Dangerously Irrelevant

Is the Ron Clark Academy a scalable model of school excellence?

The Ron Clark Academy looks like a wonderful school. But is it realistic to expect a significant number of our teachers to teach like this?

Correlation or causation? Teacher resistance to state technology initiatives

Terry Moe and John Chubb say…

A. “The average technology score [from Education Week’s Technology Counts 2008] drops as union membership grows. . . . technology seems to be advancing more quickly in states where the unions are weakest” (p. 107). [chart is from p. 108]

B. “The percentage of states with state-level virtual schools drops steadily as the unionization of teachers grows” (p. 118). [chart is from p. 119]

C. “[We] look at the percentage of states . . . that have data systems with the capacity to link students and teachers . . . [and see] the same basic pattern as for virtual schools – which is telling, as virtual schools and teacher identifiers have little to do with one another aside from their impact on union interests” (pp. 138–139). [chart is from p. 139]

[Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education]

Previous posts in this series

1. Education’s resistance to technology will be overcome

2. It would be impossible for the information revolution to unfold and NOT have transformative implications for how children can be educated

3. Technology will free learning from the dead hand of the past

4. Technological change is destined to be resisted by the teachers unions

Technological change is destined to be resisted by the teachers unions

Terry Moe and John Chubb say…

The fact that [technology] offers enormous benefits is not enough to guarantee that it will be embraced by the public schools and its potential fully realized. Technological change will run into the same political roadblocks that all major reforms have run into, and for exactly the same reasons. Powerful groups will try to block it. (pp. 29–30)

It is a fact that the teachers unions have vested interests in preserving the existing educational system, regardless of how poorly it performs. It is a fact that they are more powerful – by far – than any other groups involved in the politics of education. And it is a fact that in a government of checks and balances they can use their power to block or weaken most reforms they do not like. To recognize as much is not to launch ideological attacks against the unions. It is simply to recognize the political world as it is. (p. 54)

If anything is stone-cold certain about the current structure of power, it is that technological change is destined to be resisted by the teachers unions and their allies. This is “their” system, and they are compelled by their own interests to preserve and protect it. They will go to the ramparts to see that technology does not have real transformative effects. (p. 55)

[Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education]

Previous posts in this series

1. Education’s resistance to technology will be overcome

2. It would be impossible for the information revolution to unfold and NOT have transformative implications for how children can be educated

3. Technology will free learning from the dead hand of the past

Technology will free learning from the dead hand of the past

Terry Moe and John Chubb say…

The American education system faces much more than a performance problem. It also faces a political problem that, in the grander scheme of things, is more fundamental than the performance problem itself - because it prevents the performance problem from being seriously addressed and resolved. . . .

What sets technology apart from other sources of reform is that . . . it also has a far-reaching capacity to change politics - and to eat away, relentlessly and effectively, at the political barriers that have long prevented reform. Technology, then, is a double-barreled agent of change. It generates the innovations that make change attractive, and at the same time it undermines the political resistance that would normally prevent change from happening. . . .

This will mean real improvement, and real benefits for the nation and its children. It will also mean something still more profound: the dawning of a new era in which politics is more open, productive ideas are more likely to flourish – and learning is liberated from the dead hand of the past. [Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education, pp. 10–12]

It would be impossible for the information revolution to unfold and NOT have transformative implications for how children can be educated

Terry Moe and John Chubb say…

Even today, with educational technology in its earliest stages:

• Curricula can be customized to meet the learning styles and life situations of individual students.
• Education can be freed from geographic constraint.
• Students can have more interaction with . . . teachers and students who may be thousands of miles away or from different nations or cultures.
• Parents can readily be included in the communications loop.
• Teachers can be freed from their tradition-bound classroom roles, employed in more differentiated and productive ways, and offered new career paths.
• Sophisticated data systems can put the spotlight on performance [and] make progress (or the lack of it) transparent.
• Schools can be operated at lower cost, relying more on technology (which is relatively cheap) and less on labor (which is relatively expensive). . . .

Information and knowledge are absolutely fundamental to what education is all about . . . and it would be impossible for the information revolution to unfold and not have transformative implications for how children can be educated and how schools and teachers can more productively do their jobs. . . .

Precisely because technology promises to transform the core components of schooling, it is inevitably disruptive to the jobs, routines, and resources of the people whose livelihoods derive from the existing system. [Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education, pp. 7–9]

Education's resistance to technology will be overcome

Terry Moe and John Chubb say…

The revolution in information technology is historic in its force and scope: reshaping the fundamentals of how human beings from every corner of the globe communicate, interact, conduct their business, and simply live their lives from day to day. Education has so far resisted this revolution, as we could have predicted. But . . . we believe the resistance will be overcome – not simply because technology generates innovations of great value for student learning (which it does), but . . . because it is destined to have surprising and far-reaching effects on politics and power . . . . Technology will triumph. But the story of its triumph is a political story. [Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education, pp. xi-xii]

Tony Wagner speaks to Iowa educators, Part 3

Dr. Tony Wagner of Harvard University, who authored The Global Achievement Gap, is speaking to over 600 Iowa administrators and teachers today in Des Moines. Nearly 30 students are liveblogging their reactions to Tony’s presentation. Part 3 is below…

Tony Wagner speaks to Iowa educators, Part 2

Dr. Tony Wagner of Harvard University, who authored The Global Achievement Gap, is speaking to over 600 Iowa administrators and teachers today in Des Moines. Nearly 30 students are liveblogging their reactions to Tony’s presentation. Part 2 is below… 

Tony Wagner speaks to Iowa educators, Part 1

Dr. Tony Wagner of Harvard University, who authored The Global Achievement Gap, is speaking to over 600 Iowa administrators and teachers today in Des Moines. Nearly 30 students are liveblogging their reactions to Tony’s presentation. Part 1 is below… 

Two thoughts about President Obama's speech tomorrow (and my own speech the day after)

Much ado about nothing

I just read the text of President Obama’s hotly-contested speech tomorrow. I encourage you to do the same. Could it be any more innocuous? Whatever happened to waiting to see what happens first and THEN hollering about it? A lot of crying wolf has been going on lately…

If only these opportunities actually existed at scale

I was pleased to see this passage:

What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

I just wish I had more faith in our current schooling system to nurture the problem-solving and critical thinking skills and creativity and ingenuity that the President mentions. Right now I don’t think we’re doing so well in these areas…

On Wednesday I spend the day with 80 or so high school students (juniors and seniors, mostly) in Northwest Iowa. What should I be saying to them about their schools, technology, globalization, and their futures?

Laptops and the Social Web are dangerous!

A while back I shared one of my two favorite passages from Pamela Livingston’s excellent book, 1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work. Here's the other one:

[W]e need to make “The Shift.” The Shift: to classrooms that are not solely teacher-centric, with the teacher as lone disseminator of knowledge and the children in the awe-stricken and lesser role of recipients of the knowledge. The Shift: where the teacher sometimes has the central role when he or she explains and coaches and elaborates on work to be done … but not always. The Shift: where the learners sometimes have the central role, either individually or in groups. The Shift: where the roles of teacher and learner are fuzzy; sometimes the teacher learns from the students; sometimes the students learn from one another; and, yes, sometimes the students learn from the teacher. The Shift: where sometimes it’s hard to know who has the central role, where activities are buzzing along, learning is happening, dynamics are shifting, and no one is “looking up” to anyone as the sole source of knowledge.

Nothing jumpstarts The Shift quite like 1–to-1. Because when every student in the room has a [laptop], he or she does not have to look “up” to the teacher for resources or ideas - the student has resources at his or her fingertips. There is no distribution or retrieval of materials, no sole purveyor of information, and no firm start or stop to learning because it can continue beyond the classroom into the library, or home, or anywhere.

Some find The Shift dangerous. And in a way, it is. It’s dangerous to the educator who controls the classroom with an iron fist and wants all the answers on the test to be things he or she said in class, repeated word-for-word. It’s dangerous to educators who have assigned the same report on Gandhi over the past 20 years and haven’t started to require synthesis or analysis of information. It’s dangerous to teachers who physically stay in one place – the front of the classroom – and move only to write on the chalkboard or whiteboard. It’s dangerous to educators who don’t want anyone to “read ahead” or to “think ahead.”

It’s dangerous to educators who view themselves as the most knowledgeable person in the room and are personally invested in staying that way. It’s dangerous to teachers who haven’t paid attention to their unengaged students and keep covering the material anyway, they way they think it ought to be covered, believing students should adapt to their approach.

If you haven’t checked out Pamela’s book, it’s well worth the read. I give it 4 highlighters.

Video - The Digital Education Revolution in NSW

The New South Wales province in Australia is on a quest to outfit every Year 9 to 12 student with a customized Lenovo netbook by 2012. It is expected that over 200,000 computers will be distributed to students and teachers. If you’re interested, you can read more about the project or listen to a podcast about the initiative. 

I think this is a GREAT idea. Guess which high school graduates will be better prepared for a digital world: those who get to use computers in interesting and empowering ways on a regular basis or those who don’t?

Below is the publicity video for the initiative (thanks, John Strange, for leading me to this). Happy viewing, everyone!

Video - I Need My Teachers to Learn

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a video created by Shawn Gormley and Kevin Honeycutt that highlights some of the digital disconnects that exist between students and teachers:

Thanks, Angela Maiers and Wes Fryer, for blogging about this. Happy viewing, everyone!

See you in Mumbai?

The American School of Bombay (ASB) in Mumbai, India is hosting a 1:1 laptop computing conference in February 2010. While the conference is aimed at other international schools, it should be an excellent learning opportunity for anyone who can attend. I attended (and keynoted) ASB's first conference two years ago, brought my buddy, Dr. David Quinn, and had an absolutely wonderful time. I met a bunch of really great international educators and learned a lot about effective 1:1 programs. I highly encourage you to try and attend; Mumbai's a fascinating city! The conference is a collaborative effort of ASB, the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation (AALF), the Laptop Institute, and the NESA Center.

If you'd like to submit a proposal to present, the deadline is September 5. The deadline to register and attend is November 15. More information on the conference - including how to register and/or submit a proposal - is at the ASB Un-Plugged Ning.

CASTLE will be sending three representatives to the conference. We're going to make sure we're there in time for the preconference with AALF, which looks totally amazing. ASB is the best 1:1 school I've seen to date; I'm looking forward to seeing how much progress they've made since my last visit. I'm heading up the leadership strand of the conference. Vicki Davis, Julie Lindsay, Doug Johnson, Scott Klososky, and Helen Barrett will be leading conference strands too. Hope to see you there!

Related posts

• Sharing the global stage: Musings on Mumbai
• Musings from Mumbai: Fostering a climate of innovation in the middle and high schools

Chris Lehmann speaks to the FCC

I don't know how Chris Lehmann finagled an invite to speak to the FCC, but I sure am glad he did (and that he filmed it!). Click on the picture below to listen to Chris' 10-minute presentation. I promise it will be WELL worth your time. 

Laptops empower students to get to the thinking faster

I have two favorite quotes from Pamela Livingston’s excellent book, 1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work. Here's the first one:

If it takes 40 minutes for an environmental science class to gather weather data from atlases and almanacs and turn it into pencil and paper charts, how much time is left to think about what the chart is saying? How much time is there to consider “what if” scenarios, such as, “What if the mean temperature rose by ten degrees?” Equipped with a laptop computer, access to the Internet, and a spreadsheet/graphing program, however, students can quickly find and analyze current data. They can plug that data into spreadsheet templates and prepare charts for half a dozen different “what if” scenarios in the same amount of time it would take to make a pencil and paper chart. [Laptops] allow students to get to the thinking faster. [emphasis added]

We waste so much time in school doing things on paper that are more efficient on the computer. One of the primary reasons that adults use computers instead of paper is enhanced productivity. What could teachers do with all of the time that we’d free up if schools made a significant shift away from paper and pencil?

If you haven’t checked out Pamela’s book, it’s well worth the read!

HELP WANTED - THE PUSH: Elementary teacher blogs

Just a few days left for THE PUSH! Today we focus on ELEMENTARY TEACHERS. What are some excellent elementary teacher blogs that P-6 educators should be reading? We're looking for excellent examples of blogs where elementary teachers generally share their thoughts and work. If you know of some, please add them to the Moving Forward wiki. [Note: On Thursday we worked on elementary classroom blogs where students are writing and sharing. Also, we already covered subject-specific blogs, including preschool / early childhood education blogs.]

Why are we doing this?

• To identify blogs that P-12 teachers can use to initially seed (or expand) their RSS readers
• To create a single location where P-12 educators can go to see excellent educational blogging
• To highlight excellent disciplinary blogging that deserves larger audiences
• To learn from disciplines other than our own and get ideas about our own teaching and/or blogging

Thanks in advance for helping with this initiative. If we all contribute, at the end we should have a bevy of excellent P-12 blogs to which we can all point. Please spread the word about THE PUSH!

FYI, our last push was successful. We now have a list of 48 excellent elementary classroom blogs. With 5 days to go, we’re doing okay in most other areas but could use some help with these:

• agricultural education blogs (only have 3),
• athletics / extracurricular activities (only have 1),
• drama / theater education blogs (only have 1),
• family / consumer sciences education blogs (only have 3),
• physical / health education blogs (only have 7), and
• school counseling / college and career counseling / career education / school psychology blogs (only have 3),
• vocational / applied / industrial technology education blogs (only have 2).

Got any ideas for this reading teacher?

A reading teacher contacted me:

As the school's remedial reading teacher I was asked to research a reading program for an extraordinarily bright 5th grader. Do you have any suggestions? His 4th grade teacher said he is too advanced to stay with this fellow students now that he is no longer in her class. The best I have come up with is a one-on-one literature program. Are you familiar with  HOTS or Mindlink?

Here is my reply:

I don't know. Sorry. Can't keep up with all of the learning software that's out there. Also not a reading specialist... That said, maybe my readership has some ideas for you?

And here is hers:

Thank you, thank you, thank you... I am most appreciative. As you can see I can never find anything on the Internet and I want to help this student reach his full potential. Although the district I work in has a suburban zip code it has the personality of a city school. Most of our resources are utilized to help students reach proficiency and not to enrich exceptional students. I can't thank you enough for your help.This child is special and I don't want to lose him due to boredom or have him become a thorn in his young teacher's side when she can't handle him because he is zoning out or misbehaving.

Any ideas for her?

Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please?

  

dear parent

  teacher

  administrator

  board member

     

don't teach your kids to read

  for the Web

  to scan

    RSS

    aggregate

    synthesize

 

don't teach your kids to write

  online

pen and paper aren't going anywhere

since when do kids need an audience?

no need to hyperlink

  make videos

    audio

      Flash

      

no connecting, now

no social networking

  or online chat

  or comments

  or PLNs

blogs and twitter?

  how self-absorbed

  what a bunch of crap

and definitely, absolutely, resolutely, no cell phones

block it all

lock it down

keep it out

it's evil, you know

  there's bad stuff out there

    gotta keep your children safe

    

don't you know collaboration is just another word for cheating?

don't you know how much junk is out there?

haven't you ever heard of sexting?

  of cyberbullying?

a computer 24-7? no thanks

  I don't want them

    creating

      sharing

        thinking

          learning

you know they're just going to look at porn

  and hook up with predators

we can't trust them

don't do any of it, please

  

really

'cause I'm doing all of it with my kids

can't wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two

can you?

  

Book Review - Education and Learning to Think

Here are two quotes from Education and Learning to Think, an interesting little research-based book published by the National Research Council way back in 1987!

Higher order thinking is nonalgorithmic. That is, the path of action is not fully specified in advance.

Higher order thinking tends to be complex. The total path is not “visible” (mentally speaking) from any single vantage point.

Higher order thinking often yields multiple solutions, each with costs and benefits, rather than unique solutions.

Higher order thinking involves nuanced judgment and interpretation.

Higher order thinking involves the application of multiple criteria, which sometimes conflict with one another.

Higher order thinking often involves uncertainty. Not everything that bears on the task at hand is known.

Higher order thinking involves self-regulation of the thinking process. We do not recognize higher order thinking in an individual when someone else “calls the plays” at every step.

Higher order thinking involves imposing meaning, finding structure in apparent disorder.

Higher order thinking is effortful. There is considerable mental work involved in the kinds of elaborations and judgments required. (p. 3)

The seventh item on the list, self-regulation, is one that I think is particularly lacking in many K-12 schools because the teachers “call the plays” so much of the time…

Here’s what I think is the money quote:

The goals of increasing thinking and reasoning ability are old ones for educators. . . . But these goals were part of the high literacy tradition; they did not, by and large, apply to the more recent schools for the masses. Although it is not new to include thinking, problem solving, and reasoning in someone’s school curriculum, it is new to include it in everyone’s curriculum. It is new to take seriously the aspiration of making thinking and problem solving a regular part of a school program for all of the population . . . It is a new challenge to develop educational programs that assume that all individuals, not just an elite, can become competent thinkers. (p. 7)

I liked this book. It's very short, but it made me think. I give it 4 highlighters.

 

School is tests and credits. Learning is 'getting it.'

Seth Godin is one of my favorite thinkers. I’ve learned a ton from him. Here are a couple of quotes from his post today on education.

School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Learning, on the other hand, is 'getting it'. It's the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Learning doesn't care about workbooks or long checklists.

For a while, smart people thought that school was organized to encourage learning. For a long time, though, people in the know have realized that they are fundamentally different activities.

and

If you think the fallout in the newspaper business was dramatic, wait until you see what happens to education.

Happy reading!

Slide - Global awareness instruction must move beyond foods and holidays

Download this file: png ppt pptx

See also my other slides and the Great Quotes About Learning and Change Flickr pool.

Slide - Any educator that buys wall maps or globes should be fired

Download this file: png ppt pptx

See also my other slides and the Great Quotes About Learning and Change Flickr pool.

UPDATE 1: In addition to the great comments below, see also my follow-up post.

UPDATE 2: We're having a slide remake contest! Deadline is Aug 22, 2009.

Dr. Yong Zhao at SAI 2009

Here are my notes from Dr. Yong Zhao’s presentation, Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization, at the 2009 School Administrators of Iowa (SAI) conference…

• Dr. Zhao’s book will be out soon from ASCD.
• Thomas Friedman: “When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me: ‘Finish your dinner — people in China are starving.’ I, by contrast, find myself wanting to say to my daughters: ‘Finish your homework — people in China and India are starving for your job.’”
• When something bad happens in America, it has to do with education. When something good happens in America, it has to do with some politician.
• March 24, 1958 article in LIFE magazine comparing Russian students’ work with American students’ was very similar to the rhetoric of 2 Million Minutes.
• 1983, A Nation at Risk: “a rising tide of mediocrity” and “we are raising a new generation of Americans that is scientifically and technologically illiterate.”
• Achieve, the College Board, and ACT are writing the upcoming national standards. Ask yourself who stands to benefit from the new standards?
• 2 Million Minutes: now the ‘enemy’ is China and India. Dr. Zhao grew up in China and is back there almost every month. He disagrees with Bob Compton, the director.
• The USA continues to be the most economically competitive country in the world. We continue to be the most innovative, as measured by patents issued. And of course we are the most open, democratic.
• No other country comes close to the US when it comes to exports of intellectual property / knowledge (patents, royalties, copyrights, license fees). China dominates toy exports, not knowledge exports. China is a country built on cheap labor, not knowledge.
• If the US educational system is so bad, why are other countries (like China) trying to emulate us (see, e.g., China’s 2002 and 2005 curriculum and assessment reforms).
• Singapore is emphasizing the explicit teaching of critical and creative thinking skills.
• The correlation between the 1964 First International Math Study test scores (FIMS) and economic output, hourly productivity, quality of life, etc. 40 hours later are all negative. Democracy, creativity, livability all have no relationship or a negative relationship with the FIMS scores.
• Recommends reading Day of Empire: How HyperPowers Rise to Global Dominance – And Why They Fail, by Amy Chua, and The Rise of the Creative Class, by Richard Florida. Diversity of talents, creativity, entrepeneurship, and passion are what allow nations to thrive.
• We are busy closing the achievement gap. Asian countries are busy closing the creativity gap.
• The strengths of American education: school talent shows (value individual talents, inspires passion and responsbility, tolerate deviation, cultivate entrepeneurship) and children are popcorn (some pop early and some pop late; respect individual differences; have faith in every child; second, third, and fourth chances)
• Creativity is fundamentally to be different. America is a society that tolerates, values, and celebrates difference.
• We do face new challenges. For example, globalization (i.e., the death of distance). Columbus took about 3 months to get from Spain to the Bahamas. Now it takes 13 hours on airplane. Electronic information, money, voice phone calls, etc. now get there instantly.
• Global supply chains: corporations can fragment their production and distribute it wherever it makes sense (outsourcing of labor). Products are now made from parts that come from a multitude of different countries.
• New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce: “Today, Indian engineers make $7,500 a year against $45,000 for an American engineer with the same qualifications. If we succeed in matching the very high levels of mastery of mathematics and science of these Indian engineers - an enormous challenge for this country - why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work? They would be willing to do that only if we could offer something that the Chinese and Indians, and others, cannot.”
• Equalling China’s or India’s performance on standardized tests doesn’t differentiate ourselves, doesn’t allow us to offer what others cannot.
• Problems in other countries also affect everyone now (e.g., swine flu, poverty, violence, financial meltdowns). We no longer can keep ourselves isolated.
• Where does the new hope lie? With Madonna and eBay! Many people don’t like Madonna. But across the globe, there are enough who do for her to be successful. Globalization allows us to find the other crazy people across the world who find value in what we offer. eBay allows us to find others outside our local area who will buy our trash. Globalization expands our audiences and allows our skills, talents, products, etc. to find new places that they can thrive. What do you have that others don’t? What can you contribute to other markets? What’s your niche?
• Societal changes create new job opportunities. Right now, for example, we need people who understand other countries’ cultures, languages, politics, etc.
• Technology demands new skills (e.g., virtual designers). Virtual “gold farming” is now a $2 billion industry worldwide.
• The Partnership for the 21st Century Skills framework is too long and complex. Our problem in America is that we keep adding, we never take away.
• See Jenifer Fox’s www.strengthsmovement.com.
• We need to take technology and the digital world SERIOUSLY.
• Every child should have a personalized curriculum. This is happening in other countries (e.g., United Kingdom).
• We should think of schools as global enterprises, not local entities, and draw on global resources.
• Never send a man to do a machine’s job. Let people and computers each do what they do best.
• Slides available at http://zhao.educ.msu.edu

At an information feast, what value must graduates and teachers bring to the table?

On page 52 of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson notes:

Products that can become commoditized and cheap tend to do so, and companies seeking profits move upstream in search of new scarcities. Where abundance drives the cost of something to the floor, value shifts to adjacent levels.

And that’s really it, in a nutshell, for our students and our school systems, isn’t it? Because the need to store information in our heads has diminished yet again as our storage media have become more sophisticated (this time it’s computers and the Internet instead of books), the value that our graduates bring to their jobs increasingly is dependent on what they can do with what they know, not merely what they know. Because previously-scarce information is now freely and abundantly available on the Web, the value that teachers bring to their current jobs is not how well they can spew forth content and then assess what kids can regurgitate but rather how well they can - and their students can - think critically about and act upon important facts and concepts.

I think most educators and policymakers have yet to give much thought to the occurrence (or magnitude) of this shift…

[Many folks have disagreed with the premise of this book, but I found much to think about inside. I give it 3 highlighters.]

Should schools be thinking of netbooks as electronic book readers instead of laptop replacements?

The best-selling netbooks typically fall within the $300 to $400 range and their capabilities are increasing rapidly as manufacturers figure out how to include more features. For example, we are seeing larger or solid state hard drives, additional external ports, more included software, touch screens, and the emergence of tablet netbooks or netbooks with removable displays.

Netbooks traditionally have been positioned as laptop replacements and are selling briskly because they can do what we need most of the time. However, many K-12 educators feel that netbooks are not a good option for student 1:1 computing initiatives because they lack the capabilities of a full laptop computer.

I’ve been reading lately about attempts to get electronic book readers (e-readers) into the hands of students. I wonder if schools should be thinking of netbooks as e-readers intead, particularly as tablet-style netbooks and free / low-cost online or electronic textbook initiatives both become more prevalent. The cost of a netbook is comparable to a Kindle, for example, and has greater functionality than the typical e-reader (rather than lesser functionality compared to a laptop). A student carrying around a $400 tablet netbook could use it primarily as an e-reader and also as a laptop replacement. This dual functionality might make netbooks a smart bet for many schools, particularly as the cost decreases - and availability increases - of online and electronic textbook options. Savings on textbooks might offset or even pay for the cost of the netbooks.

Does thinking of netbooks as e-readers make them a more attractive option to schools rather than considering them solely as laptops? Do dedicated electronic book readers such as the Kindle or the Sony e-Reader make any sense for K-12 schools? Thoughts?

School mobile phone jammers and shoe organizers

The Des Moines Register reported today that the St. Ansgar (IA) Schools have given up on their proposal to purchase a device that would jam mobile phone signals after confirming that such equipment only can be used by federal agencies. The district had looked into the possibility of buying a jammer because it was struggling with inappropriate student mobile phone usage. One of the school board members said:

I don't think they have a place in the educational environment. The educational environment is supposed to be about students learning and teachers teaching and teachers can't teach over a cell phone. If a student is busy on the cell phone they aren't learning. It's a distraction ... and we need to minimize the distraction.

The interim superintendent also noted that he was concerned about students using mobile phones for cheating.

I e-mailed the interim superintendent a couple of days ago and asked him to consider a different, less hard-line approach, noting schools’ responsibility to prepare students for a digital, global era and that other districts have had success with more-accommodating strategies. Maybe I’ll hear from him sometime.

One of the comments to the Register’s article cracked me up:

Oh, For Crying-out-load. Just hang one of those shoe orginizers next to the door and require each student to check in thier phones on entering the classroom, then they can retrieve them after class. Just drop your phone in your slot and pick it up on the way out. Hey look, I solved the problem for less than $5.00

I don’t know if this is a fantastic idea or not, but it sure made me laugh. Sometimes easy solutions to our problems are staring us in the face if only we have the courage to think creatively. As we head into the new school year, who thinks their local school has an effective solution for inappropriate student use of mobile phones?

Do most educational games suck?

Since my preview of Conspiracy Code: U.S. History at NECC, I’ve been thinking again about educational games…

Here are a bunch of screen shots of different online games for learning. I found them by typing into Google variations of learning games, educational games, learning games high school, educational games middle school, and so on. Most of these appear to be aimed at kids of middle or high school age.

FunBrain Math Baseball

PBS Kids You’re in Charge

Quiz Hub U.S. History Timeline Quiz

Math Playground Math TV

UPDATE: The creator of this would like me to note that Math TV is a 'learning activity' rather than an educational 'game.' See the comments below for more on this.

eSchoolOnline eMath Pretest

Asian Countries – Level Seven

Hotmath Number Cop

Teach-nology Diner Dash

CoolMath Pool Geometry 2

Eat or Be Eaten

Just from a graphics standpoint, I have to wonder how interesting these games are to preteens and teens when the games below are more along the lines of what they see at home.

Grand Theft Auto IV

Madden NFL ‘09

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Super Mario Galaxy

Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships

BioShock

Plants vs. Zombies

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

So I’ve got some questions…

1. Does the quality of the graphics matter when it comes to educational games? Or is the quality of the learning experience enough?
2. Speaking of the learning experience, just how bad are most of these so-called ‘educational games?’ I wasn’t too impressed with the games shown above. In terms of gaming complexity, many of them are using pretty simplistic techniques to try and reach what I’m guessing are fairly-savvy students. Also, many of them seemed to be games from many years ago that still are being pitched to educators and adolescents. I found two of the learning games as links from a high school web site (Asian Countries – Level Seven and Eat or Be Eaten), which made me feel really sad for the students who were in that school.
3. Maybe it’s completely unfair to compare online learning games with commercial games that are downloadable or on CD-ROM/DVD. So what is out there that’s comparable in the commercial downloadable/DVD educational games sector? Anything good? Vendors, if you think you’ve got educational games that are worth looking at, feel free to comment!

Your thoughts?

Teen sexting: I failed my own information literacy test

I tweeted:

And Barry Dahl replied:

Barry’s right and I’m wrong. I failed my own information literacy test. Why? Because even though I had access to (and linked to) the original report, I didn’t critically consume it the way I should have. Instead I relied on this report from CNN:

And because I did, I made an incorrect statement that then got retweeted by others. Shame on CNN for being misleading and/or inaccurate, but shame on me too for not doing my homework the way I should have. Just because CNN is a traditional, reputable news organization doesn’t mean that I don’t need to be a critical consumer of the information it provides.

Thanks, Barry.

NECC - My adventures with Horse & Hound magazine: Florida Virtual School, Achieve3000

A few days before NECC I was invited by a publicist to interview Julie Young, the Executive Director of the Florida Virtual School (FLVS), and also speak with the folks from Achieve3000. I accepted because I’ve always wanted the chance to talk with Julie. I had no idea in advance that I would end up having a Notting Hill Horse & Hound magazine-type experience (and, yes, I was Hugh Grant).

Florida Virtual School

I knock on a door and am quickly ushered into a hotel suite. I meet and shake hands with Ben Noel, CEO of 360Ed, as he walks out the door. Then I am offered a beverage, plunked onto a couch, handed a packet of publicity materials, and given 30 minutes to talk with Julie and Andy Ross, VP of Global Services for FLVS. The topic: FLVS’ new online video game / American History course, Conspiracy Code. I’m a little bit disoriented but gamely dive in…

Conspiracy Code runs on a custom gaming engine designed specifically for FLVS by 360Ed. It cost $1.5 million to develop; costs were shared equally by FLVS and 360Ed and spread over three years ($250K per partner per year). Two hundred FLVS students are in the game now. Several other districts are piloting it. Conspiracy Code is designed to be an integrated, full-year course / gaming experience. Students take about 90 to 100 hours to complete the game. They dip in and out of the gaming engine throughout the year, assembling clues and completing missions. The game includes 51 assessments (both oral and written), 270 mini-games, numerous interrogations, 30 ‘agent eliminations,’ and 371 clues. Teachers monitor student progress; each of the 10 missions takes 2 to 3 weeks. Most students spend about an hour a day working for the class, some of which is in the game environment. Historical facts are interwoven throughout the gaming experience and student-teacher discussion. Sometimes the game requires students to do outside research to complete assignments and proceed forward.

• Conspiracy Code Product Overview
• Conspiracy Code Press Release
• FLVS Consipiracy Code web site
• FLVS Presskit
• Education Next article about FLVS

The first evaluation report on the Conspiracy Code is due in a couple of weeks but anecdotal evidence looks extremely promising. The students who seem to like the game the most are the ones who ‘hate history.’ The game requires students to write, create data maps, make timelines, ask questions, make associations, solve problems, etc. Students must apply their knowledge and facts in a number of different ways to be successful. Some ‘barriers’ were put in place to ensure that students didn’t play more than work (e.g., students can’t move forward until they work on their data map, write in their journal, get feedback from their teacher, etc.).

 

The first two teachers were ‘gaming people.’ It still took them 2 to 3 months to get comfortable with teaching this way. All FLVS teachers receive extensive professional development before they’re allowed to teach. The first few teachers will train those that follow. There is a ‘Teaching Online 101’ course plus a separate gaming module for Conspiracy Code.

 

Now that the gaming engine has been built, FLVS will use it for other games/courses; I also suggested that FLVS release it to students to design their own games. The next Conspiracy Code game will target reading and comes out in August. All in all, it appears to be a solid attempt at integrating gaming into the education experience. It will be interesting to see the evaluation results when they come out. FLVS is a data-driven organization and is committed to reworking the game/course as need be to ensure students are both engaged AND learning whatever facts they need for success in the standardized-testing era.

Achieve3000

Throughout our conversation, people are coming in and out of a door to another room in the suite (reporters? other bloggers?). When my 30 minutes with Julie and Andy are up, I’m swooped into that room, replaced by someone else who gets my spot on the FLVS couch. I’m handed another publicity packet, do the quick meet-and-greet, and away we go…

Achieve3000 is a ‘differentiated instruction solution.’ In essence, students are given an article to read on the computer that’s aligned with their reading level. The company recommends a minimum of 1 or 2 articles a week but there are articles available every day if desired. Great care has been taken to avoid stigmatization of low-level readers. For example, even though the article text and corresponding assignments are geared to students’ individual reading level, the overall layout of the article, font size, graphics, etc. all are extremely similar to what other higher-level readers in the class are experiencing. There is little to no difference in reading experience; it’s actually fairly difficult to tell at a glance at what level another student is working. The student reading at first-grade level also is reading the same content as her peer at the ninth-grade level. This allows low-level readers to still contribute to class discussions. All of this is in contrast to schools’ typical practice of having separate books or textbooks – often on separate topics – or pullout programs for struggling readers.

Results so far seem to be impressive. Expected student growth in a year is 46 lexile points. Students who read one article a week average 102 lexile point gains; students who read two articles per week average 124. The program accommodates Spanish-speaking students (and, soon, those that speak Haitian Creole). The New York City and Miami-Dade school districts (as well as the State of Hawaii) are using Achieve3000. Average gains in one year for ESL/ELL students are 166 lexile points (compared to 27 points expected). Good results also are being seen with students with special needs (see, e.g., the Arrowhead (WI) Schools).

Achieve3000 is working with the Associated Press and now has an archive of over 16,000 nonfiction articles. Next steps for the company are to 1) create a number of specific science units, and 2) identify and/or write articles that target specific career clusters and can be aligned with the WorkKeys job skill assessment program.

Final impressions

My time is up. I’m whisked out of the back room toward the hotel suite door. Julie and Andy are talking with someone new on the couch and I’m soon in the hallway, left at last to collect my thoughts. As I walk toward the elevator to return to my own hotel room, I’m left with one thought: Man, was that strange. Quite informative, but strange nonetheless. Who knows what else goes on in the back hallways, hotel suites, and meeting rooms of NECC?!

Disclosure: I received no incentives from either organization (other than a thumb drive from FLVS that contained the above Conspiracy Code materials) and was not pressured to cover them in any particular way. In short, I believe I was treated much like any media representative, despite being ‘just a blogger.’

NECC - Constructivist Celebration

These are my notes from the 3rd annual Constructivist Celebration, hosted by Gary Stager at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC.

Gary Stager

• 150 participants here today
• See constructivistconsortium.org/books for constructivist teaching resources
• Tags/hashtags = constructivist celebration, constructivist consortium, #ccdc09
• Good ideas are incredibly fragile, bad ideas are timeless
• Regardless of what we’re asking educators, the level of resistance is relatively constant over time (so why not ask a lot more of the rest?)
• Computers are knowledge machines that allow you to go further than you could go on your own
• Educational computing is about software, not hardware, because software ultimately determines what you can do
• The only question we should be asking about computers in schools is “what are students doing with the computers?”
• Are the students programming the computer or is the computer programming them?
• Who has agency in the learning process?
• microworlds.com - design video games, not just consume them
• Getting the computer to do something it doesn’t already do is an important life skill
• Elements of an effective project
• Purpose
• Time
• Personally meaningful
• Complex, including serendipity
• Connected
• Discipline
• Reflection
• Shareable
• Access and constructive materials
• “Can you build an amusement park for kids?” is a more authentic, meaningful question/project than “Martin Luther King had a dream. What dream do you have?”
• Questions worth asking
• Is the problem solvable?
• Is the project monumental or substantial?
• Who does the project satisfy?
• What can they do with that?
• Less is more
• A good prompt is worth 1,000 words – if these are in place, you can do lots more than you expected
• A good prompt, challenge, problem or motivation
• Appropriate materials
• Sufficient time
• Supportive culture (including expertise)
• Maybe we should be adopting an artist’s aesthetic more often – is the work beautiful, thoughtful, personally meaningful, sophisticated, whimsical, shareable with a respect for the audience, enduring? does it move you? (we should ask more: “why should anyone have to sit through that crap?”)
• Good project-based learning (PBL) has a fighting chance of being enduring
• Technology matters
• When students come back years later and say “Remember when we … ?”, they never finish the sentence with “used all of those vocabulary words in a sentence” or “studied so hard for the state assessment” – it’s invariably some enduring project that they remember

Melinda (Lindy) Kolk

• Learning happens when children make things
• If students can text message their friends to get the answers, we’re asking the wrong questions
• Let’s focus on knowledge construction, not reproduction
• More than one right answer
• Collaborative
• Student-centered
• Requires high-level thinking

Peter Reynolds (author of The Dot and Ish)

• Great teachers notice kids
• Great teachers are not about managing data, they’re about loving kids
• Great teachers have an idea first and notice it later
• It’s not a tiger, but it’s ‘tigerish’ – the ‘ish’ concept tells the world ‘back off, I’m trying to figure this out, and right now this is the way I do it’ – gives us some room to play, experiment, LEARN
• Expose kids to big ideas and encourage them to have big ideas
• We often ask ‘what do you do?’ – we should ask ‘what’s your misssion?’ – adults often have trouble answering this – the sooner we ask that of kids, the better
• The best children’s books are wisdom dipped in story – they move you somehow
• There are so many kids out there that don’t get captured by the testing camera
• Be brave about your own artwork and be nice about others’ artwork

Opening up my classes, looking for co-learners: Fall 2009 School Law & DDDM

Some of you may have noticed that I have two online courses coming up this fall. Here’s what I’m thinking…

I’ve been reading Jeff Jarvis’ superb book, What Would Google Do? (which I’ll be writing more about soon). Over and over again, he stresses the importance of openness, transparency, collaboration, collective action, co-learning, co-creation of knowledge, and giving up control in this new Internet era.

So what would that look like in a graduate-level course? I’m not quite sure but I want to find out. I’m taking my two most popular educational leadership courses - School Law & Data-Driven Decision-Making - and offering them online to anyone, anywhere who wants to take them.

I’m looking for teachers and administrators who want to dive in deep, wrestle with thorny problems, and challenge their thinking regarding these two important school leadership topics. I don’t know yet what directions we’ll go; we’ll determine that together. I don’t know yet what topics we’ll cover; we’ll determine that together. I don’t know yet how we’ll demonstrate our learning; we’ll determine that together. The point of this is that I’m not going to be the omniscient, omnipotent faculty member dictating course structure, sequence, assessment, etc. This is a joint exercise in learning and I need participants who are willing to be active co-learners.

I’ve taught these classes online before with great success. I’ve prided myself on being a student-centered instructor. But it’s time to take my teaching to the next level. Am I a little uncertain about this? Absolutely. But a little healthy instructional tension will be good for me and my students both.

More information on the two courses - including tuition costs and how to register - is here. Both classes should be excellent options for educators who need relicensure credits, are exploring the idea of graduate-level coursework, or need to take an outside course for an existing graduate program.

Hope some of you will join me; please feel free to also pass this along. We start at the end of August!

Online instruction, stubborn resistance, and stupid faculty

A two-part tale of higher education and online instruction…

“Students demand free beer too”

A May 29 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education reads as follows:

Opponents of online instruction believe that traditional, face-to-face teaching is always better. A colleague of mine, wary of caving in to students’ demands for online courses, remarked recently that “students demand free beer, too; that doesn’t mean we should give it to them.”

What her academic colleague somehow, incredibly, fails to realize, of course, is that students don’t have to attend his institution. Since postsecondary students vote with their feet and their pocketbooks, the institution does indeed have to give students online courses if that’s what they want. Otherwise, the university literally won’t have any tuition revenue because its potential students went elsewhere instead.

I can’t wait to see what happens over the next couple of decades. As online courses become even more prevalent than they are now, colleges and universities either will have to get in the game or be left behind. There are too many options available to students for anything else to occur. Some postsecondary institutions are going to realize that they must become more responsive to student needs and desires in order to survive; others won’t realize it until it’s too late and will disappear altogether. It should make for interesting times.

In the meantime, all I can say is… stupid faculty.

“I’ll never do it again”

Another article in the same issue of The Chronicle describes one faculty member’s woeful experience teaching online. The author goes into detail regarding all of the problems that she had with the course, including (but not limited to):

1. there was a ‘lack of immediacy’ in communication;
2. she was ‘only able to introduce students to a limited amount of material outside of the textbook readings;’
3. it is ‘simply impossible to replicate a lecture online;’
4. there wasn’t ‘enough time or a proper forum’ to help students ‘develop writing and critical thinking skills or to foster original ideas;’
5. online courses are too big;
6. she had no time off during the week like she would with a regular 3–hour, once-a-week, face-to-face class;
7. she got too many e-mail messages from students; and
8. she suspected her students didn’t like her very much.

This faculty member obviously has no idea that 1, 3, and 5 are dependent on how the course and the technology were structured. Setting up the course in a different way might have alleviated many of her concerns. Issues 2 and 6 seem to be the result of her own decision-making, not any inherent flaw in online instruction. Issue 4 doesn’t make any sense to me; didn’t she have the same number of weeks as for her other courses? It’s hard for me to be sympathetic regarding Issue 7: My students contacted me too much and asked me too many questions! Waaahh! I guess she prefers it when her students stay out of touch and don’t try to get their questions answered. Finally, can she really blame Issue 8 on the fact that the instruction was ‘online?’ There sure are a lot of faculty who teach online and also have students who like them.

Again, my main thought on this is… stupid faculty.

Wrap-up

Whether we want it to or not, the paradigm shift is occurring around us every day. As postsecondary faculty members, it behooves us to learn about it and adjust rather than dismissively rejecting the new learning landscape and stubbornly trying to stick to the status quo.

[Okay, calling these faculty members stupid probably is a little harsh. But I think clueless fits quite nicely…]

Second annual CASTLE summer book club starts June 15

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to do another online summer book club. I’m supposed to be taking the summer off but last year’s discussion of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything was so much fun that I can’t resist doing it again…

This year’s reading for the CASTLE summer book club will be Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for Your Classroom. The author is Dr. Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at The University of Virginia.

Getting started

1. Complete the online participation form by midnight, June 10 (Central time).
2. Buy the book!

Commitments

• We start June 15. Be ready.
• Keep up with the reading. No excuses.
• Be an active participant in our online discussion area.
• Dissect ideas vigorously but also be nice to other discussants.
• Help foster interesting dialogue and connected community.

Schedule

1. 6/15 to 6/21 – Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 (40 pages)
2. 6/22 to 6/28 – Chapters 3 and 4 (40 pages)
3. 6/29 to 7/5 – Chapters 5 and 6 (32 pages)
4. 7/6 to 7/12 – Chapters 7 and 8 (34 pages)
5. 7/13 to 7/19 – Chapter 9, Conclusion, and Wrap-Up (20 pages)

This offer is open to all leaders and change agents, at whatever level they’re operating (hint: this might be a good summer activity for some of your local principals or superintendents!).

I’m looking forward to some interesting discussions. Hope some of you will join me this summer!

Related posts

• CASTLE Summer Book Club - Update 1

Constructing Modern Knowledge '09

Hmmm, let’s see…

A learning institute in Manchester, New Hampshire in July. Well, Manchester routinely appears on lists of best places to live. It’s in New England, which will be all green and lovely that time of year. AWESOME.

And the conference is hosted by Dr. Gary Stager, so I know it will be thought-provoking and brain-stimulating. DOUBLY AWESOME.

And the featured faculty will include Deborah Meier, Herb Kohl, Sylvia Martinez, John Stetson, and others. And attendees get a free copy of Kohl’s new book if they sign up by June 5. And there will be an evening reception at the famed FableVision Studios as well as a night out in Boston. TRIPLY, QUADRUPLY, and QUINTUPLY AWESOME.

Yep, sounds like a winner to me!

It's not 'the tests.' It's us.

I often hear educators say...

We could be teaching differently if it weren't for ‘the tests.’

Or…

We could do a better job of meeting our students’ needs if it weren't for ‘the tests.’

I emphatically dispute these assertions. We must take ownership of our own culpability.

Our prevalent instructional model that emphasizes low-level, decontextualized, factual recall was dominant long before ‘the tests.’ Our challenges of providing higher-order thinking experiences, opportunities for authentic collaboration, and real-world connectedness existed long before the No Child Left Behind Act. Our inability to effectively facilitate empowered technology usage, true cultural/global awareness, and other necessary skills for a digital, global, information age is a byproduct of long-held, deeply-rooted cultural and pedagogical norms, not recently-acquired beliefs and behaviors.

Is anyone willing to argue that achievement gaps were smaller before evil NCLB came along and messed us all up? Does anyone think that we were doing a fine job of meeting the needs of underserved populations before ‘the tests?’ Have we all forgotten that school has been boring for generations?

It's not ‘the tests.’ It's our unwillingness and/or inability to do something different, something better.

It's not ‘the tests.’ It's us.

 

UPDATE: There are some phenomenal comments below. I hope you'll take a few moments to read them. Be sure to also read Greg Thompson's reaction to this post.

Video - 21st century schools (Stephen Heppell)

Thanks to Wes Fryer, I found this new video from Dr. Stephen Heppell on 21st century schools. Happy viewing! 

Model 21st century schools - Update 2

Here’s how we’re doing at collectively creating a list of model 21st century schools that are doing a nice job of infusing 21st century skills, digital technologies, problem- or inquiry-based learning, and other innovative practices into their school organization:

Those 59 United States schools represent 26 states. The International schools are in 10 different countries.

So we’re making GREAT progress. However, we still have a number of states (and countries) that don’t have a single school organization listed. I know that there are schools in every state that are doing wonderful things in the areas of problem-based learning, 21st century skills, or technology integration. Would you help us identify more model schools, either by adding them yourself or passing this quest along to others? We are in desperate need of good models that educators can learn from and visit. Thanks!

Videos - The future of the humanities in the Internet era

Here are two presentations by Dr. Richard Miller, Chair of the English Department at Rutgers University, that are well worth any university instructor's time to watch.

The Future Is Now: Presentation to the RU Board of Governors 

This Is How We Dream, Part 1 and Part 2

Video - To meet the demands of a new age

Here’s a 2–minute video about 21st century schooling and curricula that was created by one of our Educational Administration Master’s students, Steven Hopper, here at Iowa State University. I can take no credit for this – it’s all his – but I sure think it came out nicely!

I think this is a new arena for Steven, so I’m sure he’d appreciate any comments, suggestions, or other feedback you have for him. Happy viewing! 

Survivor, witch hunts, and the quest for teacher quality

[cross-posted at LeaderTalk]

We’ve been discussing teacher quality for decades. Everyone is rightfully concerned about making sure that good teachers are in front of students. Thus the teacher quality provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act, the calls for performance or merit pay, the concerns about alternative licensure, the quests for better teacher evaluation systems, the gnashing of teeth over ‘obstructionist unions that get in the way of firing bad teachers,’ and so on…

For the purposes of discussion, here’s a modest proposal:

1. Do our damnedest to create a positive working climate for teachers: ongoing administrative and community support, decent resources, professional development that’s actually useful, etc. Sometimes easier said than done, but nonetheless…
2. In nearly every school there usually are a handful of teachers who are just going through the motions (or worse). Students know who they are. Other teachers know who they are. Administrators know who they are. Parents know who they are (that’s why they work so hard to get their kid some other teacher instead).
3. Every year fire the worst teacher in the school. If you don’t have a robust teacher evaluation system (or if you’re worried about administrator bias), do it like they do on Survivor: everyone gets a vote and the one with the most votes leaves the island. Administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents – everyone involved with the school gets a vote. Dismissal by consensus. The more that are involved, (hopefully) the less likelihood of a witch hunt. If necessary, modify the master contract to make this happen.

From Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric:

"You should take the top 20 percent of your employees and make them feel loved," Welch advised. "Take the middle 70 percent and tell them what they need to do to get into the top 20 percent." Managing out the bottom 10 percent of performers is necessary not only for the organization's continued success but also for the sake of employees affected by the rigorous appraisal system. "People need to know where they stand," Welch said. "Failing to differentiate among employees – and holding on to bottom-tier performers – is actually the cruelest form of management there is."

Thoughts?

Model 21st century schools - Update 1

A week ago I asked for your help identifying model 21st century schools. Although I knew of a few schools or districts that were good models of what the new learning paradigm might look like, I was sure that there were many more schools out there that were doing great things when it came to project- or inquiry-based learning, technology integration, and so on.

Here’s what we have so far:

• 36 schools/districts in the USA, representing only 18 states
• 6 international schools, representing 5 countries

So, as you can see, we have a long way to go toward meeting my goal of at least 2 schools in each state and at least 50 in other countries.

Why don’t we have more? Several reasons, I’m guessing:

1. My readers don’t know what the exemplary 21st century schools are in their state/country,
2. I wasn’t persuasive enough for my readers to actually go to the Moving Forward wiki and enter the schools that they know about, and/or
3. There just aren’t that many exemplary 21st century schools.

While #3 is probably true to a certain extent, I’m guessing (hoping?) that each state has at least 2 schools that can serve as models for others. And I’m positive that some states, like California or Texas, have many more than 2. So I’m asking for your help again. Please go to the United States or International wiki pages and enter schools in your state/country that you know about. Also pass this quest along to others who may have knowledge in this area. We’re in desperate need of models of 21st century schooling. Help me create a shared resource that will be of value to everyone?

Should students be treated like customers?

From Mike Sansone:

I once asked a teacher what would happen if they treated their students like customers, with a design philosophy of customer experience in mind. The teacher was taken aback. She said the day she treats her students like customers is the day she would lose control of the room.

At that moment, I knew she was standing on the line of irrelevancy -- and about to cross over. The reality is, she should have been looking for ways to share control rather than try to own it alone.

Hmmm… reminds me a bit of this Robert Fried quote.

In other news, student enrollments in more-personalized choice options such as charter schools, virtual schools, alternative schools, and home schooling continue to rise…

4 Guys Talking - Episode 4 (Jeff Mao)

Yesterday was Episode 4 of 4 Guys Talking, the new ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE. We spent the entire time talking about 1:1 laptop programs. Our first 50 minutes was spent with Jeff Mao, Learning Technology Policy Director for the State of Maine. Among other things, Jeff talked about funding models, professional development for teachers and administrators, pedagogical frameworks, challenges faced by the state over the past few years, and, perhaps surprisingly, the relative lack of emphasis on standardized test scores as measurable outcomes for the initiative. He also shared his strong feelings about laptops v. netbooks for 1:1 programs. After Jeff left us, we spent the last 10 minutes debriefing, sharing thoughts, and raising further questions.

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle

You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.

Thanks to those of you who joined us live yesterday, either by calling in or listening over the Web. Future dates/times are as follows (all times Central):

• May 11, 9am to 10am
• May 26, 1pm to 2pm

[Yes, I'm still reworking CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel, which will include all previous and podcasts (including 4 Guys Talking). I'll post about it when it's ready (probably not until summer).]

Happy listening!

Photo credit: An Apple in the dark 2

Help wanted: Model 21st century schools?

Which schools are good models that others could (should) visit to see what a new educational paradigm might look like?

This is the #1 question I get asked when I work with K-12 educators. I know a few, but I’m guessing that you know more. So I’m on a quest…

1. Think about who's doing a nice job in your state/country of infusing 21st century skills, digital technologies, problem- or inquiry-based learning, and other innovative practices into their school organization.
2. Go to the United States and/or International page at CASTLE’s Moving Forward wiki and add the name of the school organization and contact person in the appropriate place. If your state/territory/country isn’t listed, please add it.
3. Using the category list at the top of the page, indicate the category of innovation at the end of your entry so that visitors know which schools to visit for what. If you need to add a category, please do so.
4. Hyperlink the name of the school organization to its web site.
5. Repeat Steps 2 through 4 for each school organization that is a model of 21st century learning.

By Monday, April 27, I’m hoping that together we can identify at least 150 model school organizations, including at least 2 in every state and at least 50 overseas. I will be reporting out daily on our progress both here and via Twitter.

Please pass along this quest. The more model 21st century schools we get, the better resources these two pages will be for everyone. Feel free to use the logo as desired. Thank you!

No more Arabic at Kalona Elementary

I was disappointed to read recently in the Des Moines Register that Kalona Elementary School here in Iowa is discontinuing its Arabic language program due to lack of funding. Not only is it wonderful when school systems teach languages to kids at the elementary rather than secondary level, this country benefits from having more people who know how to speak Arabic.

In 2006 the United States government established the National Strategic Language Initiative (NSLI), “an inter-agency effort … to dramatically increase the number of Americans learning, speaking, and teaching critical need foreign languages.” Languages targeted by the NSLI include Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Darwazi, Farsi, Hindi, Korean, Russian, and Turkish. The NSLI has a number of programs for K-12 schools. Its August 2008 report noted that nearly 47,000 elementary and secondary students had been served to date.

Finding qualified instructors to teach these languages often is difficult for school systems. Finding initial or ongoing funding is a challenge as well. As a society, however, we need to figure out how to make this happen. French, German, and Spanish – the holy trinity of school language instruction – still are important languages but the growing ascendancy of non-Western countries on the global stage also makes other languages important for both economic and cultural reasons.

Photo credit: EidMubarak

A seemingly simple question - Follow-up

Neither Todd Seal nor Dan Meyer agree with my assertion that teachers should be able to identify at least 10 good web sites for their classes. Todd says:

I’m typically looking for lesson plan ideas, handouts, and audio/video resources. What I’m finding are half-baked thoughts, poorly articulated assessment, and soft lessons that only barely cover the material I want to cover.

Todd and Dan are both reflective, innovative educators, so I’ll take them at their word and say that perhaps I overestimated the quality, if not quantity, of the online resources available to K-12 teachers. If so, this paucity of high quality online resources for educators is pretty sad given the longevity and history of the Internet as well as the ability of any educator to now easily have an online presence [Dan, yes, I’d include blogs and other teacher expressive channels in that general category of ‘web sites’].

I’m not really concerned about teachers like Todd and Dan that at least have looked around the Web and made the pedagogical decision that most of what’s out there is crap. I’m concerned about the ones that haven’t even looked.

Todd challenged me to come up with 10 good sites for one of my educational leadership courses. I’ll have to chew on that a bit. There aren’t as many folks creating resources for administrators as for teachers, but I think I can do it…

A seemingly simple question

This seems like a seemingly simple question for teachers:

Could you identify 10 excellent web sites for your grade level / subject area?

Ideally, of course, teachers would know 10 or so excellent sites for each unit, not just for the overall course that they’re teaching. After all, the Internet has been around for most people for at least a decade now and there are an incredible number of valuable resources on almost any topic.

And yet I’m guessing that many (most?) teachers would have trouble answering even the simple question above.

Would you send your child to school with a laptop from home?

I found out recently that my local school district now allows students to bring their own laptops from home. I think that this is GREAT (even while simultaneously understanding the digital divide issues that accompany this policy).

Imagine that your local district allows the same. Would you send your children to school with a laptop/netbook? If so, would your children take one (or would they be too worried about standing out because other students weren’t also bringing computers to school)? This latter question’s of particular interest to me since my tech-savvy daughter starts middle school next year…

Thoughts?

Photo credit: Netbook Skin using Wordle.net (Lenovo S10) [cool use of adhesive photo paper!]

No, Google is not making us stupid

Trent Batson at Campus Technology has an interesting refutation of Nicholas Carr’s assertion that Google is making us all stupid. Here’s a quote:

What Carr describes and is most worried about, how we "skim" and "bounce" around in our reading, is actually akind of new orality: We are reading as we speak when we are in a group. We "listen" to one statement, then another and another in quick succession: Our reading on the Web is like listening to a bunch of people talking. It's hybrid orality. We find ourselves once again the naturally gregarious humans we always were. We find ourselves creating knowledge continually and rapidly as our social contacts on the Web expand. We have re-discovered new ways to enjoy learning in a social setting.

No, Google is not making us stupid. What Google and the Web are doing is helping us re-claim our human legacy of learning through a rapid exchange of ideas in a social setting. Google is, indeed, making us smarter as we re-discover new ways to learn.

Hybrid orality. That’s pretty heady stuff. Thoughts?