyberbullies are, for the most part, handling those situations fairly effectively

The numbers aren't uniformly positive, of course. For example:

• About two-thirds of teenagers say that teens do things online that they wouldn't want their parents to know about and nearly 80% of online teens say that teens aren't careful about sharing personal information online (2006, Pew Internet & American Life Project)
• Some teenagers still are engaging in risky behaviors, including talking online about sex with someone they've never met in person, arranging to actually meet someone they only knew online, pretending to be a different person / age online, or never telling their parents that they were solicited by adults online (2005, Polly Klaas Foundation)

The numbers are pretty clear that the proportion of online sexual solicitations that occur during school time is pretty low. This means that DOPA is a solution in search of a problem, with the concurrent effects on positive Internet tool usage and lack of opportunity to teach students about appropriate use that already have been noted.

I highly recommend you check out some of the high-quality work being done by the CCRC, CSRIU, and others. If we're going to hype ourselves up about these issues, we should at least have a solid factual base to undergird our conversations.

District technology coordinator study

A few years back I did a nationwide study of district technology coordinators for NCREL, with help from CoSN and QED. Although our response rates were much lower than we hoped, those we did get were fairly representative of our sample and the nation at large. Some of the key findings of the study (360 respondents) were that:

• nearly a fifth of the respondents had more than one formal title in their district (can you effectively do the job of tech coordinator as a part-time job?);
• nearly a third of the respondents said that they were the only person providing technology support for their district (even in a small district, can one person effectively do the job of tech coordinator?);
• although nearly all of the respondents were considered to be district-level employees, barely half were on an administrative contract (which raises issues related to power and authority);
• rural technology coordinators made significantly less than their urban and suburban counterparts (thus raising recruitment and retention issues);
• average salaries were lower than those paid by business and industry (again raising issues of recruitment and retention when competing against the corporate world for talented people);
• respondents received, on average, a paltry 35 hours of training per year (and most of that was likely technical in nature, not leadership-oriented); and
• large proportions said that they probably would leave for a job with the same responsibilites but better pay (59%) or a job with the same pay but fewer responsibilities (34%) (again raising recruitment and retention issues).

In addition to the report, I also wrote up a short article on this for Scholastic Administr@tor.

Although the results are from 2003, my personal experience is that things haven't changed much. We have seen a trend, particularly in larger districts, toward more CTO-/CIO-like positions and/or hiring people with experience in business and industry.

What do you think? Are these findings still relevant and/or important today?

Who are our technology leaders? - Part 2

In a previous post I noted that our technology leaders are rarely superintendents or principals, the individuals in formal positions of authority within school districts. So if our technology leaders are not our formal leaders, who are they?

Well, in larger districts we see chief technology officers or chief information officers who have many of the powers that we associate with formal leaders: decision-making, spending, personnel assignment, resource allocation, etc. These individuals often sit on the superintendents' cabinet and are integral members of the district leadership team. Sometimes this role is filled by an assistant or associate superintendent, who also may have responsibilities in other areas (e.g., curriculum, transportation).

In contrast, smaller districts have technology coordinators and, sometimes, district-level technology integrationists. These individuals often have few, if any, of the powers possessed by formal leaders.

In some small districts and/or individual schools, the de facto technology leaders are media specialists, building-level technology integrationists, and/or teachers.

Here's the bad news: with the exception of the assistant superintendents and/or those few principals or superintendents who are the technology leaders in their organizations, nearly all of the rest of these people probably have no leadership training. You don't need an administrative credential to be a teacher / media specialist / technology coordinator in most places - the tech coordinators / CTOs / CIOs may not even have an education degree.

There are reasons that we require leadership training for our formal leaders - they have to do with learning how to effectively facilitate change, provide appropriate support, mobilize stakeholder buy-in and involvement, operate within political and legal parameters, etc. One of the reasons that technology is marginalized and viewed as a non-essential component of most K-12 school systems is because the vast majority of our de facto technology leaders lack the background training and knowledge to effectively lead, advocate, make change, garner buy-in, and so on. All they have is whatever they've gained through the hard knocks of day-to-day experience and we all know how variable that can be.

Tech folks need more general leadership training and/or leaders need more technology-related leadership training. If we're serious about our digital future, we need to figure this out.

Who are our technology leaders? - Part 1

Superintendents and principals are rarely the technology leaders in their organizations. As Director of CASTLE, I say this with both confidence and dismay.

Here are a couple of quick examples (please add your own as comments to this post!):

1. Attendance by superintendents and principals at educational technology conferences is rare. Even when sessions or strands at those conferences are specifically designed for administrators, the individuals who are the formal leaders in their school organizations aren't often there (see, e.g., ISTE's annual Technology Leadership Forum at NECC, which is attended mostly by CTOs / technology coordinators).
2. Last summer I asked the members of our nationwide School Technology Leadership graduate certificate cohort to name the individuals in their school organizations who others would view as leaders in the area of technology. Out of 53 named individuals in 11 different schools / districts, only 5 were in formal positions of authority. The rest were technology coordinators, media specialists, technology integrationists, teachers, etc. with little to no decision-making authority and/or spending power.

There are other examples I could provide but I'll stop here since it's late and I need to go to bed. I will add to this, though, the ongoing commentary from the hundreds of students who have taken at least one of our School Technology Leadership courses to date that their school leaders just don't get this technology stuff.

So who are our technology leaders if they're not superintendents and/or principals? I'll cover that in Part 2...

States need to step up

One of the most important issues in K-12 technology right now is the lack of engagement of administrators who are in formal positions of authority. For example, you can go to any educational technology conference in the country - NECC, CoSN, NSBA T+L, any state or regional conference - and the percentage of administrators in attendance is usually abysmally low. As I said in my previous post, without significant involvement by the individuals who have the power to make decisions, set organizational priorities, spend money, assign personnel, coordinate activities, initiate staff training, etc., the long-term prospects of technology in schools remain extremely dismal. Schools' marginalization of technology as a non-essential activity, in contrast to every other sector of society, occurs because their leaders allow and facilitate it.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation State Challenge Grants for Leadership Development have been the only large-scale administrator technology training initiative to date. These grants were a good start. They were wildly successful from a coverage perspective - 75% to 100% of administrators in every state received some kind of technology training (as well as some participation incentive like a laptop or handheld computer). Many, if not most, of the participants came away from their training not only more knowledgeable but also energized about the potential and promise of technology. Unfortunately...

1. The depth of administrators' involvement was very shallow. In nearly every state, administrators received a maximum of three to six days of training, typically over the course of a single year.
2. Even assuming that individual participants became better technology leaders over the long term as a result of the program (a big assumption despite what the final evaluation said), a tremendous number of those participants have retired or will do so soon (see, e.g., reports from NAESP and Stateline.org). Because participation in the program was usually limited to practicing principals and/or superintendents, educators who represented the future pipeline of school administrators (e.g., assistant principals, technology coordinators, media specialists, teachers) received none of the Gates training.
3. Few states did anything to build upon the momentum gained by the Gates grants. Most states stopped providing large-scale technology-related training opportunities for administrators once the foundation monies disappeared.

As a result, the $250 million initiative (half from the foundation, half from the states) made a big splash, got some good media attention, and then fizzled out in terms of long-term sustainability and impact.

It is time for our states to step up. Every state wants to graduate students who can be part of the creative, digital workforce of the future. One way to ensure that this happens is to quit relying primarily on school districts to train administrators in the technology arena because it is quite clear that they're not doing so. We have a few notable school districts that are providing substantive technology-related training opportunities for their administrators (see, e.g., the ISTE / Chicago Public Schools' Principal Technology Leadership Institutes). Most school districts are not, however, and we all will pay the price of states' reliance on the variable patchwork of district-level initiatives.

SETDA, where is your programming for principals and superintendents (both current and future)? CoSN? ISTE? Corporations? Educational leadership associations (NSBA, AASA, NASSP, NAESP)? Others? Where's the recognition that administrators, not students or teachers, hold the keys to making this technology stuff happen successfully? Does anyone not believe that technology is only going to become even more important than it already is?