Category Archives: Education

24/7 Support

I spent last evening having a thoughtful discussion with other educators about a wide range of issues. From integrating technology to creating authentic learning to getting beyond the “testing season,” we dug into the complex concerns about how to provide the best possible education for our students. What we didn’t discuss as much was the impact ubiquitous computing might have on educators.

We know that testing has put more and more pressure on teachers but what about all those devices and that access? I hadn’t thought much beyond the classroom setting until I happened to read this Education Week blog entry reviewing an ISTE presentation on the challenges of mobile devices. The article focused on problems related to sending school-owned devices home with kids and general planning related to rolling out 1:1. But here was the paragraph that struck me:

Devices have been distributed to ninth graders in the district, and students are using them to complete practice problems in class, create videos about how to approach problems, and video chat with teachers from home when they are working on homework. Having that 24-7 support helps academically struggling students get their questions answered and allows teachers to provide more personalized feedback to each student, said Friebel.

I know teachers are all about helping their students as much as possible and many work long past the scheduled work day already. But aren’t we expecting a little too much when we think they should be providing 24/7 support to their students? The article doesn’t say anything about the expectations that have been set for teachers in terms of being online outside of school hours. Are those video chats scheduled? Or do students simply “pop in” when they see their teacher online? What about email or instant messaging? Are teachers expected to provide their phone numbers to students so they can answer their students whenever and wherever they receive messages? I’m imagining the kid who complains that he couldn’t finish his homework because Mrs. Jones wasn’t available for a video chat when he got home from the football game at 10 PM or didn’t answer his 2 AM email.

Talk about trying to find a work/life balance…

Testing Zombies

As a defender of public education, I took Tom Woodward’s challenge Scott McLeod’s challenge seriously. I want to fight fire with fire in the war being waged against public education. Tom Scott outlines the seven steps of the strategy being used by organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. His blog entry is worth a read despite the depressing conclusion. Go, read…

i didn’t want to believe that public education could be beaten by such a blatantly cynical sound bite campaign. So, I set out to answer step for step using high-stakes testing as the target.

According to Tom Scott, step 1 is to get a snappy slogan. I came up with “Stop the Testing Tragedy.” Maybe not all that snappy but I don’t have the benefit of a focus group.

Step 2 is to create made up statistics to prove my point. Instead, I used real but sketchy statistics. Some 40% of students suffer from the anxiety that has been shown to influence test scores and cause other physical and emotional damage. The slide show outlines the sketchiness: most research happened prior to our current testing craze engendered by No Child Left Behind. And the studies don’t distinguish between classroom and high-stakes testing. Plus, the percentages are all over the board in the studies  cited: “Current estimates of the percentage of students in a classroom affected by test anxiety range from a low of about 1% to a high of over 40% (Cizek & Burg, 2006, p. 29).” So my stat is true but who knows “how” true. What I do know is that I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that kids are stressed out by testing from students, parents and teachers.

 

 

Step 3 is to come up with a graphic. I wanted to use the drooling kid from Ferris Beuhler but it was more gross than eye catching so I went for this one instead. She needs a speech bubble but I don’t have a writing crew so for now we just get the scream.

 

Step 4 involves maps…and there’s where I got distracted. I thought I would make a map of all the states that Tom Scott mentioned who beat Finland. Or states that had reasonable opt out policies. Or maybe all the states where there had been test protests this spring.   That last idea led me to the Rhode Island students who dressed up like zombies to protest state tests.

Testing zombies…now there’s an idea that could catch on. I went looking for copyright friendly images of zombies and what did I discover? The poster for Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. That took the rest of the evening.

According to Tom Scott, there are three more steps: make report cards, use social media, spend boat loads of money. Educators are busy making real report cards, struggling to provide authentic assessment in a world that prefers letter grades and test scores. They certainly don’t have boat loads of money and what they do have goes to buying classroom essentials from crayons to tissues to books. Not to mention that they are spending their days with second graders instead of marketing consultants and research assistants. 

But social media is accessible to everyone. Unfortunately, school filters and fear mongers often keep educators from engaging with social media in professionally productive ways. Posting student work and classroom success stories could go a long way to telling a very different story about what is happening in public education when teachers are willing to shut the door and skip test prep for a few days.

But now may be the time to dig in and fight with whatever tools we do have. There was some buzz this spring as several educators very publicly left the profession because testing clashed with their principles. There is a ground swell of opposition to testing in the general public even those who do not have children in school. Recently, I was at a meeting of local historical leaders and it didn’t take long for them to lament how testing has led to a narrowing of the history curriculum that forced out any mention of the rich local history in a region that includes Nat Turner’s rebellion. I encouraged them to talk to their legislators and let them know that not everyone thinks testing is the way to figure out if our schools are successful.

Educators must speak up for themselves and those of us who believe in what they do, must also speak up. And, I’d like to believe we can do it not through incorrect, misleading information but by telling true stories of teachers and students and classrooms. And a few zombie posters…

It’s the Learning I Care About

We should try to bring back the joy of learning because you want to learn, not because someone is going to give you a grade at the end of the semester. Simon Schocken[1]

We’re just three weeks away from the end of the semester and the emails have started to arrive from concerned students asking about how I weight various elements of the course, how they will be graded, etc. etc. I have been providing them ongoing feedback throughout the semester, but I have not assigned a letter grade to any of their work. I follow Alfie Kohn in this practice and share this quote with them on my assessment page:

When I was teaching high school, I did a lot of things I now regret.  But one policy that still seems sensible to me was saying to students on the first day of class that, while I was compelled to give them a grade at the end of the term, I could not in good conscience ever put a letter or number on anything they did during the term – and I would not do so.  I would, however, write a comment – or, better, sit down and talk with them – as often as possible to give them feedback.

I do use a rubric for self-assessment. It came via Dr. Jon Becker who borrowed it from Dr. Gary Stager.

  1. I did not participate
  2. I phoned-it in
  3. I impressed my colleagues
  4. I impressed my friends and neighbors
  5. I impressed my family
  6. I impressed Karen Richardson
  7. I impressed myself

I use it as part of a mid-term and end-of-semester self assessment. The students often find it difficult to reverse the way they think about courses in terms of who they should be impressing. For many, they have never taken the time to consider if they were impressed because they were so busy trying to impress their teacher. And, they are much harder on themselves than I would ever be. (As an aside, I am pretty easily impressed: most of my students are working professionals with families and other responsibilities. Many times, my course is the first fully online experience they’ve had, Plus, it immerses them in an ed tech experience as we use technology to learn and share, something that frightens many of them. Finally, because my course puts much of the burden on their shoulders, it can be more challenging than the more typical read the book, write a paper course with which they are familiar.)

As usual, they have done wonderful work despite the lack of rubrics and grades. They have felt the freedom to take risks with new technology tools and some have failed or experienced frustration. But, knowing that they aren’t going to get dinged by a bad grade, they have been able to see failure and frustration as part of the learning process.

Yet, with three weeks to go, some of them seem to have forgotten my pledge to them. They go to the syllabus looking for the weightings and the point scores and when they don’t find them, I get an email. I reply, reassuring them I have no intention of changing my approach. The final project is important but it carries no more or less weight than any of the other assignments. I’ll take a holistic view of their work, and if they haven’t had any negative feedback from me, they are doing just fine. I remind them that the goal of the course is not the grade they earn, but the learning they’ve experienced.

I get a lot of positive reviews for the course and the students seem to appreciate my approach to assessment. My simple hope is that they carry this positive experience back to their own classrooms and schools.

[1] http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/radical-openness/the-end-of-education-as-we-know-it.html

Just In Time for Easter

In the spirit of Tom Woodward’s Internet Detritus, I thought I would share this article that arrived in my inbox from The Public Domain Review. It seemed appropriate as it is “bunny” time of year: Mary Toft and Her Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits:

In late 1726 much of Britain was caught up in the curious case of Mary Toft, a woman from Surrey who claimed that she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. Niki Russell tells of the events of an elaborate 18th century hoax which had King George I’s own court physicians fooled.

We live in an era of hoaxes often perpetuated by the use of Photoshop. But it isn’t digital technology that leads to hoaxes; it is people. And while there is much in this article that would not be appropriate for students, one important discussion point would be why would someone like Mary Toft do something like this? Niki Russell, Chief Library Assistant at Special Collections in the University of Glasgow Library, has her own theory:

As for Mary Toft, the case against her was dismissed, not for lack of proof of guilt, but probably because of the further embarrassment to the establishment that would ensue if the case were pursued any further. She spent a few months in jail then returned to relative obscurity. The question as to why she and her family went to such extraordinary lengths to convince the nation that Mary had the ability to give birth to rabbits is perhaps not too hard to answer. Monstrous or deformed people had been exhibited, at a price, all over Europe for hundreds of years, with poor and wealthy alike equally fascinated. Ironically for Mary, although the hoax was not successful, she did succeed for a while in becoming an object of curiosity.

Many eminent physicians and thinkers were taken in by Mary’s hoax and suffered for their gullibility. William Hogarth, the great satirical artist, had good fun at their expense.

If you haven’t checked out The Public Domain Review, you might want to browse its collections. The articles are written by scholars and the goal of the project is to bring the vast pool of public domain resources to the attention of, well, the public. They have lost their initial funding so I made a little donation to what seems like a worthy and well-done project.

 

 

Advice to Newbies

I am in the midst of teaching an online course that focuses on educational technology for school administrators. While the focus of the course is educational technology, it is not a “tech” course. The participants do explore various technologies, but the main conversation is about how administrators can support the use of technology. The course is centered around the NETS-A and we move from visionary leadership to professional learning to systemic improvement in the course of the semester.

Many of the participants do not consider themselves technologically savvy and the course is their first online experience as well. I do a lot of hand holding at the beginning, and for some, throughout the semester, as they struggle both with the content that asks them to reconsider much of what they think about education and technology, and the technology itself. I do some scaffolding by way of screencasts of how to navigate our course in Google Sites, and I am always available to answer specific questions as I make it clear to them that they aren’t being graded on their ability to use technology.

Still, they feel overwhelmed. Their first assignment is to choose a technology and create a tutorial designed for school leaders. After reviewing her classmates’ work, one student commented on how much she loved Voice Thread and then wondered why she didn’t learn about it sooner. Another was determined to learn everything about all the new technologies that were introduced. Yet another despaired of every being more than an immigrant, unable to understand the new language and culture.

I give all of them the same piece of advice: there’s a lot of technology out there and more is being added every day. That’s the way it is going to be from now on. So, get used to always feeling behind. Give up trying to learn about all of it, but position yourself within a professional learning network that at least helps you build awareness of new trends and offer support for your learning efforts. Then, consider your needs as a teacher or administrator, and find one or two technologies that support those needs and learn all you can about them. Are you responsible for professional development? Then, maybe Google sites is a good tool for creating a shared space. Do you feel like you need to communicate better with all your stakeholders? Then, maybe you should explore how Facebook and Twitter could help with that outreach? Do you have lots of technology in your school but not much integration? Then, maybe it’s a model like TPACK that can help support your efforts.

And, when you discover a new-to-you technology like Voice Thread, don’t wonder why it took you so long. Instead, embrace it, learn about it, and be reassured that an “older” technology likely has more staying power so you won’t be facing its loss in a few weeks when the company goes under.

Finally, learning one technology in depth will support your adaptive learning as you will become more familiar with technology in general and the next time you’re facing a new program or tool, you’ll be better equipped to dive in.

What advice do you have for these newbies?

The Learning Isn’t Over Until…

I have been learning non-stop for the past two weeks. First Educon 2.5 and then VirtualVA2013. Lots of conversations, glimpses into innovative classrooms, and connections with other thoughtful educators. I’ve been reflecting on the experiences but haven’t had time to put fingers to keyboard. Here are the big themes that have stood out in my personal reflections…I’ll expand on them in future posts but for now, I’ll start with the bulleted list:

  • Schooling vs Learning…but also Jobs vs Work: This distinction rose out of a conversation about how happy kids and teachers were on snow days. I pointed out that lots of grown ups were also excited to miss a day of work.  There seems to be some parallel between the two worlds: schooling and jobs both imply structure while learning and work seem to imply objectives and goals. The consensus seems to be that we have put too much emphasis on developing structures that are keeping people from enjoying learning or work and really accomplishing worthwhile goals. But can we ditch the structure completely? I was particularly intrigued with an idea I’ve encountered before: that we need to talk about the whole system including the physical spaces where we learn and work. Hacking education goes way beyond a new curriculum or even a new pedagogy.
  • Doing More Than Just Showing Up: In the midst of all this learning, I’ve been reading Seth Godin and he has had a couple blog posts that add meaning experiences I’ve had, especially at Educon. Beyond Showing Up and Watching Is Not Doing address the idea of being more involved in our lives and our learning. Educon is the perfect example: you get out of Educon what you put in. There are conversation leaders who help provide some structure but you are expected to participate by offering your ideas, sharing your resources and tweeting your heart out. We had an “open mic” session during VirtualVA2013 that mimicked a bit of Educon and gave us a chance to talk about some of the big themes that had come out of the week’s sessions. Our opening and closing sessions were more about conversation than slides and the presenters willingly engaged with the attendees.
  • Entrepreneurs vs. Entrepreneurial Spirit: The panels at Educon talked a lot about how we can help kids become entrepreneurs. I just finished reading Yong Zhao’s book World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students as part of an ISTE SIGAdmin book group so I was particularly interested in the intersection of the book with the conversations. Someone made the distinction between the people (entrepreneurs) and their dispositions (entrepreneurial spirit) that made a lot of sense to me. And there’s a lot more here to explore…why entrepreneurs and schooling don’t seem to mix and if schools can produce entrepreneurs at all.

I am also aware that there is a lot of overlap between these three themes…it’s part of the problem I’ve had this week trying to sort out the various strands of conversations. I think it can be simplified a bit: the ultimate goal is to provide learning experiences (spaces?) for our students that challenge and engage them in meaningful ways and help them develop into thoughtful, active citizens.

International Transformation

Really interesting article from Ghana about the possibility of technology for providing free education to children who otherwise would go without:

One hopes that all the political parties in Ghana will focus on how the use of digital devices such as tablet computers, could help our country provide quality free education from kindergarten to tertiary level, to all Ghanaians with the aptitude to study – at a fraction of the cost of providing education through the traditional bricks-and-mortar method.

When I read this, I wonder if we have too much in this country and it makes us jaded. We know technology can’t transform education in our country. But can it have transformational powers in other countries where textbooks and paper and pencil are not ubiquitous. What is the power of a tablet computer and free wifi in the hands of students who otherwise have nothing?

From the News: Technology Leads a Literacy Revolution

My colleagues and I often shake our heads over headlines touting the next technology that is going to lead the education revolution. It simply isn’t historically accurate. Technology doesn’t change education; instead, education changes technology, adapting it to current classroom practices.

But, in today’s google alert related to mobile technology, a headline caught my attention precisely because it goes against history. It seems that, in an effort to increase literacy among women, Afghanistan is harnessing mobile technology:

Afghanistan has launched a new literacy programme that enables Afghan women deprived of a basic education during decades of war to learn to read and write using a mobile phone.

In a country where women were forbidden from going to school and the literacy rate for women is about 13%, mobile technology may just foster a revolution in learning. Software developed by an Afghani company and distributed on free phones is making this revolution possible.

Maybe we have finally seen an example of technology sparking a revolution…

 

Serendipity

A question from a student, some tweets with a colleague, and I realized I had forgotten a good bit of my education history. The question had to do with why more progressive educational practices such as those found in Montessori schools did not catch in on public schools. The colleague suggested that it was the Cold War and A Nation at Risk that squelched progressive ideas. I made a vague commitment to read some history including Diane Ravitch‘s Left Back: A Century of Failed School Reforms.

But it was a vague commitment and the fiction on my shelf was much more compelling. So, I was excited when I saw Bud Hunt’s post about starting an education history book club. He felt as though educators often repeat history because they don’t know enough about it:

So I’m pretty sure that my main objectives for a project like this would be basically encouraging educators and folks who impact education to better understand their history.  In my reading and writing and thinking, I’ve come to discover that people are pretty much ignorant of anything educationally relevant that happened more than ten or twenty minutes ago.  And we keep having the same conversations.  And forgetting the outcomes.  Then doing it again.

So, his suggestion is for a group to read historical documents related to education, beginning with the report of the Committee of Ten from 1892. This committee was created by the National Education Association to develop answers to questions related to what, when and how students should be learning.

I have started the report and am finding it tough going. I had trouble getting past the fact that, even though women made up more than 50% of teachers at that time, the committee included men only and seemed to celebrate that fact:

Six of the Chairmen were college men, and three were school men; while of the Secretaries, two were college men and seven school men (p. 11).

Forty seven of the ninety members of the committee were from colleges and universities but the report assures us that many have had school experiences.  But like many modern day education commissions, there were no practicing teachers on the committee.

Ravitch begins her book about school reform with the Committee of Ten, which was the first national committee to discuss how to standardize education in the United States. According to Ravitch, the one legacy of the committee’s work was the creation of the College Entrance Examination Board that set uniform standards for college admissions.

NB: Part of the reason I’ve struggled with the reading is because it took me some time to find the “right” digital version from the Internet archive. I wanted to be able to bookmark, highlight and annotate. After some experimentation, I found the ePub version to be the best although it has lots of errors that aren’t found in the online or pdf version.

 

Name Change?

Justin Reich’s title for his blog post caught my attention: If You Meet An iPad on the Way, Smash It. It is a play on a well-known Zen koan that advises you to kill the Buddha if you meet him on the road.

Reich’s post describes the EdTeach Teacher iPad Summit, which ended today. Despite its name, Reich insists that the iPad is not the focus on the conference:

The way we are seeking is one where we prepare young people for a life of civic commitment, of self-reflection, and of meaningful work and contributions to community. The way is about unlocking student talent, compassion, and humanity. If the iPad distracts us from defining the way, then we have to smash it.

Reich’s “way” is admirable and his idea that we can’t let technology get in the way is also admirable.  My simple question is this: if your goal is not related to iPads, then why is this called an iPad summit? Why not call it “unlocking student potential”? Or “developing 21st century citizenship”? Or “creating powerful learning environments”?