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Connecting ed-tech to ed-reform

The design of American education is obsolete, not meeting the needs of our students and our society, and ignores most of what we have learned about education and learning in the past century. This panel will explore a new paradigm, including some specific examples, of how education in America can be reshaped in more productive and democratic fashions. YEARLYKOS: Education Uprising / Educating for Democracy

Education is broken – it needs reform. Sound familiar? That was 2007. It is any better? Worse perhaps?

But what does this have to do with technology?
As educators find themselves re-imagining learning based on their own tech-based awakening, the sense comes quickly that this is not about new technology, access to information, 21st century skills, or even 2.0-goodness, but broader-based education reform. But just as quickly, it starts to feel like there is no hope of changing a lumbering, entrenched educational system with a tiny lever called technology.

However, we are not alone, and it would be a win-win for both tech-loving educators and education reformers to join forces. The technology and online collaboration tools being invented today could tip the balance in the effort to reshape education “in more productive and democratic fashions.” The virtual voices of students and teachers alike could finally be heard in force.

But what is school reform? What does that word mean? To me, it has nothing to do with test scores. “Progressive” is probably the label I most identify with. In my years of working with teachers and schools, my vision of reform means a continuing effort to make schools more democratic, human institution that elevate the potential of every person involved. But even those words are really meaningless; I’d probably agree with a hundred other conceptualizations of what reform is.

It’s a bit of a cop out to say that if you read this blog, or know me, you already have a notion of what i’m talking about. Sorry about that. But I’m going to ask your indulgence to skip over the definitions and go straight to the goodies.

I’d like to share some of the resources I find inspiring on this topic, things that resonate with me. Yes, it’s completely personal, so perhaps you’ll just have to try it out and see if these resources meet your needs. Here are some of my pins in my roadmap to educational reform.

Seymour Papert is called the father of educational technology, and the only one on this list who is tied to technology. But for me, his work is the tangible bridge between technology use in schools and education reform. I find his writing inspiring and a constant source of big ideas.

Alfie Kohn is a researcher, speaker and author who as Time magazine said is, “…perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades [and] test scores.”

Coalition of Essential Schools are based on the work of Ted Sizer, a giant of progressive education. CES schools pledge to create and sustain personalized, equitable, and intellectually challenging schools. To me, The CES Common Principals are a great place to start when thinking about “what a school could be.”

Forum for Education and Democracy, founded by a group of prominent thinkers in education, including Deborah Meier, Angela Valenzuela, Pedro Noguera, Linda Darling-Hammond, Ted and Nancy Sizer, and others.

Susan Ohanian speaks and writes about making schools better places for students and teachers. She tracks “outrages” on her website – stupid test questions, ridiculous policies and laws, lies, contradictions and half-truths.

The Education Policy Blog – a group blog “…about the ways that educational foundations can inform educational policy and practice! The blog is written by a group of people who are interested in the state of education today, and who bring to this interest a set of perspectives and tools developed in the disciplines known as the “foundations” of education: philosophy, history, curriculum theory, sociology, economics, and psychology.”

Bridging Differences blog is a running conversation between two education grande dames, Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch. They have large areas of disagreement, but the blog is a great example of a dialog that is polite, respectful and constructive. This is a a MUST READ for any educator.

A longer list of my “go to” thinkers who feed my brain on education reform will have to wait… but I have one more –

Call to action – from the same 2007 conference on education reform where the opening quote of this blog came from.

Teachers and Teaching: Prospects for High Leverage Reform
Peter Henry (aka Mi Corazon)

Wedged between two Byzantine bureaucracies—unions and school districts, constrained by unreasonable public expectations, hammered by ideologues, criticized by the media, saddled with policies shaped by non-educators, America’s teachers have almost no room to maneuver. Their training, workplace, schedule, and assignment are mostly determined by others, and their curriculum arrives “canned” in the form of textbooks from large, well-connected corporations. In some schools, extreme instructional strategies tell them what words to say, when, and how, as if teaching can be reduced to a standard script.

There is, however, reason for hope: If teachers are liberated from these structural limitations, they have tremendous potential as “high leverage” reform agents. As Peter Senge maintains in his thoughtful classic, The Fifth Discipline, small, subtle modifications of a key organizational element can have a major systemic impact.

It goes on to call for two fundamental reforms:

  1. Giving teachers autonomy, power, control and authority
  2. Ending teacher isolation

And ends on this uplifting note:

A great and resilient society, capable of successful adaptation and change, cannot thrive with an educational system built in the 19th century—managed by top-down hierarchies, one-size-fits-all models and ruled by the cudgel of fear. Excellence is achieved through individual mastery, a collegial network awash with inquiry and creativity, undergirded by trust and tangible support from the larger community. If we want teaching excellence and the resultant development of full student potential, teachers must be lifted up, given the responsibility, authority and training which enhance their natural human abilities, and then respected for taking on this most crucial and challenging work.

Good stuff, eh? See why I don’t bother trying to come up with a definition of reform all by myself? Why not stand on the shoulders of giants.

Educators inspired by technology will see parallels in these resources with many of the thoughts expressed daily in the ed-tech segment of the edublogosphere. There is much to learn, many connections to make, and much to do.

But finally, at this time in history, we have to tools to actually make this happen. Ed-tech reformers have an important part to play… and we are not alone.

Sylvia

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Questioning grading

Questioning any long-established practice that is “just how we do it” is the essence of critical thinking. In most schools grading is such a practice. With few exceptions, everyone does it, even in the face of decades of evidence that it hampers learning, saps motivation, causes endless headaches for teachers, and doesn’t really reflect actual student learning. (See Alfie Kohn – The Schools Our Children Deserve. For a taste online, see The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement or choose your own from this list.)

But everyone has to, right? No. Here’s proof from Joe Bower, who writes the for the love of learning blog about abolishing grading.

Intrigued? Think it’s just a pipe-dream? Read Joe’s extensive list of the whys, hows and concrete examples of what he does with his students.

You HAVE to give grades? OK, but check out Joe’s Grading without Grading, on how to “bring the kids in on it” with portfolios, self-assessment, and authentic assessment.

Wondering about parents, administrators, or how to detox students from their deeply held expectations that school = grade? Well, this is getting redundant – Read Joe’s extensive list.

And I know what you are thinking “well, sure, but he’s probably in some crazy fuzzy-headed school… that can’t happen here..” But, no, he’s not alone…

Joe is organizing a group of educators who each have declared a “Grading Moratorium” in their classrooms. They are banding together to document what they do and provide evidence of success to others. Read their posts to find out what they do and why it flies in the face of “that’s just how things have always worked.” They have all agreed to be contacted by others and answer questions about what they do.

Question grading. Read the testimony. See what you think.

Sylvia

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So-called ‘Digital Natives’ not media savvy… so now what?

Ok, so maybe we are ready to accept the fact that “digital natives” doesn’t really mean anything. The New York Times recently ran an article So-Called ‘Digital Natives’ Not Media Savvy, New Study Shows, to which I COULD respond “nyah, nyah, told you so” – because I wrote about this 3 years ago in Digital natives/immigrants – how much do we love this slogan?

But no, I’ll refrain. (I’m assuming you can’t see me doing a tiny little superiority dance in front of my computer as I write this.)

So what does need to happen once we stop labeling kids and start treating them as individuals who show up with all sorts of different experiences, interests, and needs? How do we take students from where they are and introduce opportunities for deeper learning?

Here’s one idea:

“The Glitch project, by Betsy diSalvo and Amy Bruckman, deals directly with one of these consumer/producer dichotomies: African-American teen men are among the most game-playing demographics in American society, yet they’re among the least represented in computer science programs. Being interested in playing the technology doesn’t equate with interest or facility in making the technology. Betsy’s great insight is that learning to be game-testers is a terrific bridge from game-player to game-maker. In a sense, Betsy is teaching her students exactly the issue of information literacy discussed in the NYTimes piece below — it’s about having a critical eye about the technology. So, to all those teachers worried about being made obsolete by digital natives, rest easy. You have a LOT to teach them.” – Mark Guzdial, from his Computing Education Blog

It’s like I said in my previous post – “If we walk away from our responsibility to teach them about appropriate, academic uses of technology, it’s our fault when silly, or worse, inappropriate uses of technology fill that vacuum.”

Creating labels like native and immigrant only solidify boundaries and create implied adversaries. It’s simply the wrong mental picture for a collaborative learning environment where teachers and students are all lifelong learners.

Sylvia

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Back to school – games for collaboration and teamwork

Of course we want to encourage students to collaborate and work in teams – but how does this actually happen?

Here’s one idea to kickstart that idea and keep it going all year long – games. But not just any game! Games specifically designed to encourage teamwork and collaboration. Replace simple “icebreakers” with games that set the standard for positive interaction. As time goes on, introduce other games that pave the way for even deeper group work. Encouraging these kinds of habits needs to start day one, it’s not something to do after students “learn the basics.”

Check out this article – “Why Play Games When There’s Work to Do? by Adam Fletcher of The Freechild Project.

Games can be a catalyst for deeper goals. They can bring both cohesion and energy to any group, and are a welcome addition to a teacher’s “bag of tricks”. Playing games with students and youth groups encourages teamwork, models constructive, collaborative behavior, and develops a shared sense of mission.

Two categories of games are especially helpful in setting a tone of collaboration and teamwork for students.

Cooperative games emphasize participation, challenge, and fun, rather than sorting out winners and losers. These kinds of games teach teamwork, empathy, and trust.

Initiative games have players attack a problem and solve it. They teach leadership, problem solving, and collaboration.

I encourage you to read “Why Play Games…” It’s full of practical suggestions and fun game ideas, but is much more than just a list of games. It includes time-tested information about how to choose them, how to introduce them, how to create reflective activities that further magnify the impact of the game itself, and tons of additional resources.

Teachers who lead student tech clubs know that the success of the group depends on much more than tech skills. Teamwork and a sense of mission result in the “we” being more than the “me” and can take a student tech team to the next level.

This isn’t just for student clubs either. If you want students to unlearn the competitive habits that have been drilled into them and work cooperatively, these games will work in classroom situations too. Collaboration and communication may be “21st century skills” but having students play them out in game situations is a timeless idea.

Give this short article a read and I guarantee you will learn one new thing today! “Why Play Games…” By Adam Fletcher

Selected additional resources (there’s a lot more if you click on the article link):

  • Free guide, So, You Wanna Be A Playa? The Freechild Project Guide to Cooperative Games for Social Change by A. Fletcher with K. Kunst. “This insightful new guide will help community workers, teachers, activists, and all kinds of people find fun, engaging, and powerful activities that promote teamwork, communication, and social justice.” Click here for a free download.

 

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The moms are all right

The publisher of Parenting magazine and BlogHer.com just surveyed 1,032 moms on the effect of technology on parenting behavior. The study will be published in September, but you can download a PDF Executive Summary of the survey now.

From the press release:
Parenting and BlogHer found that the majority of moms surveyed have a very positive view of technology’s role in fostering communication and connections within their families:

  • 87% agree that understanding new technology is important to stay connected with their children.
  • 70% feel that technology can provide great ways for families to spend time together.
  • 83% care about new technology because of the benefits it brings to their everyday lives.

These moms do see threats to their children…from both the Internet and television, but they don’t believe those fears have been realized: Only 5% report believing that their children have ever been engaged in addictive online behavior like excessive gaming, only 4% believe their kids have viewed pornography online, and less than 1% believe their kids have participated in cyber-bullying, sexting or inappropriate online communication with adults.

“The results of this survey were very encouraging,” said Nancy Hallberg, chief strategy officer of The Parenting Group. “Today’s moms are not fearful of technology and its growing role in their family’s lives – they view it not only as a tool to connect with other moms, but as a way to communicate with their children and teach them responsible ways to interact online.”

Link to a PDF – An Executive Summary of the survey.

The study will appear in the September issue of Parenting magazine, on Parenting.com, and on BlogHer.com.

——

This appears to be all that’s online right now – but the Executive Summary PDF has some interesting tidbits. It clearly shows that these moms feel the benefits of technology outweigh the risks by creating new ways for them to communicate and model appropriate social connections with their children.

In other words – the moms are all right.

Might be an interesting topic for some back to school tech planning. For example, are we overestimating parental fear about online risks and other perceived negative effects of technology? Do we really know what they think these days? It could have changed drastically in the past few years as more and more parents find out that Facebook means stronger family and social connections. What does it mean now and in the future to policies and tech plans if our parents views are changing so quickly? Maybe schools should poll their own parents and ask some of these questions.

Sylvia

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Live event this weekend – Alan Kay

There’s a live event this weekend that I would recommend to anyone interested in the “big ideas” of using computers in education. Alan Kay will be online in a conversation on the topic:

Important Questions in Education Research

Saturday, August 7th 2010 in the LearnCentral public Elluminate room at 11am Pacific – 2pm Eastern time.

This is part of an ongoing series of events organized by Maria Droujkova, who holds weekly Math 2.0 Webinars. But don’t be put off if you aren’t a “math” person. Alan Kay is one of the people responsible for there being ANYTHING called computers in education. He’s a unique thinker in this field and I guarantee you that there will be free and wide ranging conversation.

Alan is responsible for two quotes I love:

  • “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
  • “… music is not in the piano. And knowledge and edification is not in the computer. The computer is simply an instrument whose music is ideas.”

So I urge you to join the conversation tonight, even if your interest isn’t in math or educational research. I do so because it’s a rare opportunity to connect first hand with one of the seminal thinkers of our time, and someone whose life’s work is reflected in everything we call “educational technology.”

Important Questions in Education Research with Alan Kay

Saturday, August 7th 2010 in the LearnCentral public Elluminate room at 11am Pacific – 2pm Eastern time. WorldClock for your time zone.

All Math 2.0 events are free and open to the public. Information about all events in the series is here

To read more about Alan: A still timely profile from 2003 on Alan Kay (Scholastic Administrator magazine)

Sylvia

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Back to school – what tech vision will you share?

Back to School time! How did this happen so quickly…

One thing that parents are faced with every fall is the giant packet. Everything you need to know, sign, and send back with checks attached as school starts. In the giant packet is the schools Acceptable Use Policy, known as the AUP to most techie educators. To parents, of course, it’s known as paper 23 of 42, likely to be ignored. To make sure that even diligent parents ignore it, schools create AUPs full of dense legalese, hoping that if anything bad happens, they are “covered.” Whatever that means.

When you see a principal on the news explaining why his school is suspected to be the center of a huge student porn network, does he ever hold up the AUP and say, “but we’re covered!” No, of course not. So why do schools believe that the AUP really does any good at all? And why, oh why do we send this out without a shred of explanation about the GOOD that we expect from students using technology?

I’m not saying there shouldn’t be policy in place, and that these policies shouldn’t be communicated. Of course they should. But why send something home guaranteed to intimidate, or worse, bore parents?

I’ve written about this before (What message does your AUP send home?)

I truly believe that EVERYTHING we do sends a message. It’s important to take a step back and try to put yourself in parent’s shoes for a moment and read the AUP from that perspective. In most AUPs, there is not a shred of positive vision for what “Use” means. They should be called UUPs, or Unacceptable Use & Punishments.

Where is your vision shared? How do you communicate with parents and students about your hopes and dreams for technology? If this is your one chance, and you have to send out the AUP anyway, why not rewrite it so it reads like a vision instead of a promise of punishment? At least add a cover letter to it!

Sure, parents will flip through the packet and might not read it. But then again, it’s your one chance – why not take it?

Sylvia

Thinking about revising your AUP? Visit David Warlick’s wiki School AUP 2.0 for links and an RSS feed to many schools with visionary AUPs.

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What leadership looks like

Scott McLeod of the Dangerously Irrelevant blog has declared today, July 30, 2010 as Leadership Day 2010. He’s been doing this for three years now, and each year I’ve participated with a post.

  • 2007 – Leaders of the Future where I focused on developing the leader in every learner.
  • 2008 – Just Do It where I urged administrators to stop waiting for the district reorg or the next version of Windows or that bandwidth you were promised 3 years ago and get moving. Listen to kids, don’t listen the teachers who can’t seem to manage an email account, damn the torpedos and full steam ahead.
  • 2009 – Every day is leadership day in which I wrote about the connection between “agency” (meaning true choice) and leadership. Leadership is only meaningful when people have an actual choice to follow or not follow. Leadership is inextricably bound to free will, in the same way democracy is. In schools, this must happen every day, at every level of participation.

This year, as I read my past posts, I saw a trend. I started with students as leaders, moved on to finding ways to move forward despite obstacles, and last year, opened that theme up to all levels of leadership. I’ve consistently gotten broader and bigger with my thoughts about leadership.

But today it occurs to me that perhaps I’ve broadened the topic to such an extent that it’s nearly impossible to actually DO anything about it. If leadership is a good thing, we must be able to say what to do to achieve it. Right? Shouldn’t we be able to answer the questions – What does it look like? How do you do it? What conditions does it require? It’s not fair to say that we know it when we see it. It’s not useful to say that leadership success is simply success in leadership.

People talk about leaders all the time. We see models of leadership on TV, at our workplace, read stories about them, find them in history and self-help books. But what can we learn from them? How can people call both Ghandi and Donald Trump great leaders? (Can you imagine Ghandi shouting “You’re fired!” at anyone?) Why does it work equally well for one sports coach to throw stuff at players and call them names, while the coach at some equally award-winning team speaks softly and treats players with respect? How can a principal who carries a whistle and has a “convincing paddle” on his wall be a great leader in the same world as the principal across town who is grandmotherly and nurturing?

And yet, we see this paradox every day. “What works” is variable to an almost maddening degree.

  • Perhaps it’s that their personal style works for them – is leadership simply being true to yourself?
  • Perhaps they just found the right set of followers – is leadership then dependent on followership?
  • Perhaps it’s that they just have a consistent vision – is leadership just making clear statements and following through on expectations?
  • And if these differences don’t matter – then how can we ever figure out what a successful leader “does?”

But three years into my leadership musings, I find myself with more questions than answers, wanting to dive down into the individuality of leadership. Expanding the definition, it seems, means less understanding and potentially losing the hope of grasping it.

I invite you to read the other posts made on the subject of Leadership Day and perhaps write your own. What does leadership look like to you?

Sylvia

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Tinkering and creativity

In my Tinkering talk at ISTE (slides coming soon!), I shared the French word for tinkering which is “bricolage”. It’s a great word because it doesn’t just mean tinkering, it also carries a connotation of playfulness, art, and using found objects. Those French certainly have a way with words!

I especially like how Sherry Turkle, the famous educational researcher explained bricolage. “The bricoleur resembles the painter who stands back between brushstrokes, looks at the canvas, and only after this contemplation, decides what to do next.”

This week, Newsweek magazine gives us, The Creativity Crisis. “For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.” This article tackles the contradiction between America’s “standards-obsessed schools,” what we know about how children learn, and businesses who say that creativity is the number one attribute they need in new employees.

This perception of a different kind of problem solving, not the one taught in school with rigid steps and “right answers” – but one of playful invention, with room for serendipity, and respect for reflection seems to me to be at the heart of creativity. Because creativity is only meaningful in the act of CREATION – it’s not a feeling, or a mindset, or an outcome. But it CAN be taught, contrary to conventional wisdom, it’s not an inborn talent that you are either born with or not.

It’s about playful invention, and I believe that the notion of bricolage captures that perfectly, and is especially appropriate when talking about children.

Sylvia

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Do you sleep with your cell phone? Pew Study on Millennials

cell phone graphic

Generations, like people, have personalities, and Millennials — the American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium — have begun to forge theirs: confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change.

They are more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults. They’re less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and are on track to become the most educated generation in American history.

Their entry into careers and first jobs has been badly set back by the Great Recession, but they are more upbeat than their elders about their own economic futures as well as about the overall state of the nation.

from The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change. – Pew Research Center

The latest Pew Study on “Millennials” (people born after 1980) is part of a Pew Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millennial Generation.

These youth say that “technology” is the defining characteristic of their generation. And it’s not just use of gadgets, it’s the social aspect of how technology shapes their lives.

The obvious question is: How has school responded to this demographic shift?

Take the quiz: How Millennial Are You?

Sylvia