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Big problems require small solutions

While co-hosting the TEDxNYED event last week, I found myself wondering how the amazing solutions I was hearing could spread. How could we get more students connecting globally like Brian Crosby’s kids; how could more at-risk students be freed from the assessment and curriculum that failed them so they could excel like the students Gary Stager worked with in the Maine prison; how could every urban school be part of an urban garden network teaching youth and the community about low cost, healthy food… the list was endless.

It struck me that day – some problems are so big they need small solutions.

I heard several people say after these talks – “Yes, sure, that was great, BUT IS IT SCALABLE?”

I’d always considered that a reasonable question. But now, I think it’s a rhetorical trick that really means. “CAN IT FIT INTO THE CURRENT SYSTEM?”

Scalable should mean replication. Can you do “it” – whatever “it” is, over and over again. And the answer is yes, you can have urban gardens, do away with 19th century curriculum, and have globally connected classrooms IF you let the conditions flourish on the ground level. IF you let the teachers teach and the students learn. IF you let the solution be a small solution, carried out at a human scale. IF it remains a local, adaptable solution that meets the needs of the participants, not the system. The proof of that was given by Dennis Littky of the Big Picture Schools, who has started over 60 schools that value each and every student. That’s scalability.

But it doesn’t mean you impose a solution from above, put layers of bureaucracy and administration on it, and add untold costs in demanding that everyone do the same thing. We are just used to doing things that way in American education and we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s cheaper, more efficient, and the American Way. It’s not. Every problem is not a moonshot or the same as building interstate highways. Learning is certainly not.

Big problems require small solutions. And they demand we trust in the human beings implementing those solutions. My thought for the day.

Sylvia

PS – The videos from TEDxNYED are not up on the site yet – when they are, I’ll link them up to the examples in this post.

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Syracuse here we come!

I’m heading to Syracuse, New York next week to keynote the March ITD TALK series at the Central New York Regional Information Center (CNYRIC) on March 17, 2011. We have a really special day planned for all the attendees, because after my talk, there will be presentations by students and teachers from local GenYES and TechYES schools.

So if you are in the area and want to see student technology leadership and literacy in action, be sure to register and come by! I’ll be setting it up in the morning talking about how we must expand our narrow view of technology professional development to include more than one shot, one-size-fits-all, “sit and get” sessions.

GenYES and TechYES in Action
Teachers and students from Jamesville DeWitt High School and Baldwinsville’s Ray Middle School will be on-hand to discuss their experiences with the GenYES and TechYES programs in their respective schools. GenYES is the only student-centered research-based solution for school-wide technology integration. Students work with teachers to design technology-infused lessons and provide tech support. In TechYES, students show technology literacy by creating projects that meet state and local technology proficiency requirements. As part of TechYES, a structured peer-mentoring program assists the teacher or advisor, and provides student leadership opportunities that serve to further strengthen the program and enrich the learning community.

Hope to see you there!

Sylvia

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Arts education declining, especially for minority youth

A recent National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Survey of Public Participation in the Arts data reveals that 3 out of 4 Americans participate in the arts. This participation includes a full spectrum of artistic genres and participation via electronic media and personal arts creation. The good news is that US adults are participating in the arts in more ways than ever before; the bad news is that we are depriving children of the art education needed to maintain this.

According to the report, arts education is the leading factor in arts participation. No surprise there.

“Childhood arts education has a potentially stronger effect on arts attendance than age, race, or socioeconomic status. Long-term declines in childhood arts education have serious implications for the future of arts participation in America.

  • In addition to reporting higher arts-attendance rates, those who receive arts education as a child are more likely to create or perform art, engage with the arts via media, and take art classes as an adult.
  • In 1982, nearly two-thirds of 18-year-olds reported taking art classes in their childhood. By 2008, that share had dropped below one-half (2.6 million), a decline of 23 percent.
  • Declines in childhood arts education from 1982 to 2008 are much higher among African American and Hispanic children than among white children. In that timeframe, there was a 49 percent drop for African Americans, and a 40 percent drop for Hispanic children, compared with a statistically insignificant decline for white children.”

We are not serving these children – or this country – well.

Sylvia

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Tips for presenters and keynotes – add your best ideas!

So after sharing my pain about a not-so-great presentation (The bad dress rehearsal) the other day, Allanah King commented:

For the first time in my life I have been asked to keynote a conference and almost balked at the thought of it. The whole ball game changes when you are the person at the front rather than than the tweeter at the back!

I have decided to give it a go and hope that I will be up to the task.

Apart from backing everything up twice and bringing a stand alone electricity generator have you got any tips for me??

So I think the best thing to do is to crowdsource this – what are your best ideas for presenters and keynotes? Please share in the comments!

Sylvia

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This can’t be done in our school

Yesterday I wrote about my session epic fail. Don’t worry, I’m over that!

The thing that made me feel the worst, though, was a glimpse of a session evaluation. I know speakers aren’t supposed to look at them, but they were on the table when I was packing up and there it was in the comments section – “This could not be done at our school.”

That really made me sad. I try in the session to include a wide variety of examples of students taking charge of the technology at their own schools. Some are long term, some are just a day’s work. There are elementary students, middle school and high school students. Schools with refurbished computers and schools with one to one everything. There are ways for students to work alongside adults in every situation to make the technology use more effective school-wide.

So. how could this person think that simply asking young people to help out is impossible? What kind of school climate does that imply? I wish I could find that person and ask what they meant – are the relationships between adults and students at your school that broken? Nothing I said had any relevance to your school?

But I think the best question would be – what vision would it take to convince you to even try?

Sylvia

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The bad dress rehearsal

There’s a belief among theater folks that if you have a bad dress rehearsal, it means you will have a good performance opening night. I’m hoping that proves to be true in regards to conference presentations too!

Next week I’m keynoting the Learning@School 2011 conference in Rotorua, New Zealand (Feb 23-25).

I’ve been working on my keynote presentation and thought it would be a good idea to test some of it at PETE&C, the wonderful Pennsylvania state educational technology conference. I added a lot of video of student work, students talking about how their leadership opportunities using technology changed their lives, and more. I always like to SHOW the results of student empowerment rather than just TELL about it.

But as my friend Gary Stager likes to say, multimedia is just Latin for “doesn’t work in front of an audience.” Just a few minutes into my presentation my speakers went dead. Now I’m faced with a dilemma – do you stop what you are doing to do tech support in front of 100 people? Do you just skip the video? Do you try to paraphrase what’s happening in your now silent video? ACK!

I asked if anyone in the audience had any speakers – and one woman came up with hers. Success! Wonderful sound….for about 20 seconds. Then the battery light started blinking, the sound faded away and she apologetically said she had forgotten to charge them up. Back to square one. I fumbled my way through the rest of the presentation, hoping my enthusiasm would make up for the lack of real examples.

By the end of the talk I was pretty discouraged, feeling sad that people didn’t see all the marvelous goodies I had to share and thinking about all the things I should have done differently. It was very heartening that several people came up to me and said that the session had been very inspiring and they were already thinking about some new ways to empower their students with technology. I also saw some very nice tweets about the session. Other people cheered me up with stories about much worse technical calamities that they had endured at conferences or in the classroom. There seems to be relief in shared pain!

But bottom line (and new speakers in hand) I am ready to prove the old theater adage completely right. The bad dress rehearsal surely means that my keynote for New Zealand will be great! Kia ora!

Sylvia

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Free access – Educational Leadership: Working with Tech-Savvy Kids

Working with Tech-Savvy Kids article in Educational Leadership

ASCD’s magazine Educational Leadership has opened up our article Working with Tech-Savvy Kids for free online access. We really appreciate this!

Today’s students are increasingly savvy about the role technology plays in modern life. Yet schools are not keeping up. Students can be valuable resources in the areas of training and support. Five models have emerged that balance the benefits of service learning and leadership with the needs of schools struggling to integrate technology: students as committee members, students as trainers, students as technical support agents, students as resource developers and communicators, and students as peer mentors and leaders.

The article gives five models of student leadership that can support 21st century learning in schools, with case studies from real schools who use students as leaders, teachers, mentors, and advocates. There is lots more in the article, but here’s a quick “Getting Started” list for student leadership teams focused on technology.

Getting Started

Creating a plan that includes students in school technology decision making and implementation is just the first step. Keep the following in mind:

  • Provide student access to training, hardware, and software as needed.
  • Give students adequate time and attention to help them grow into their new roles. They will not automatically know how to participate in these opportunities. Encourage a student-led culture with real responsibility that increasingly challenges students to step up and prove themselves. Reward proven responsibility with increased trust.
  • Don’t forget your younger students. It’s never too early for authentic learning opportunities, and these students can be surprisingly helpful with concrete, well-defined tasks.
  • Plan for turnover. Continually recruit and train new students. Allow veteran student leaders to mentor new recruits.
  • Look for ways to encourage long-term student involvement. Make student involvement part of a credit-bearing class, which counts toward graduation or service-learning credits. This involvement can also take the form of independent study or an internship.
  • Create an adult advisory position. This person should have a passion for student empowerment. The advisor will monitor participation, recruit and train new members, and facilitate group activities.
  • Be sure to include school administration and staff in planning for any for-credit student tech-support classes or similar courses. School counselors need to know that these classes will have high expectations for students to participate, collaborate, and be independent thinkers and leaders. Create a plan to recruit students and persevere, even if the classes are small to begin with.
  • Don’t mistake the ease with which youth today use technology in their everyday lives for knowing how to use it in education settings. Teach them the appropriate use of technology and its role in enhancing learning.

Working with Tech-Savvy Kids article (Educational Leadership) – Enjoy!

Sylvia

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10 Steps to Smarter Schools

Dennis Littky is co-founder of The Met school in Rhode Island, Big Picture Learning and College Unbound. If you don’t know about these projects, you should!

Here’s a current article of his in the Rhode Island Monthly –  Ten Steps to Smarter Schools

10 Steps . . . for smarter schools
“If you’re not standing on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” – Dennis Littky, Big Picture Learning

1)  Create individual learning plans.
The basics of reading, writing, math and scientific thinking apply to any discipline, so let’s build lessons around each student’s interests and goals. When students are motivated and engaged, they stick with school.

2)  Involve families.
Parents are a child’s first teacher and know their student best. Schools need to do all they can to get parents involved – and not just when something is wrong. Parents will make it a priority. They just haven’t been asked.

3) Focus on real-world learning.
Memorizing facts is the lowest level of learning, yet it’s what we ask our students to do most . . .

4)  Foster questions, not answers.
Curiosity is a powerful motivator. . .

5)  Evaluate skills.
Answering a, b, c, d, or e on a standardized multiple-choice test doesn’t reflect a student’s ability to put knowledge into action. . .

6)  Use technology wisely.

7)  Support great teachers.
We must work hard to have only the very best teachers in our schools. Teacher training colleges need to get future teachers thinking innovatively about what school should be, not preparing teachers for the schools of yesterday.

8)  Focus on college completion.

9)  Make schools, not districts, accountable.
Teachers, principals, parents and students know their school the best. They should have enough control to design some of the measures  . . .

10)  Do everything at once.
Tweaking around the edges hasn’t created noticeable change or narrowed the achievement gap in our country.  We must reinvent.
I especially like #10 – “Do everything at once.”

Sylvia

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Educon 2.3 – a new kind of education conference

Next weekend in Philadelphia will be the fourth annual Educon conference. I’m happy to say I’ve been to all of them so far, and it’s grown into one of my favorites of the year.

There are several things I love about Educon:

  • It’s small. Capped at 500 people, it’s intimate enough that you get a “sense” of what people are thinking and the shifts occurring in real time.
  • Authenticity gives it voice and shape. Held at the Science Leadership Academy, a public magnet school with a progressive philosophy in the center of Philadelphia, the vibrancy of the school (both from teachers and students) shines through the event.
  • It’s not a trade show. So many educational conferences, even the ones with academic roots, have morphed into what Gary Stager calls “boat shows.” The focus on sales creates a different kind of atmosphere. Educon is about educators thinking out loud together without the carnival barkers.
  • Conversations, not sessions. At most conferences, people always wonder why discussions of new ways to teach and learn are held in old style lecture halls, and the interesting conversations are the ones in the hall. Educon has tried to bring those conversations to the forefront.
  • It’s centered in practice. Being in a school is not just about the building. The teachers and students are full participants in the conference and model collaboration, non-coercive learning and empowerment throughout. You can tell it’s what they do on a regular basis and it raises the bar for everyone.

I’m leading a conversation this year about gaming in education, “If Games are the Answer, What’s the Question?” Games in education are a hot topic these days, with all the usual mix of reality and hype that goes along with that. I definitely have strong opinions (which I’ll share) – but not the whole time. I hope to have a lively discussion where we’ll look at some games and talk about what makes them “good” for learning or not. Ultimately, perhaps we can come to some conclusions about what to look for in games for different subjects and classrooms.

I’d appreciate any input here or on the Educon page for this session about any particular games that people are curious about and want to discuss. I’ll try to have some screen shots prepared since there really won’t be time to download and play a lot of games AND have a discussion.

If you are coming to this session in person or via the live web streaming, please come with a downloaded game to share, or post suggestions here.

Sylvia

Previous posts about Educon

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Learning @ School – Keynote

I’m excited to be heading off to New Zealand next month to keynote the Learning@School 2011 conference in Rotorua (Feb 23-25). It looks like a wonderful conference, with some really interesting themes and strands.

I’ll be talking about student leadership and empowerment – and the way we can structure learning environments to offer those opportunities. Putting students into positions of responsibility for what and how other people learn teaches them that what they do matters, and gives them new insight into how they (and others learn.)

People always say, “you learn so much by teaching” – so why not have students learn AND teach. Combining this with technology, for which students today have a natural instinct and interest,  just makes sense. Students can teach other students, teach teachers, support technology professional development, help with technical set up and support, and much more. It creates natural collaboration opportunities, provides challenges at many levels, and is really useful. Giving students this kind of responsibility creates a win-win situation where students are valued for their expertise and hard work – real, needed work!

I’ll also do a follow up session to talk about the “how tos” of student technology leadership programs, and then another one about games in education.

I also hope to get some time visiting the famous geysers, boiling mud pools and thermal springs of Rotorua!

Sylvia