Cool Lessons

2009-03-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

Headlines

In a speech before the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, President Obama listed how he would like to see education change.

One item is that he would like merit pay for teachers.

Other items President Obama stated he wants are to develop standards "that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity." He also said "The solution to low test scores is not lower standards; it's tougher, clearer standards.”

Which item do you think will get the headlines? Which would bring more meaningful change?

2009-03-02T11:24:00.017-06:00

How Sad

Two things struck home about what we expect an educated student to be.

The first happened as I had just finished four days at the Illinois Computing Educators Conference, the premier event in Illinois showcasing ways to improve student learning using technology tools. I presented during two of the days and enjoyed attending many sessions during the other two. It was also nice spending time networking with old and new acquaintances. The toughest time slot to present is the last session on the last day, for a number of reasons.

However I found that I enjoyed the very last presentation the most. Sharon Peters, a grade 7-9 teacher in Montreal, Canada described Take 2: The Student's Point of View. It is a collaborative effort in which schools are given professional quality videos only for the cost of an external hard drive and shipping. The videos last year were taken in Sudan, specifically the Darfur Region. Video included segments shot in refugee camps, interviews with people, burning villages just after they been attacked, relief efforts, etc. They were taken by Karin Muller, a PBS documentary producer, and you can see some of the clips she sent to schools at http://thesudanproject.ning.com/video . Karin is presently spending three months a year in regions of conflict around the world. Find out more by going to http://www.changemakers.net/node/14708 .

Students use the videos to create various products their teachers asked them to do for the purpose of demonstrating learning. Sharon Peter’s students are in the process of creating an original documentary on the genocide in Darfur.

The second happened the next day. I read in the newspaper a story proclaiming that several local schools made the Illinois Honor Role, a list of schools recognized for improvement on the ISAT, Illinois’ No Child Left Behind assessment. One principal stated that she believed “stressing vocabulary and the types of word problems featured on the ISAT helped increase scores.”

How sad that some quality educators can have their students focus on 21st century skills ( http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=254&Itemid=119 ), while other quality educators are pressured to focus their time and talents on having students practice for multiple choice tests. Some systems need to set their priorities of what is expected of their students differently.

You might want to read Deborah Meier's blog article Confusing Test Scores With Being "Well-Educated" on this topic located at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/

2009-02-11T10:49:00.002-06:00

A Wake-Up Call

I was reading the Chicago Tribune this morning with the radio on in the background (multitasking - but the weather info is more up-to-date on the radio). The Paul Harvey radio show was on and I was ignoring it as usual, until I heard …..

"Wiring classrooms for Internet access does not enhance learning".

What? Did I hear right? Someone named Greenfield at UCLA really was quoted saying this?

I turned on the laptop and found the following article in the UCLA News: Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? Studies shed light on multi-tasking, video games and learning By Stuart Wolpert dated 1/27/2009
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127.aspx

Yes, Patricia Greenfield, UCLA Distinguished Professor of psychology and Director of the Children's Digital Media Center said this.

What she was referring to was a review of a research study that stated students who used internet access during a lecture (my emphasis) processed the lecture less than students without internet access at the moment.

In other words, college kids who were surfing didn’t pay as much attention during a lecture. (Well, DUH!) (Besides that, I don’t know if we really want to promote lecturing as a teaching tool. For those who do not know the data on how lecturing affects long-term memory, check out the Learning Pyramid research at the bottom of this web page http://mrlevine.wikispaces.com/administrator-research )

What the Paul Harvey Report failed to mention were other of her findings, such as “By using more visual media, students will process information better.” Isn’t that the key to learning? Don’t other studies show that the more students process information (i.e. use higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy) the more they can demonstrating understanding (i.e. the more they really learn)?

One caveat that Professor Greenfield gave was "However, most visual media are real-time media that do not allow time for reflection, analysis or imagination — those do not get developed by real-time media such as television or video games. Technology is not a panacea in education, because of the skills that are being lost.” (Another Well, DUH!)

So, why don’t teachers build in time for reflection, analysis or imagination into their learning activities? Why don’t teachers use online tools to foster reflection and analytic discussion? Why don’t teachers demand that the products they have students create show an imagination (i.e. creative) component?

I think that what Professor Greenfield should have stated is “Wiring of classrooms for Internet access without any solid educational plan for effectively using the available tools does not enhance learning".

2008-12-16T20:25:00.003-06:00

Change? How much? To what Degree?

It is fairly obvious that the present Bush Administration’s Department of Education is locked into their process of “test and punish” with relation to No Child Left Behind. Responding to much criticism over many years, their idea of profound change of the process is to develop a pilot program in which schools can now be labeled with different levels of failure.

The announcement of this new (March, 2008) policy creating a spectrum of failure came with the following press release: “Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced a new pilot program under No Child Left Behind aimed at helping states differentiate between underperforming schools in need of dramatic interventions and those that are closer to meeting the goals of No Child Left Behind. I'm announcing a new pilot that will help states improve underperforming schools. This "differentiated accountability" program will invite up to 10 states to create more nuanced ways of distinguishing between schools in need of dramatic intervention, and those that are closer to meeting goals.” http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2008/03/03182008.html

This new policy sounds as effective in dealing with the deficiencies of NCLB as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

As you know by now, Arne Duncan has just been named the U.S. Secretary of Education in the Obama administration. Will he propose changes to Congress concerning the reauthorization of NCLB? If so, then what kinds of changes?

Some hints might come from his writings. Arne Duncan was one of the original task force members & signatories of the position paper A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. http://www.boldapproach.org/statement.html

Some of the points made in the position paper were:
-- “The effectiveness of NCLB has also been weakened by its unintended side effects, such as a narrowing of the curriculum”
--“…the broader, bolder approach pays attention not only to basic academic skills and cognitive growth narrowly defined, but to development of the whole person…”
--“[The new approach] assigns value to the new knowledge and skills that young people need to become effective participants in a global environment…”
--“… test scores alone cannot describe a school’s contribution to the full range of student outcomes.”
--“New accountability systems should combine appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods, and they will be considerably more expensive than the flawed accountability systems currently in use by the federal and state governments.”

In a speech Nov. 17, 2008 in New York, Arne Duncan stated of Obama “He is interested in results. … Rather than debate governance models – he urges an open mind to new strategies and approaches. He will support whatever works best.” http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/thisweekineducation/2008/11/transition-chic.html

Obama’s campaign education platform stated: “Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. They will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.”
http://change.gov/agenda/education_agenda/

The important questions are will Mr. Duncan continue the tradition of rearranging deck chairs? Or will more substantial change to NCLB occur?

What do you think?

(Titanic image courtesy of National Institute of Standards and Technology)

2008-11-15T17:22:00.003-06:00

ALLIES

During a recent graduate class discussion of how to improve training, equipment and tech support for teachers to use with their students, the participants were planning ways to make their needs known. They discussed who they should bring their case to. One participant then stated “Admin, superintendent, not a teacher - it’s all the same to me!!”

I responded “I would suggest that one knows one's allies. [One of the district-level administrators discussed] is one of the people who decide what kinds of things will be taught in these [graduate] classes. She, along with [another administrator] are allies to those who want more professional development offered in what you all have been asking for. I know that they agree with the vast majority of things teachers taking this course have been saying. They also are doing as much as possible in letting others know your desires and needs. I had invited [these administrators] to monitor these discussions. As I previously have told all of you, I recommend one know one's allies.”

Mark Wagner in his workshop "Learning to Network & Networking to Learn: Beyond The Tools..." located at http://networktolearn.wikispaces.com/tenaya states that one way to cultivate change is to develop a network of educational leaders who are willing to
· Make connections with each other and make attempts to find others who would be willing to join them in dialogue. These connections also can become your personal learning network (PLN)
· Make conversation with and contributions to others in your PLN.
· Make plans with those in your PLN to help you all achieve your goals to improve learning opportunities for your students. Find the best-practice research and the examples needed.
· Make requests to the powers-that-be. This is where you need your allies in your PLN. There is strength in numbers, in persistence and in a great vision.

I’ll leave you with two questions:

1) Who is part of your PLN?
2) (The question Mark asked his workshop participants) How has your personal learning network impacted you, your work, or your students?

2008-11-13T20:55:00.007-06:00

PROFILES AND ASSESSMENTS

Intriguing!

A Superintendent of a local school district was quoted in the newspaper stating "As a district and as a community, we must begin to define what we believe a successful school and a successful graduate looks like. We must look for measures beyond state test scores to show that we are moving in the right direction."

I wondered if he was thinking along the lines of those in Nebraska http://www.elladvocates.org/media/NCLB/Time30may07.html or North Carolina http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/graduationproject/ who determined what the profile of 21st century citizen should be and then devised processes to educate and assess students as the attain those skills. (For an excellent description of what North Carolina is doing, peruse the Watauga High School site http://www.watauga.k12.nc.us/graduation_project/index.html .)

What he meant instead was to use available data, such as the number of students taking AP classes, numbers in the gifted program, etc. in order to flesh out a more complete profile of what students in the district are like.

Oh well.

2008-11-07T17:02:00.001-06:00

Finances or Vision?

In the graduate class I am now teaching, a discussion among the participants (all educators) ensued about the reasons why they don't have adequate amounts of technology. Most think that the financial issue is the main hindrance to supplying teachers and students the technology they need.

Chris Lehman, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA (discussed the difficulty most schools have in using technology the way it should be.

Chris said "And the problem is that our entire structure has to change to make it easier. You can't teach 150 kids a day this way [using the traditional factory model of education]... you have to find new ways to look at your classroom. Everything from school design to …... to class size and teacher load to curriculum and assessment -- everything we do in schools -- has to be on the table for change if we are to achieve the kind of schools that video is speaking about." http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/963-Pearson-Presents-Learning-to-Change.html

One of my students in the graduate class reflected this when she said: "I'm beginning to feel that the only initiative they [the school district powers-that-be] are interested in is to raise test scores."

In my opinion, even if all students met the standards on the tests they would still be woefully short of what real learning is all about, the kinds of things mentioned in the 21st Century Skills report.
http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/documents/FINAL_REPORT_PDF09-29-06.pdf ( Note the executive Summary on page 9)

If the vision of how our kids should be taught would really be bought into by the powers-that-be, don't you think that the finances would be found to help reach that vision?

Maybe the problem therefore is the vision of how we expect our students to learn.

The District in which the educators work has new Superintendent. He made a comment on the district web page that is extremely intriguing: ""As a District and as a community, we must begin to define what we believe a successful school and a successful graduate looks like. We must look for measures beyond state test scores to show that we are moving in the right direction." http://www.u-46.org/npps/story.cfm?nppage=669

Could the Superintendent possibly be thinking along Chris Lehman's lines?

Any comments?

2007-12-08T21:44:00.000-06:00

Using Learning

The following quote struck home.

"Education is not merely about transferring information. It is about contextualizing that information in the real life experiences of the learners, and in relation with the experiences of other learners…It is the relationships among people and sharing contextualized experiences that create emergent knowledge that is the basis of education." Mark Federman

I had just finished teaching my first online graduate course, and had asked the participants to design a rubric evaluating the course. The course was structured around evaluating case studies and responding to questions. Many of the course participants, all working teachers, stated that the cases were not either relevant to their particular teaching situation or that the pace of the class did not allow them time to reflect on how to make the concepts learned applicable to their work. They wanted something that was relevant and that they could use. Applying it to their work would be evidence that they learned the concepts.

I would say the same applies to the students we teach.

Credits:
Mark Federman, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
http://whatisthemessage.blogspot.com/2007/12/two-conversations-about-relationships.html

Will Richardson http://weblogg-ed.com/2007/business-as-unusual/

Online-Course Rubric http://mrlevine.wikispaces.com/online_course_rubric

2007-11-17T16:11:00.008-06:00

Security vs. Usability

A Information Systems character in a recent Dilbert cartoon stated something to the tune that security trumps usability. This struck a chord because lately I’ve been consistently hearing from teachers about their frustrations with filters. More and more web sites are being blocked by school districts. One district blocks wikis, another blogs, another Google images, another Flickr, another YouTube, and so forth. These applications do have the potential to be risky to students. As you are aware, each of these applications also has potential to help students learn.

The purpose of this article is not to degrade people who work for information services in schools, not district administrators who determine policy. IS people, district administrators and teachers all care about students safety, and rightfully so. However, one problem with filters is that students quickly figure out ways to bypass them. For example, when Google images are blocked, students do a web search and add the words “images” and “pictures” to the search query: this returns web pages with images students need. For each video site blocked, students find another, and so on. Marc Pesce notes "The net regards censorship as a failure, and routes around it."

Students’ safety is an ongoing concern. One appropriate question is “What are the best ways to do that?”

I think another more appropriate question is “What is the primary purpose of technology in a school district?” The only answer is to help teachers to help students learn. Therefore, a major focus of IS policies should be on that concern. This includes policies related to the district’s internet filter.

Security trumping usability? Sometimes teachers and students feel that this is a policy. In my opinion, such policies (either stated or supposed)that stifle and suppress teachers’ and students’ creative uses of resources tend to have a negative effect on their moral. One teacher said “The filter although is needed, often frustrates the students as they become blocked.” Another stated “The filter on the computers sometimes lets questionable information come through and other times information that’s needed can’t be accessed.” Still another told me that so many sites are blocked by her district’s filter, she doesn’t bother using the internet much. Many other comments related to me over time were of a similar nature.

Along with software-based filtering, districts are using educational programs such as I-Safe and acceptable use policies as tools to teach young people internet safety. A teacher stated "Teach students to use the Internet safely instead of restricting access through arbitrarily placed filters that dampens curiosity and motivation."

Brian Rimes asks a key question "Who should control the filters?" Should it be left totally to a machine scanning for a list of words so that it will block any web site containing any of those words, no matter the context? Shouldn't humans, more specifically your child's teacher, be allowed to choose appropriate web sites? You trust your child's teacher with your child. Shouldn't you trust your child's teacher's judgement on web sites that both protect your child and provide the best opportunities for your child to learn?

In my opinion though, the best “filter” is, of course, the desire of students to stay on the learning task that they have bought into and that a teacher helps them to focus on. Another great “filter” is teacher vigilance and frequent checks of student learning progress. A third “filter” is the speed and certainty of consequences when students are found using technology in inappropriate ways or for inappropriate reasons. A fourth "filter" is the role of administrators who evaluate teachers by their ability to help students remain focused on their learning tasks.

Christopher D. Sessums wrote "In the end, who we might might become and how social software enhances our lives is entirely up to us. While we might currently reside in a house dominated by fear and anxiety over growth and change, we ultimately have the power to change our individual and collective futures. But only if we allow ourselves the opportunity to do so."

Security trumping usability? What do you think?

Credits:

Creative Commons Attribute images courtesy of
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lexrex/153457185/

Dilbert cartoon that was referenced: http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20071116.html

Marc Pesce quote: http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/

Christopher D Sessums quote: http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/330651.html

2007-11-15T22:07:00.000-06:00

A Dash of Hope

Referring to the ISAT, Illinois’ version of the NCLB assessment, a respected local high school teacher stated in a news interview that “Students at younger ages simply may be more inclined to succeed on tests, driven by an optimistic view of the future. By high school, she suggested, some may be worn down and worn out, seeing their parents work two jobs to make ends meet and feeling they have little chance of doing any better.” “They get to this stage and they don't see that American Dream anymore. They don't feel that anymore," she said. ‘I believe that a lot of our kids feel as if they have no future.’ ”

In a discussion with another teacher, she recounted that some of her 8th grade students have told her that there was no reason for them to try to do well in school. When the teacher asked for the reason these students feel this way, they said that they didn’t have papers, and not being U.S. citizens, they would not be allowed in colleges or, if they do get into one, wouldn’t get money to help them. They said that they could get a high school diploma, but in the end they will be doing the same jobs as their parents, so why try on school work or tests.

Whatever your personal position on immigration issues and proposals for changes in federal laws, the present situation is stripping hope from a generation of kids living presently living among us. (The Senate this year in essence voted “No” on a bill that would have granted legal residency to children of illegal immigrants while the young people pursued college degrees.)

Do we want to create a permanent underclass without hope? Ask our teachers who each day try to help these kids learn. Teachers pour their time, their best efforts (and yes, even their hearts) into these kids. Just perhaps, the rest of us might, at a minimum, provide a dash of hope.

2007-11-13T15:05:00.000-06:00

Pressures and Dedication

I feel for teachers who are working under the myriad of pressures existent today. An example is a teacher in one school who has had cases of lice in her classroom time and again. She told me that every time they think they have the problem licked, the lice rear their ugly heads (or whatever a louse rears) again. She is a second year teacher (we all know the intense work load a newer teacher faces from developing an elementary school learning program) and along with this is very embarrassed that the situation continues to reoccur, no matter everything the school is doing. She also apologized to me because she hasn’t gotten her class blog off and running this year as she had last year. (Last year she was a first year teacher having third graders blogging – she’s a brave and visionary person!)

Another teacher has been expecting technology to be installed and operative for quite a while. She said “We've all been there...when you're waiting for something, because it's been spoken about so many times...it's got to happen...and the waiting continues. The poor students hear how excited you are but never see it happen.”

A third teacher noted “Isn't it sad that often as teachers in order to get things done, we have to, and are almost always expected to give up so much of our time? Of course many of us do because we care, that is why we became teachers, right? Maybe if we were given freedom like we used to, we'd be able to do a lot more during the school day. Unfortunately, I feel like we are being dictated to so much of what we have to teach and how to teach it, that the creativity and freedom that I loved so much about being a teacher is slipping away.”

I was working with a fourth teacher whose students were receiving their individual laptops today. She is expected to teach how to use the laptops, a process that could take up to a week of class time. When reviewing the changes to her lesson scheduling, she sighed and said “We were lectured this morning on the importance of improving grades. Now I have to put aside what I was going to do to teach all this instead.” She’s not at all unhappy about the laptops, just about more to do.

Teaching is an outstanding career choice for those who love learning, care for children and who wish to help others. Of the many qualities of a good teacher is the ability to deal with almost anything and to try to make the best of it. I tip my hat to these dedicated people who try to do their best, no matter all the pressures that come.

2007-11-02T20:29:00.000-05:00

Online Teaching

I am presently involved in teaching my first online graduate course and have conflicted feelings about the experience. I miss the human contact aspect. For example, I can’t read body language being online.

Having a teacher available at a moment’s notice can be comforting to a student. In an online environment, I check their work sites once or twice a day each day, but in the system we are using, my students and I aren’t necessarily on at the same time. When participants need assistance we rely on the site’s email account. There may be a long interval between the question being posed and the answer given. I can only tell if learning happens if a participant posts his/her work. In a face-to-face environment, I would observe the work being produced and provide feedback immediately.

One participant told me that an online course meant more work for the student. She said that, in a face-to-face environment, students don’t have to participate in each discussion. In an online course, students must answer each discussion question. They can’t stay back and just listen. There is no place to hide in an online class.

I once read that technology has the potential to deepen or humanity (sorry – can’t remember the source). I’m still on the fence about this one. I think the participants in the course feel the same. It’s an interesting point of reflection. What do you think?

2007-09-14T10:49:00.002-05:00

Multiple Choice Learning

Rebecca, my granddaughter attends a high school located in a Chicago suburb. A few nights ago she was relating to us what was going on in her classes. She mentioned that, in a particular class, her grade should have been higher because the test she took wasn’t scored right. She said that she had changed an answer on her Scantron machine-scored multiple choice answer sheet, but it had been marked wrong just the same by the machine because, the teacher said, “You didn’t use a good enough eraser.”

I asked Rebecca how many of the teachers used Scantron sheets in testing and she responded “All the quizzes and tests in every class except for math are given using the Scantron.” She continued “Except for Finals Exams - We get to write an essay along with doing the Scantron sheets.” One of her teachers even gave her class “a tour of the Scantron room” once to show how her tests were graded. My granddaughter, who wants to be a teacher, was much impressed.

Rebecca said using these kinds of tests by all her teachers was done to get students ready to take the ACT tests. As background, the ACTs are a major component of the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE) given to all 11th graders in Illinois. The PSAE is the NCLB high school component in Illinois. The PSAE includes three components; the one that is reported most in newspapers are the ACT battery of four multiple-choice tests (English, mathematics, reading, and science). The other major NCLB test in Illinois called the Illinois Standards Achievement Test is also composed of multiple choice tests. There is a writing component to both tests, but only limited ones.

On a related note, this morning I caught David Martin, the CBS News' National Security Correspondent, on C-Span discussing his job. He said that trying to find the truth was a “messy” thing as he described various approaches he uses to discover what he “approximates to be the truth” in an issue.

If the issues of the world refuse to be classified into neat little boxes and stay messy, then perhaps we can teach students that sometimes there is no one correct answer. We can teach our students that the choices they make must relate to all the issues, perspectives, needs, facts, and theories related to the problems faced, and to possible consequences of actions they must consider doing. We can teach our students to contribute solutions to problems through collaborative communities. We can help them to learn for themselves through developing a culture of learning in schools that is not irrelevant to the real world.

However, if students are continued to be tested in ways that describe thinking reflected by multiple choice tests, I pray that the world changes so that all the problems are no longer “messy”. In this kind of world, the biggest issues Rebecca and all other young adults face would be to have sharp pencils and good enough erasers.

Image Copyright Daryl Cargel; used with permission

2007-08-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

A Wonderful Example of the Power of Blogs

If you haven't seen it, please read First Year Teachers, David Warlick's article dealing with new teachers and the Web 2.0. There is an amazing discusion ocurring in the discussion section under the article. If you are at all interested in these new virtual tools available to help kids learn, you must read this discussion thread.

2007-07-22T19:36:00.000-05:00

Increased Access is Needed

“I have an inspired and refreshed outlook.” “Children will see how excited I am about the blog. Plus, it’s fun!” “I'm excited to try out this lesson!”

These are just a sampling of the reactions from teachers who discover the power of technology, if used in the right way, an improve learning.

When teachers taking my graduate classes see the possibilities of students learning in new ways using technology, then the demand for technology increases. When teachers plan their lessons, the biggest obstacle they mention is more access to technology, specifically computers with Internet access. One teacher said “There are only so many time slots for teachers to take their classes in the computer lab”. Another said “Kindergarten classes only get 30 min per week of lab time.” In some elementary schools, teachers are limited to thirty or forty-five minutes a week with their class. In others, students can use a computer lab for up to 2 ½ hours a week. Another teacher said “It would be more valuable if more computer time was devoted to each classroom. One hour a week does not help much.” Another stated “Once a week in the computer lab does not create or allow a technology literate environment, especially today.” Still another indicated “Time constraints in the computer lab may negatively affect students with disabilities that need extra time to complete tasks.”

In their district’s middle schools, Computer Applications/Skills is an exploratory course. As part of the 6 week seventh and eighth grade rotations, students learn skills and how to use various pieces of software. This course does increase skills, but at a cost. This cost is due to the fact that the students in any one particular computer applications class do not all come from a single Core (sometimes called Teams or Houses in which students share a team of teachers). Therefore coordinating Computer Application assignments with subject matter teachers and their desire for students to fulfill state standards is extremely difficult. Because of this, what is done in the middle school computer lab rarely supports what teachers are working on at that time in the classroom but instead is simply focused on their own K-12 Technology Curriculum.

What this means for access to computers is that at least one of the middle school’s two computer labs is tied up with the computer courses, with no access to classroom teachers who want to use technology with their students to support their curriculum. A teacher said “There are only so many time slots for teachers to take their classes in the computer lab.”

I know of one middle school that had once eliminated its Computer Applications/Skills courses. Instead, the lab was opened up for instructional purposes to allow classroom teachers to use the lab. The catch was that, if teachers wanted to have their students use a particular piece of software, or use skills such as searching, the teacher had to teach it to their students. On-site professional development support was provided for teachers to help them in the endeavor. A teacher commented that “If teachers knew that the technology is easily available, they would do more with it.” The results of the experiment were that teachers booked the lab continuously through the school year, and took advantage of the opportunities for learning presented. However, I understand the experiment was eliminated when the school district decided that each of the middle schools had to offer the same courses.

Generally, K-12 schools, computer access is scarce. A teacher noted “It must also be available the majority of the time and, because of this, easy to incorporate into the lesson plan.” Another teacher stated “Making technology easily accessible for children is essential”. In K-12 classrooms however, most have only one or two computers in the classroom, but these are not nearly enough for engaged learning practices. One teacher plaintively asked “Currently I only have one computer in my class. I would like to have at least one more.” A Special Ed teacher said “Special Education department cannot use the computer labs so we need multiple computers in our classrooms.

Many teachers see one possible solution as putting laptops in the hands of their students. Comments such as “There should be more computers and lap tops available within the classrooms for use,.” “We really need a set of laptops for classroom use.” And “It would be nice to see each student with his/her own laptop at all levels.” Another teacher said “I feel more computers need to be available in the classrooms so students have more opportunities on a daily basis to use technology on their own and not just when they go to the lab.” Still another stated “The most valuable use of building technology would to make it more available for student use.”

In my opinion, there is a tremendous opportunity for any laptop manufacturer to develop a extremely low cost device, such as the one created for the $100 laptop program, for the educational market.

In a related theme, along with more computers, teachers expressed a strong need for more available data projectors. They have indicated that having their students actually being able to see text clearly is essential.

In summary, the professional development provided by the district is increasingly helping teachers to recognize the potential for technology to help their students learn. Now, teachers are asking for more access to the technology.

2007-07-17T21:57:00.000-05:00

Teachers Talk

I’m presently in the middle of teaching four consecutive graduate level courses. The vast majority of the participants are K-12 classroom teachers, with a smattering of other staff such as librarians, social workers, speech therapists, etc. The courses mostly have a technology-education theme, except for one on Problem Based Learning, a course I very much enjoy to teach.

Working with teachers always interests me. They are the grunts, the ones in the trenches, and as such they are also the people whose thoughts we should always listen to. The following quotes are some reflections from these teachers:

--Sometimes shy students will participate more online.
--I need to stay current with what I know my students are already doing.
--I am here because I feel my teaching style needs to model my students' learning style.
--Are we engaged in the love of learning and are we engaging our students?
--Are we failing to embrace social networking sites such as My Space because of our lack of interest or understanding and choose to ignore and block them because that is easier than embracing them?
--My questions are how to get my staff interested and informed about the use of technology in wikis, blogs, etc. Our teachers are not against it, but like many elementary teachers, they are already swamped with other issues.
--I am excited! I don't have any questions right now, but I am sure that I will have them after we get the school year started and I get my students using the wiki spaces. This is so cool!!
--How do I get my colleagues on board with wikis and blogs when we have so little department time together to even share about these tools and our schedules are so full that we only have small blocks of time to communicate?
--As an art teacher, this is a spectacular way to portfolio student work. Each student could have their own wiki that shows their work. It could serve as a culminating assessment piece for a student's course of school. It also allows for a wider audience to view the work.
--(We need) easier access to computers, tech. support (it is a big hassle now) and more training. --Too many teachers just use programmed software products with the students when they go to the lab—they seem to be unaware of all the different aspects of technology that they can tap into.
--I have been consistently frustrated by people I work with or people I know who think that technology use automatically makes the lesson better. PowerPoint notes are not automatically better than overhead or chalkboard notes, if they are given and used in the same fashion.
--Technology will improve learning when it is part of an intellectually challenging lesson or unit.
--I wish principals would build reading the research and responding to it into their staff development at the building level. It is only when we are informed and come to understand the research that we will embrace the instructional practices we are being told to use.
--I feel that technology needs to be used for far more than increasing test scores.
--In my opinion, it would be nice to see each student with his/her own laptop at all levels. Of course, I know money is a huge factor but I am sure we could make this work if it was a focus. If teachers knew that the technology is easily available, they would do more with it. Once a week in the computer lab does not create or allow a technology literate environment, especially, today.
--I have started to learn how to write/submit blogs. I think blogs could have many functions, and I find them fairly easy to use. Plus, they seem somewhat informal, which is nice. I like that people can comment on what I have published. Also, I’m motivated at the idea of having others read what I post...just like the students! :-)

What reflections would you like to add?

2007-05-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

Lessons Learned from the Illinois 1:1 Laptop Technology Immersion Pilot Project

The State of Illinois, through the leadership of Lt. Governor Pat Quinn, has sponsored a 1:1 pilot program 1:1 laptop initiative with fifteen schools throughout the state. The first year of the pilot, called the Technology Immersion Pilot Project (TIPP) is winding down. The project involves every sixth grader in the fifteen schools receiving a laptop on loan to use. Plans are for them to use their laptops in 7th grade next school year and 8th grade the following year. Meanwhile, each of the students in the succeeding grades will receive a laptop, until all students in grades 6-8 have one to use.

A “TIPP Community Meeting” was held recently to gather information on the progress of the program from teachers, administrators and tech people from the fifteen schools, as well as with various state and district people involved in the pilot.

Some of the lessons learned that I heard during discussions involved the themes of leadership, tech infrastructure, professional development and tech support. All four are essential components!!

1) Leadership: The leaders provide the vision and the will to create, plan, develop and sustain the program. Leadership in this program comes from the state, district, and school (including principals and key members of staff) levels. Leadership involves everything from inspiring others to overcoming shortfalls in equipment, and much, much more.

2) Tech Infrastructure: Without having enough electricity, servers, routers, bandwidth, printers, projectors, laptops, carts (for both projectors and for recharging the laptops), etc. etc, the program would be dead in the water from the beginning.

3) Professional Development (PD): Enough lead-time (a minimum of 6 months) is necessary for teachers to receive laptops, other equipment (such as projectors) and software applications before the time students receive computers. PD not only should include how to physically use the new equipment and applications, but also should include ways to transform learning. PD should mainly revolve around the issue of student learning which is the reason why the program exists. PD should not be a rare or brief event, but should be developed into an ongoing and self-sustainable system and culture of learning for teachers.

4) Tech Support: Without adequate tech, things stop working and the program grinds to a dead stop. Another lesson is that tech support people should get the laptops before the teachers do so that they can make sure all the application, hardware, and network issues are resolved)

As far as assessing impact on learning by the pilot program, since most of the students have had the laptops for less than five months an evaluation of TIPP is too early yet. The vast majority of observations made by teachers and administrators indicate that students are more motivated, on task and do better work than before the laptops were given out. As one student told me, “Now learning is interesting.”

2007-05-15T13:12:00.000-05:00

Will Richardson's Passions

Will is presently giving a workshop on how to apply Web. 2.0 tools to learning for a group of administrators in DuPage County, IL. There's a lot of excitement about these tools, mainly because I think that people sense his passion for how students learn.

During the workshop, Will is emphasizing his own learning through conversations with people, mostly through blogs, and is asking us to examine how we learn. This is a recurring theme with Will. He stated in his blog that “the thing that seems to be missing from most of my conversations with classroom teachers and administrators is a willingness to even try to re-envision their own learning, not just their students.”

This theme is a necessary reminder and leads us into another recurring theme of Will’s that “teaching is modeling”, and unless we display and affirm our learning processes to our students, they will not be able to understand how to develop their own learning processes/systems/networks.

Will stated “if we educators don’t take the lead on this and soon, we’re going to be rendered irrelevant. As I’ve said before, we don’t own the content any more, and what we should own, the mastery of how to use that content, is sorely lacking. Unless we become able to teach and model effective practice in short order, it will be more than passivity that we’ll have to deal with.”

On a side note, a great resource he showed us is his wiki on Why the Read / Write Web Changes Everything. Check out his examples!!

References

Owning the Teaching…and the Learning
http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2006/owning-the-teachingand-the-learning/

The Flattening of the World and Pancakes
http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2005/04/03

2007-05-13T19:13:00.000-05:00

Tell Me Again Why They Need to Learn That???

In a recent interview, David Brin, who has an excellent track record portending the future, made some observations about the effects of technology on society.

He said “In the 15th century, we got the printing press. Printing is a way of augmenting human memory. Printing not only vastly expanded the ability to convey human knowledge and memory to other people but also made it more robust.”

“People tend to assume that when things like this happen, it automatically results in an improved humanity. … It is a religious statement that what we are seeing on the Internet today is improving discourse and improving democracy and improving markets.”

“I’m very skeptical of that because at the beginning of any of these (technological) revolutions, always what is empowered is demagoguery. The immediate outcome of the printing press was the Thirty Years’ War. The immediate outcome of radio was the empowerment of demagogues like Huey Long and especially Adolf Hitler. It always takes a while for the people to learn how to use the new media critically, to be able to perceive the good from the bad (my emphasis).”

Elsewhere in the interview, Mr. Brin discusses his book ‘The Transparent Society’ in which the “age of amateurs” is progressing faster than he envisioned. He states “What’s very fast paced is the spreading of seeing in parallel” … “Fifty million hobbyists are demanding that professionals, from doctors to scientists to movie directors, accept a new world where expertise is not limited to the licensed.” …There is a “redistribution of power”.

My question is how do we trust this wisdom of the masses? How do we know what is true, and how do we determine it is the truth? As Mr. Brin puts it “What is going to enable us to perceive better?”

Just how are people going to learn how to use the new media critically? Shall we ignore these necessary skills in schools, since they is not easily assessed on high-stakes, standardized tests and therefore not tested? Or should the tests be changed to address these critically important issues?

Or should the issues be emphasized anyway (remember the book “Teaching as a Subversive Activity”?) because we know that these information literacy skills (such as the 4 E’s highlighted by David Warlick) are necessary for our children to become good citizens through being good consumers, managers and producers of information.

References:
The Discover Interview – David Brin by David Kushner, Discover Magazine, Special Issue June 2007, pp. 64-7
Literacy and Learning in the 21st Century http://davidwarlick.com/wordpress/?page_id=61

2007-05-13T12:25:00.000-05:00

“Yeah, but What’s Writing For?”

Not my title, but that of a very readable article by Lisa Mendelman. She discovered after a year of teaching a writing class that, when allowing students to delve into their own interests and to write about issues important to them “the results were staggering”.

Ms. Mendelman determined her students discovered that the significance of writing is “the ability to connect people, to put us in another’s skin, to teach us what it means to be human.”

A great lesson for everyone!

Reference:
Teacher Magazine May/June 2007 p. 56

2007-04-14T10:41:00.000-05:00

All Grown-ups Were Once Children

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's preface to The Little Prince declares that “All grown-ups were once children – although few of them remember it.”

Later on this delightful story affirms “Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them you have made a new friend, they never ask any questions of essential matters. They never say, 'What does his voice sound like? What game does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?' Instead, they demand: 'How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?' Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.”

“If you were to say to the grown-ups: 'I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof,' they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: 'I saw a house that cost $20,000. Then they would exclaim, 'Oh, what a pretty house that is!'”

“Just so, you might say to them: 'The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is proof that he exists.' And what good would it do to tell that to them? They would shrug their shoulders, and treat you like a child. But if you said to them: 'The planet he came from is Asteroid B-612,' then they would be convinced, and leave you in peace from their questions.”

“They are like that. One must not hold it against them. Children should always show great forbearance toward grown-up people.”

The structure of high-stakes testing pulls educators toward a system in which content is assessed in ways from which numbers can easily be obtained. For example, a multiple choice evaluation is preferred to a portfolio. A “choose the best answer” approach is preferred over a project. Some educators rationalize such approaches by asserting that assessing in any other way would take too much time.

I propose that we focus on other things besides our grown-up desire to obtain numbers quickly. Focus learning instead on engagement, on questioning, on problem-solving. Address the ways to involve students in the entire process and spectrum of learning and not just spotlighting the content which “fill in the circle” tests tend to emphasize. The educational products we ask our children to make determine the mental processes we expect them to exercise. Having our students wade through the type of learning activities for something that can easily be reduced to a series of numbers because grown-ups demand such processes does a tremendous disservice to our children.

As of now in schools, March is the month of drill and review in preparation for THE TEST. One of my graduate students, a first year teacher, recently reflected of what happens in March. "I am quickly becoming accustomed to what exactly is deemed as "important" in the schools. I, personally, was terrified come state testing time because I was so unfamiliar with the process, emphasis, and everything else that comes along with the standardized tests. You could feel the aura in the school change. Nerves were increasing and all of the teachers were on edge."

Instead, March could be the month when our children look forward to showcasing their creations and demonstrating their learnings. Teachers could have been assessing students' progress along the way in a manner that complemented their learning. For an example of a state doing just that, read How Nebraska Leaves No Child Behind.

Saint-Exupéry exclaimed, “No grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!” David Thornburg asks "When did joy leave education?" I pray that we all remember the excitement, the wonder, and the joy we felt as children while learning, and that teachers again can feel while teaching.

References and Citations:

Look at what is happening in North Carolina with respect to senior projects and alternative assessments.

How Nebraska Leaves No Child Behind by Sonja Steptoe, Time Magazine online, 5/30/07

Image Copyright Daryl Cargel; used with permission

Quotes taken from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Harcourt Inc.

2007-04-02T20:47:00.000-05:00

Lessons Emphasized with 1:1 Laptops in Schools

The State of Illinois has begun a Technology Immersion Pilot Project (TIPP). As background, Lt. Governor Pat Quinn has, for a number of years, had a vision of getting laptop technology into the hands of every student in the State of Illinois. Before attempting something of this magnitude state wide, the TIPP pilot project was passed by the legislature in 2004 but only funded in fiscal year ’07 (July ’06 – June ’07). According to the Illinois State Board of Education press release, “The pilot program is designed to promote the integration of technology into teaching and learning through the provision of wireless laptop computers, related software, hardware, staff development, technical support, and other instructional materials to students, teachers and relevant administrators in participating districts.”

Over the course of the fiscal year, individual schools wrote grant applications, hardware was purchased and distributed, and professional development resources were procured. To those familiar with large scale pilots and grants, you already know a lot more processes went into this, with many quality institutions and people working many long hours to make it possible. You also know that, due to the sheer amount of work, red tape, etc. things do not move forward as quickly and clearly as one wishes.

This first year laptops were placed with 6th grade classrooms in fifteen schools scattered throughout the state. It’s hoped that, 7th grade and 8th grade students will get laptops over the next two years, if the grant is further funded.

I am a grant facilitator (professional development resource) at one of the schools. My role is to assist teachers to help their students learn. It’s quite a challenging and exhilarating experience working in such an environment. One of the points I immediately recognized is that it’s not enough just to place technology into school without support, both professional development and technical.

One of the first things I did, after getting the necessary background information, was to meet with the teachers involved in the grant. I felt that establishing a professional relationship with the teachers was essential. This was done by having the Principal and I making it clear that my job was to support the teachers in their learning endeavors, and then by listening to them as to what they wanted to accomplish. Together we planned activities which suited their needs and the needs of their students. When the activities began, I was present and available for any support the teachers needed. This tended to make them feel more secure in whatever learning approach they attempted. The teachers were willing to try new things if they saw ways for their kids to learn in a deeper, richer, more meaningful ways and if there was proper support.

Since the teachers’ time to converse during the school day is very limited, this has led to meeting with them as we walk the hall ways and climb stairs, before school, during lunch, during their precious prep time, during class observations, through email, etc. Many of the conversations were with not only the teachers the grant directly applies to, but other middle school teachers and other personnel. Some of the discussions lasted just a few minutes, while some were much longer; sometimes it was just to reaffirm my availability; at other times I was asked to relay a concern or a message another faculty member who could have assisted somehow in our learning activity; still other times it involved changes of plans. Some of the conversations dealt with other people than the teachers the grant is immediately supposed to serve. As examples, the librarian has been impressive in her attempts to help students learn literacy skill needed in a digital age, as well as in her willingness to share ideas on learning activities. The Principal and Assistant Principal have been very supportive in helping me negotiate through the school district’s policy maze, as well as emphasizing their support of my presence and role in the school community. The principle grant writer, the school’s tech teacher, has been immensely helpful as well with just in time training for the teachers and with providing other needed technical support. She and the teachers involved in the grant are attempting to work out solutions to a myriad of logistical concerns such as security, access, upkeep, schedule conflicts, etc. The gist of all this is that this is a learning process for everyone involved.

When I was asked to fill out a contact-time log as part of the reports submitted for the grant records, it was obvious that there was no real trend as far as the meetings and discussions mentioned above. One of my supervisors told me that she understood my strange teacher contact-time log because she had gone through the same process in the past when working on professional development in her school.

At the end of this fiscal year, I will have worked with the teachers for about three months; not a long time as such things go. And yet already I note a growing sense of realization and excitement regarding what these tools can do to help them enhance and even change learning.

2007-02-20T12:07:00.000-06:00

The New Literacies - Who will teach them?

I don’t think we have to extensively review the reasons why it is important to know about the new literacies our children must master, not only in order to for students to be able to economically prosper in the future, but also to supply them with the skills and attitudes to protect themselves from duplicity in a digital world.

Relative to these new literacies, a recent news article states that the Educational Testing Service has devised a simulation-based / performance-based assessment of information and communication technology skills. The test is called the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment, ICT for short. According to the article, the results of the first 6300 high school and college students who piloted the exam were surprising.

The National Educational Technology Standards for Students describes Profiles for Technology Literate Students in order to provide performance indicators describing the technology competence students should exhibit upon completion of certain grade levels. One of these is that students should be able to “evaluate the accuracy, relevance, appropriateness, comprehensiveness, and bias of electronic information sources” by the end of grade eight. The new article stated that “just 52% of the test takers could correctly judge the objectivity of a Web site and only 65% assessed the site’s authoritativeness. When asked to use a search engine to look for information on the Internet, only 40% entered multiple search terms to narrow the result.” This tells us that, even though our children are natives of this new digital world, somewhere along the way about half never learned survival basics.

It’s obvious that our students are not picking this up on their own. My question relating to this is who will teach them, and how will they be taught? With the continuing and ever increasing pressures on teachers to increase standardized test scores through following district anointed curriculum roadmaps and the like, what place do the new literacies have in the classroom?

The new literacies can be approached educationally in one of three ways. The first is teach them in the framework of a “technology”, “computer skills” or “computer lab” class which some students get for a period of time. In my experiences, some schools rotate students through this type of class for one period a day for four or six weeks. Some students are in these classes once or twice a week. These courses or “specials” generally are not correlated to what students are learning in their academic classes at the time. Though the new literacies may be taught in these classes, unless students continuously apply these skills and attitudes in various ways, this learning may be lost. These courses mostly are thought of as by academic teachers as a chance for them to do some necessary educational work while their students are at this class, the same as when students go to gym, art, etc.

The second approach is for classroom academic teachers to consider the new literacies something “extra” to teach, which takes time, resources and effort away from the main goal of improving scores. In this approach, teachers may develop a resentment to having to do yet another thing imposed on them which they think has little to do with reading, math, writing and other subjects for they are held responsible.

The third approach is to for teachers to incorporate the new literacies as tools to help their students answer questions and solve problems based upon educational goals. In this approach the new literacies are attained by students as “just in time” proficiencies instead learning them “just in case”. Therefore, students see the new literacies as integral and necessary skills and attitudes which help them find the answers they seek. The important thing is that there is a strong base of research which indicates that teachers who do take a problem-based / product-based learning approach which incorporates the new literacies find their students’ scores on standardized tests rising more than those who take the other approach.

It can be daunting for teachers to try something new, but in my experiences I find the vast majority of teachers always looking for better ways for their students to learn. If given proper assistance such as meaningful professional development and technical support, the new literacies can be an integral part of the ongoing learning process.

2007-01-28T16:57:00.000-06:00

Not On The Test

From previous posts you know my views about high-stakes testing, but I just ran across this song titled "Not on the Test" performed by Tom Chapin and hosted on the National Public Radio web site. Share it with others if you agree with its message.

The February edition of the neaToday journal mentions accounts by National Board Certified teachers who are more and more being forced into a lockstep one-teaching-method-fits-all curriculum. These teachers know that creating and challenging learning activities can work wonders with students, but these are being eliminated so that objectives are "covered".

In a related vein, take a look at what Dan McDowell, a history teacher, is doing with his poetry unit on World War One. The student products made for this unit probably won't be evaluated on a standardized test, but learning activities like this make young people think! Take a look at Dan's blog for insightful ideas by one in the trenches (no pun intended).

2007-01-21T11:55:00.000-06:00

A Response to My Letter

Emily Krone of the Daily Herald again wrote a column on the topic of a proposed Media, Communications and Technology Academy in South Elgin High School entitled Feedback Varies on Reports about Media Academy.

She stated "My main point — and I stand by it — is that journalists shouldn’t major in journalism. I believe strongly in the value of a liberal arts education, and have met too many journalists who can’t calculate basic equations or recite the key points of the Constitution. Much of my column simply reflected frustration with my own profession, which increasingly seems more concerned with presentation and packaging than in-depth reporting on subjects of merit — in part an outgrowth of journalists well-schooled in the medium, but not the message."

"Still, I received a couple of very thoughtful responses from readers who pointed out how a media and communications academy could facilitate learning in all subject areas." Ms. Krone then quoted from my letter concerning using the theme of media, communications and technology as tools to help students learn, not as an end in itself.

She then went on to say "If the district does choose a media and communications academy, I hope this is the approach they take."

I think they will!

2007-01-13T16:10:00.000-06:00

U-46 Needs a Communications Academy

An open letter to Emily Krone, Daily Herald Education Reporter

Dear Ms. Krone,

This note is in reference to your provocative opinion piece The Last Thing U-46 Needs is a Communications Academy which appeared in the Daily Herald on Friday January 12, 2007. I enjoy reading your stories and opinion pieces because you do your research and clearly and compellingly express your thoughts, as this opinion piece demonstrates. I want to thank you for spotlighting this issue and beginning a public discussion on this important topic. The focus of your piece centers on a U-46 committee’s decision to include a Media and Communications theme as one of the finalists for the new South Elgin High academy.

In the commentary you state a number of reasons why “students at a media and communications academy will have spent so much time learning how to communicate, they won’t know anything worth communicating.” You mention taking a communications class in school in which you stated “I learned not one thing I’ve ever used as a reporter”. Heavens knows this applies to most of us: I can speak the same about an educational methods class. And if the classes at the Media and Communications Academy were taught the same way, perhaps your predictions would come to pass.

I personally do not know how those in charge would plan the curriculum of such a Media and Communication Academy, but I do know that District U-46 has wonderfully perceptive people in the areas of instructional technology and curriculum. Allow me to disagree with your conclusions and to present another possible view of what a Media and Communications Academy could mean to our students.

Please let me address some of the concerns raised. First, this Media and Communications Academy will be much more than a means of producing student newspapers, as the opinion piece implies. The key word of the designation “Media and Communication Academy” is the “communication”. You, as a reporter, use communication skills in your job. I presume you love doing this since it is your profession. Why can’t students be given the opportunities to do the same?

The instructional approach of the Media and Communications Academy could be problem/project based learning (an educational phrase meaning “a teaching method that engages students in learning knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks”). Research has shown ” that students who received assignments requiring more challenging intellectual work also achieved greater than average gains on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in reading and mathematics, and demonstrated higher performance in reading, mathematics, and writing”. Teacher Magazine reports that New Hampshire is instituting performance based / competency based assessments for their high school students. This means that “student will have to demonstrate mastery of content – not through memorization, but through performances, portfolios, or projects that encourage them to think and solve problems…”

According to U-46 reports, students have opted for the theme of media and communications as their first choice of the five finalists. I do not think they are being misguided in their choice as you suggest. You mentioned in your article that these young people already are waist deep in media. We would both agree that the world that we grew up in, with respect to communication, is much different that the one they are growing up in. Most adults are immigrants in this technological world; these young people are natives. Where I, as a student, thought communicating with a friend was to slip a note into his locker, today fifty five percent of young people ages 15-17 with access to the web have My Space accounts. They upload and share images to Flickr, share bookmarks through the deli.cio.us web site, share videos through You Tube, share their thoughts on blogspot.com, etc. The point is they understand and use many more communications tools than you and I ever thought possible. Why not teach them to do this in a purposeful and accountable way? Don’t they deserve this?

You mentioned students think the idea of a Media and Communications Academy “equates to celebrity”. What is wrong with that? It would be great motivation to do work and at the same time be held accountable for their work. Ms. Krone, isn’t one of the reasons you write is the excitement of seeing your byline appearing under an important story that you feel you did a great job on? Why can’t students have a chance at that same kind of recognition and satisfaction? Even if the event that students are publishing isn’t a tremendously important one, they can get highly motivated in their work when it is published for someone besides the teacher. By using wikis, blogs, RSS, telecasts and podcasts students would supersede classroom walls as they expand their sources of learning and mentoring and thereby have new venues for publishing their work.

As an example, a third grade teacher I currently am working with told me that her students were resisting writing, and groaned when asked to take out their writing journals. We then established a blog for each of her students in which they now write about the same kinds of topics they did before. The difference now is that they are communicating their writing as they converse with eighth grade mentors (parents and other third graders in their class have also written on their blogs). The third graders are now so highly motivated they now remind the teacher that is time to write in their blog journals. They now are excited when writing because they are using writing to communicate. I can cite other examples where students who do not have the chance to physically come together in school because of scheduling conflicts are conversing about book reviews. Again, just as you get satisfaction from having readers appreciate your work, why can’t our students have the same opportunities to be read?

You had also asked in your piece “how can the district fill an entire academy devoted to the media?” You suggest from the students’ preference for a Media and Communications Academy that students are “very interested in devoting four to five periods a day to media courses.” I would hope that the instructional technology and curriculum people of District U-46 who develop the Media and Communications Academy would never consider such an approach.

The main point I would like to emphasize is that the theme of media and communications should be viewed only as a tool to reach goals, not an end in itself. You mentioned that your junior high communication class you attended had you acting out skits from Saturday Night Live. Wouldn’t it have been better if you had been allowed to investigate issues such as the conditions in nursing homes, or interview seniors about what it was like to be teens in the Great Depression, or interview immigrants on what their American dream is? Then you could have produced a television show on these issues and presented this to interested audiences. I know of a class that researched the stem cell issue while our elected representatives were discussing it in Springfield. The students then presented their findings to Representative Ruth Munson. She complemented the young people by stating she had learned more from them than from the debate in the legislature. Ms. Krone, if your communication teacher had joined with your social studies, science and language arts teachers, think of the wonderful possibilities you could have accomplished in that class. Why can’t our U-46 students be afforded those possibilities?

I would like to emphasize again the students in the Media and Communications Academy would not be studying media and communications for their own sake, but in order to use media to converse and communicate. As a reporter, I am sure you, above all else, are interested in finding the truth. A blog article I wrote emphasized the processes, mindsets and skills that are extremely important to anyone seeking the truth:

--- Finding information

--- Distinguishing it’s relevance to the problem

--- Determining it’s validity and reliability

--- Rearranging and reorganizing the information based upon the expressed problem

--- Making conclusions

--- Composing compelling communications of these findings

These are the same processes, mindsets and skills that are essential for our students to be successful as they compete in a flat world in the twenty first century. These should pervade every classroom in the Media and Communications Academy. They would put technology, including media, into its proper place: that of helping students become literate. Research shows that if students can rearrange information to solve a problem and then present this in a compelling way, long term memory of the information increases dramatically. Students in a Media and Communications Academy would still emphasize the subject matter of language arts, science social studies, etc., but with a pervading theme of literacy through communications.

Literacy today is much more than knowing the three R’s. In another blog article I wrote literacy is “the skills required to acquire and use valid information to accomplish goals”. Notice that communication and media could be used in each of the processes, mindsets and skills mentioned above. Aren’t these used by you as a reporter? Aren’t they essential for anyone wanting to discover and report the truth? Aren’t they used by most people on their jobs? Why shouldn’t our students have an opportunity to learn them in a Media and Communications Academy?

Students in a Media and Communications Academy would develop learning communities both within the academy and with appropriate groups outside the academy in order to not only expand sources of inquiry but also to share learning beyond the classroom wall. Another benefit is that teaching techniques used at the Connectivity and Communications Academy could be used as a model for other teachers in the district. It won’t be easy, as shown by the work being done at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia which has adopted this model of learning through conversations, but it will be very much worth it.

Another advantage of a Media and Communications Academy is that the cost of running such an academy shouldn’t be greater than the Gifted Academy at Elgin, because the technology tools would be used in the process of learning. Communication tools such as safe wikis, blogs, email, video and image sharing sites, etc. are available online already with little extra cost needed. I agree with you that the technologies will change as time goes on, but the kind of learning process that will pervade the Media and Communications Academy would be useful to students throughout their lives. This is why a Media and Communications Academy should be adopted over a “Computer Academy”. The computer should be used to help students learn the above mentioned processes, mindsets and skills, not as an end in itself.

Again, thank you for bringing this issue to the forefront. Even though we have had different thoughts on this question, it is obvious that we both very much care about the young people who will be affected by the decisions to be made. I hope you might consider the possibility that that a Media and Communications Academy could be a positive addition to our district. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact me.

Citation

My definition of literacy is based on a definition of David Warlick. For more information please go to his blog article “Looking Forward” 1/3/07 found at http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/01/03/looking-forward/

References
For more information on communications and the web, including educational research results along with many examples of students using this theme, go to my web page http://www.coollessons.org/Communication_and_the_Web.htm

For an blog article on how schools might be different, see School 2.0 Resists Definition: As it Should by David Warlick 1/7/07 http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/02/07/school-20-resists-definition-as-it-should/

For some interesting thoughts on possible changes in the way we educate young people see Future School: Alvin Toffler tells us what is wrong - - and right with public education by James Daly, Edutopia Magazine Feb/07

2007-01-06T16:02:00.000-06:00

Access To Some Brilliant Minds

Old news for some, new for others: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put over 1400 courses online through their OpenCourseWare sight. The courses include not only the sciences and engineering, but history, literature, music/theater arts and much, much more. Want to challenge your students? Check these out!

Each course includes a syllabus, readings, assignments, quizzes and the ability to download pertinent audio or video lectures. I’ve looked through some of the courses and the approaches used to teach are quite interesting. The legal notices seem to indicate that some of these approaches can be used in noncommercial education as long as you attribute your work and are willing to share it.

There are courses available from other universities as highlighted in this Wikipedia article entitled OpenCourseWare.

2007-01-06T15:28:00.000-06:00

What It Means To Be Literate Today

I ran into a definition of literacy the other day. It is “the skills required to use information to accomplish goals”. I would amend this definition just a little to read “the skills required to acquire and use valid information to accomplish goals”.

I found this definition on David Warlick’s blog 2 Cents Worth in his article Looking Forward. Please read this article for some insightful views.

By the way, if I had to recommend only one blog for teachers to read, it would be David’s. He has the rare gifts of being able to see profound issues affecting teachers and students, and being able to explain these clearly.

Citations: 2 Cents Worth

2007-01-06T13:47:00.000-06:00

A Beacon in the Darkness

In case your missed it, Ronald Wolk in Teacher Magazine reports that New Hampshire is instituting performance based / competency based assessments for their high school students. According to Wolk, this means that means that “student will have to demonstrate mastery of content – not through memorization, but through performances, portfolios, or projects that encourage them to think and solve problems…” The data from pilot schools seems very promising. This article is worth reading, if only to point out that there are other ways to teach and assess students.

Reference: The Real World, Teacher Magazine, Jan/Feb 2007 p. 54 by Ronald A. Wolk

2006-12-28T11:41:00.000-06:00

Information Is Not Intelligence

I was watching C-Span2 yesterday morning and Dr. Conrad Crane, Director of the U. S. Army’s Military History Institute, was discussing counterinsurgency. One of his reflections in a response to a question concerning the data our military is getting from various sources was that “information is not intelligence”. He also stated that, in order to decide is the information was valid, the source had to be confirmed and the information had to be verified by other sources before it was considered good intelligence. These statements made me pause.

Further research of Military History Institute publications revealed the following judgements: “(One of the) critical characteristics of the new national intelligence community follow: It will demand the rapid transfer of the proven process of intelligence requirements (such as) definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multisource fusion, and compelling presentation, to … (the) constituent elements of our nation.” 1

“The challenge within the intelligence community … is to determine ‘what to share’ and ‘how to share. Sharing intelligence raises … key issues: … (we) must determine what information is relevant.”2

The point of citing these quotations is to emphasize there are processes, mindsets and skills that are extremely important to anyone seeking good intelligence (in non-military terms, the truth):
--- Finding information
--- Distinguishing it’s relevance to the problem
--- Determining it’s validity and reliability
--- Rearranging and reorganizing the information based upon the expressed problem
--- Making conclusions
--- Composing compelling communications of these findings

These are the same processes, mindsets and skills that are essential for our students to be successful as they compete in a flat world.3

Citations:
1 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College

2 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College

3 The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Thomas L. Friedman
2005

2006-12-14T14:13:00.000-06:00

Third Grade Student Technology Mentors

I was fortunate to assist a third grade teacher as she had her students begin blogging by writing an essay on "My Christmas Wish". The teacher had two goals: the first was to have her students concentrate on using upper cases letters in correct places; the second was to increase her students' motivation with using writing to communicate with others.

There were hindrances to having a class of 25 third grade students use a blog. The first was the security issues involving blogging and complying with COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). At the same time, parents' and administrators' apprehensions concerning children communicating online had be addressed. Therefore we chose to use David Warlick's Landmark Class Blogmeister as our communication tool because it has a myriad of security layers. For example, no outside person could read the students' blogs unless he knew the class password. Also, the teacher chose the feature which allows her to approve each blog and comment to a blog submitted. She also chose to use pseudonyms for the children.

Another difficulty derived from the tendency of Class Blogmeister to time out if it was open too long. We overcame this by first having the third graders type their stories using a word processor (MSWord). This posed a further difficulty because inputting their stories was time consuming due to the students not being able to keyboard well. One advantage of using Word is that it showed the students where they misspelled words and students had to choose the correct spelling. The students learned this function quickly and did surprisingly well editing their own work. Students were then shown how to save their work in the school's network.

Next they were taught to log in to Class Blogmeister (a link was put onto their class links page), how to input their articles using copy and past functions, and how to upload their blog articles for teacher approval.

To do all this in a lab situation with the entire class was a daunting goal. Therefore, the teacher and I taught a group of third graders to do these steps before the scheduled visit of the entire class to the computer lab. Using the computer in the classroom as a station, we taught one student who then taught a second. The second student then taught a third and so on. The teacher knew that these students were learning the aforementioned steps adequately because they were able to immediately demonstrate their learning. A cadre of ten students was thus taught the steps to produce a blog.

In this particular school, scheduled time is given each week for access to the computer lab. The students in the lab were shown (using a projector) the general steps of creating their blog. The cadre of students who were trained then helped others as they then began to type their articles onto Word and upload them into their blogs. The group did an excellent job in mentoring the other students while the students who were taught were very receptive to these young mentors.

The third graders' articles were commented on by eighth graders in the school. When the third grade students read the comments, they were extremely excited about having someone read and comment on their work. They also shared their stories with their parents. On a side note, the third grade students expressed a need to the lab supervisor to learn how to keyboard properly so that they might type their stories faster. They will be a group of motivated learners when this will be addressed the second semester.

In the end, this learning activity was a successful educational venture due to student experts who shared their learning with others.

On a side note, the teacher mentioned that, in the past, this class would moan whenever they were asked to do writing. Now, they are excited when asked to take out their blog journals and even remind the teacher when it is time to begin writing. Students now view writing as an opportunity to communicate.

2006-12-06T20:37:00.000-06:00

What Factors Should Drive The Curriculum We Teach?

I enjoy listening to teachers, and think their common wisdom is worth paying attention to. For instance, the September issue of Edutopia Magazine asks "What factors should drive the curriculum we teach?" I asked my graduate students, all teachers, to respond to the question “If you had to list three factors, which would you choose?” I had emphasized that the operative word is “should”.

The leading factor listed was a medley of outcome based learnings which had a common theme of skills and ideas which supersede the limited goals, curriculum maps and tests most states think of vast importance (see Restricting the Vision). Some of the comments were:
-- “Teach them how to think critically and outside the box.”
-- Teach them to be inquisitive, how to ask questions, how to dig deep for answers.”
-- “Students should be taught real world issues, how they apply to their life, and how they can make changes.”
-- “Real learners would have the broader skills than (state) standards if they are ever going to go anywhere in life. It's too bad you can't find these skills anywhere on a (curriculum) roadmap.”
-- “Teach them skills they will need in the work world, skills to be successful in life and skills to appreciate the world.”
-- “Learning how to learn, learning how to fail and how to adapt to change.”
-- “What you want your students to … be able to do once they are out of your class.”

The second most listed factor which should drive the curriculum was “state standards and curriculum roadmaps”. I suppose this item appeared frequently due to the fact that many teachers have accepted this form of outcome based education and the standardized testing that accompanies it. Or at least they’ve accepted the reality that it wasn’t going to go away (one teacher offered the comment “Unfortunately, standards” in her list).

The third most mentioned factor was “topics / issues in which the students are interested”. There was a strong realization that learning won’t happen if the student doesn’t buy into what is being taught.

The fourth factor was “addressing student needs and readiness”. I think this was important because teachers, being the pragmatists they are, need to address where students are before they start them on an educational journey.

The fifth most mentioned was not what students should learn but how they should learn; i.e. learning with teachers who emphasize the processes of problem-based, product -based and engaged learning along with other critical thinking activities. I suppose that the theme of these comments really meld with the most mentioned theme above. In reality they are just two sides of the same coin: by using these types of learning processes, wonderful skills result as products.

2006-11-23T15:38:00.000-06:00

Restricting the Vision

It started with a discussion about the value of Wikipedia in the classroom. I was talking with a group of K-12 teachers about using technology with their students. Some stated that the main reason they were apprehensive about using Wikipedia was that teachers weren’t sure that the information was accurate.

I pointed out that the use of Wikipedia is a great opportunity to tackle one of the essential questions of education: How can we tell if information is accurate? What is the truth? How do we know it is true?

Sara Armstrong and David Warlick in Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century ask similar questions:
--- What do you need to know, when most of recorded knowledge is a mouse-click away?
--- How do you distinguish between good knowledge and bad knowledge?
--- What does it do to the value of information, when everyone is a producer?
--- How do we address ethics, when we are empowering our students with such prevailing skills?

The conversation on determining the truth led to the question “How are students evaluated on whether or not they can determine the accuracy of information?” A teacher interjected that, for the most part, this undertaking isn’t done due to the prevalent philosophy of “If it isn’t tested, don’t teach it!” The prevailing consensus was that this philosophy is what they feel their mission has become. The discussion immediately turned to the value of high stake standardized testing, specifically the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

When, in another lifetime as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I taught in a Ghanaian secondary school. In their last year at school, my Ghanaian students took the West African “O Level” and “A Level” exams, based on the European model of school examinations. Passing the tests with high enough scores allowed students to enter into the University. Therefore, everything was focused on the syllabus containing material to be tested on the exams. Teachers and students carried copies the syllabus with them. If it wasn’t in the syllabus, it was not to be taught and, more importantly, most students did not even consider learning such things. It was a portent of what high stakes testing is, I fear, now doing to our educational system.

Admittedly, NCLB has some good points. Before NCLB, too many kids were falling between the cracks. The publication of test scores spotlighted where school districts needed to target resources.

Teachers of course realize that timely, valid and rigorous assessment is necessary for improving instruction. One of the major problems with high stake testing is that the feedback is not timely (scores return many months after the testing; in Illinois, test data from exams taken in March 2006 won’t be released until 2007, months late) and has many other issues associated with it.

Another issue with NCLB is that, in my opinion, it is setting up the vast majority of schools for failure. Consider the following U.S. Dept. of Education NCLB definition of success: “Above all, they must lead to all students achieving at grade level or better in reading and mathematics by 2014.” The definition of “achieving at grade level” is usually determined by a mean proficiency score (perhaps plus and minus a standard deviation) of the students at that grade level. Therefore, NCLB is basically insisting all (repeat: all = 100%) of our students to be average or better.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t insist on and doing the best we can to help each child learn and develop to the best of his or her potential. But we teachers know that not every child is the same, and that the large groups of children we teach possess a huge range of abilities, with all the consequent emotional, familial, and societal baggage that kids bring with them. NCLB insisting that by 2014 A.D. one hundred percent of students will achieve at grade level or better is reminiscent of the imaginary town named “Lake Wobegon from the radio series A Prairie Home Companion, where, according to Garrison Keillor, all the children are above average". [ Cited from Wikipedia ;-) ]

A note of good news is that the NCLB Act must be reauthorized in 2007. Grace Rubenstein in Edutopia Magazine reports that the federal government is already rethinking some provisions; for example, they are allowing some states to pilot growh-based accountability models based on individual student growth which compare the scores of the same students as they progress from grade to grade. She also suggests that pressure from over 80 organizations to change assessments, professional development, sanctions and funding may help Congress reform NCLB.

Along with these other NCLB issues, the consensus of the group of teachers involved in the original discussion was that one of the biggest problems of NCLB testing is the dumbing down of the curriculum (remember: “If it isn’t tested, don’t teach it!”) This laser-like pedagogical focus on state tests and scores detracts from some of the fulfilling rewards of teaching and learning (do you recall that old phrase “intrinsic motivation?”.

The teachers’ concerns of the effects on students and the curriculum they teach is mirrored in a review of the research on standardized testing. Large Mandates And Limited Resources (p. 12) states that it causes :

--- “… focusing on content that is specific to the particular test used for accountability, rather than trying to improve achievement in the broader sense…”
---“…(engagement) in intensive test preparation activities, and to devote less time to untested subjects…”
--- “(restriction) from a rigorous academic curriculum…”
Is this the kind of education we want for our children?

David Warlick said in his article This is the Testing We Should Be Paying Attention To "The message is clear. If we want to go back to the basics, then basic is what we’ll get, and that is clearly not enough for the 21stcentury experience. If we do want citizens who are prepared tocontribute and prosper in an information-driven, technology-rich world,then it is time for education to re-invent itself."

“If it isn’t tested, don’t teach it?” In my opinion, I’m sorry to say that this is the path taken by most school districts in addressing NCLB tests. And yet research has shown that “students’ scores on standardized tests of basic skills improve dramatically when urban teachers in disadvantaged schools assign work that demands complex thinking and elaborated communication about issues important in students’ lives.” In other words, teach to students’ passions, teach them the skills they need to be successful in the 21st century and not to the tests and students will do just fine. Other research points out that engaged learning approaches help children learn more than traditional approaches. I don’t think we can emphasize this enough to teachers, principals, subject matter coordinators, curriculum coaches, and superintendents.

There is more to learning than math and reading (the two scores that mean almost everything to NCLB). Please read Sara Armstrong’s and David Warlick’s article The New Literacy in which they advocate the four E’s which evolved out of the three R’s. In an outline form the four E’s are
---Exposing Knowledge
---Employing Information
---Expressing Ideas Compellingly
---Ethics

A bright spot on the horizon, according to Grace Rubenstein in Edutopia Magazine , is that "The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, for one, posits that the law would work well if only states used better metrics -- new measures of essential skills, such as critical thinking and media literacy, instead of decades-old arithmetic tests. Test what's most important for kids to learn (and that's skills, not content), reasons Ken Kay, president of the organization, and that's what schools will teach. The coalition of business and education leaders is working with West Virginia and North Carolina to create methods of measuring and promoting crucial skills, and Kay expects more states to join the effort this school year." Arthur Levine in Nov/Dec Teacher Magazine insists (when using our national economy as an example) "Jobs that are available require the highest level of skill and knowledge ever in U.S. History. So teachers now have the job of educating all student to new and higher levels."

Besides these crucial skills, what about great lessons mankind has learned over the centuries? Because they won’t be tested on some standardized test, will we not let our students see bigotry through Scout’s eyes in To Kill a Mockingbird or through a study of the Civil Rights Movement? Will we not let our students learn of the extremes of mankind’s nature through Anne Frank's writings? Or will we not let our students experience both sides of a conflict through the book My Brother Sam is Dead? Will we let them not contemplate their fate, as Robert Frost did in The Road Not Taken? Will we not let them investigate the nature of science through a debate on whether or not Pluto is still a planet? These, and many other things like these, may never touch our students' souls because of “If it isn’t tested, don’t teach it!”

As things stand now, I fear our collective vision of what education is truly all about is being restricted.

In a related vein, please read How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century, Time Magazine, Dec 18 2006

2006-11-16T12:16:00.000-06:00

Technology at the Educational Front

The infantrymen in the U.S. Army refer to themselves with pride as “grunts”. They are the people who, when the generals and commanders decide something, make it happen. They are the people who face the day to day hardships and realities of decisions and commitments by the higher ups. Sometimes when implementing these decisions, foot soldiers have to take things one step, one building, or one road at a time. They get that part done and then move on.

Teachers are the grunts of the educational world. (This is not said in a disparaging way since I still consider myself one of them.) We teachers are the people in the trenches who have to take all the mandates, policies and directives and attempt to implement them.

Along with these implementations comes a mix of daily classroom management procedures and other issues (those who have taught understand the myriad of things schools expect teachers to do), kids coming to school with a host of societal and familial problems, and special education and other special needs students with a multitude of disabilities mainstreamed with “regular education” students. Then there are the “lack of time” and the “coverage vs. in-depth” issues. Include technology concerns such as filters, network issues, glitches with computers and printers, instructions, monitoring etc., all of which can take up a significant amount of time. Using technology effectively becomes “nearly impossible” as one of my graduate students stated.

Another teacher said “I can see that when we are pushed to teach so much 'to the test' … the time constraint really is tough. I can't lose a day because technology is down so sometimes I am afraid to do all the great things that I know are out there.” I think that this statement says a lot. It’s not so much that teachers are opposed to web 2.0 and the wonderful communications and therefore learning opportunities it brings. It’s that teachers (who are already concerned that their technology skills are not adequate enough) are going to have to implement these ideas using the tools and support available to them and are apprehensive about wasting time.

Dan McDowell in his blog The History Teacher said "This hits at the core of the problem that most teachers face when trying to do new things. Time. There is simply not enough time. For all the cool ideas that Will Richardson, David Warlick, and others have, those of us actually in the trenches have to find the time and resources to actually put these great ideas into practice. There are some schools and districts that are making these ideas happen ... , but for most it is difficult. How can we tell the new story or have new conversations when we barely have time to do the same old thing."

In the end, teachers who are applying something new, like the infantry grunts, need to take one step at a time. As one teacher said “I think that sometimes when we learn about a new way to do something, we feel that we have to do a lot of it. We don't. If I create one WebQuest, that's ok. If it's good...excellent...and useable...and reusable...and shareable...then I've used my time well!”

2006-11-09T09:01:00.000-06:00

Wiki Educational Technology Discussions

Jim Moulton in his article Technology as a Connector of People and Ideas make some interesting points about the value of digital collaboration in “using the technology to connect people in purposeful ways around ideas.”

Hannah Kaye in her article Higher Learning suggests that "I was surprised to see how even those working on behalf of children ... overlook the valuable knowledge of teachers."

During our Aurora University graduate courses blogs, my students (all of them educators) have raised questions and concerns dealing with learning and technology. In the spirit of collabration, I’ve dedicated a portion of my wikispace to these discussions. You may be interested in their reflections on these issues.

2006-11-06T08:29:00.000-06:00

The More Things Change……

A photograph on the front page of a local newspaper grabbed my attention. It was an image of the mother of a past student of mine as she sat in the campus library of a community college. The caption read “she speaks through a microphone attached to a headset while participating in a virtual classroom. … The class meets three times a week and requires students to communicate via e-mail or computer chat devices.”

Basically the program works with students and teachers assuming an avatar (an icon representing a user in a shared virtual reality) in a virtual classroom. The students see a classroom, a teacher and students on their computer monitor, but no one is physically in the same room. The teacher was really in his office; the students were scattered in various classrooms, their homes or other places. The application saves the time it would take to commute to the campus.

The teacher’s notes keyed onto his office computer appear on a virtual whiteboard in the virtual classroom. According to the article, “The avatars sit in seats, while the teacher … stands before them lecturing.”

“..stands before them lecturing”? Sometimes, the more things change the more they remain the same.

2006-11-04T14:33:00.000-06:00

Valuable Use of the Building Technology

Test scores had risen!! The local newspapers reported that the school district’s Superintendent stated “For the first time, all district elementary schools have made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test.” For a huge semi-urban district, this was quite an achievement.

One reason given for the increase in scores is how technology is used. The following were points from the district’s press releases. (The italics are mine)
--- This year all the elementary and middle schools in the district will be using the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment to provide teachers with the student data they need. The MAP is a computerized assessment that can be given to students several times a year to help teachers track the progress of each student and make student-focused decisions. The validity of the MAP tests is also enhanced by the fact that they are aligned with the Illinois State Learning Standards.
--- Over the past several weeks, all students in grades three through eight have taken their first round on the MAP test. It is our intention to have all second grade students take this test later in the year.
--- MAP tests are unique in that they are adaptive tests that children generally take in their school computer labs.
--- Never before have educators had so much student data available to them.
--- The advantage of using a computer-based test is that it makes valuable use of the building technology that taxpayers have funded.

“Valuable use of building technology” is high praise for a program. It led me to wonder what other uses of technology are there in the district’s schools.By doing some research, I found the application “Skills Tutor” is in every school in the district and is touted on many schools’ web sites. According to the Skills Tutor web site, “Skills Tutor is delivered online and can be used as a teacher-aided instructional tool or as a one-on-one tutoring resource with minimal guidance.”

Another use of technology is that some schools have an application called READ 180. According to its web site, READ 180 is an intensive reading intervention program… using technology, print, and professional development. … The program directly addresses individual needs through adaptive and instructional software, etc.

Middle schools also teach Computer Applications and Computer Exploration in both 7 & 8.All in all, it looks like the technology resources of the district (the vast majority of instructional-designated computers in the district are located in computer lab sites) are being well used with success.

A dilemma with all this is that teachers have confided in me a difficulty scheduling time to use technology with their students. The computer labs are tied up for weeks at a time with the above mentioned applications. Some labs are tied up during different time periods of the day, so that a teacher can schedule some classes in the labs, but have to make different lesson plans for those classes that are locked out. Some schools have put a time limit on teachers signing up the labs, which makes access fairer but which severely curtails many of the teaching approaches that I recommend as a consultant and as a graduate course instructor. David Jakes answered the question "What factors contribute to the sustainability of an innovation in the classroom?" on the Techlearning blog. The very first point he mentions is that there is a high degree of organizational readiness for the innovation: hardware and software had to be in place and be functional, implying it's available. If availability is restricted, it would put a roadblock into sustaining innovation.

There are ways to get around the restrictions and limitations in using instructional technology. One is to promote the purchase of laptops on mobile carts. The use of laptops to help students learn means that teachers might not have to worry about the computer lab being open in any particular time of the day. (Of course, some schools may preempt the laptops for testing and drill anyway.) Other ways are to use instructional grouping techniques, such as making sure students with Internet access at home are paired with those who don’t. Another approach is to have half of the student in a group do research using books, etc. and half online; then the students can compare findings. Elementary school teachers might set up a computer station as one of the rotations. For other instructional ideas see Nuts & Bolts: Meaningful Classroom Integration of Information Technology.

Research Links for Engaged Learning and Technology Applications has shown that engaged learning using technology has many positive benefits including increasing standardized test scores as well as turning students onto learning. It is frustrating to teachers when you know certain teaching approaches work better than others but, due to the lack of availability of resources, you have to settle for less effective means.

It must also be frustrating when the bottom line for “success” defined as increasing standardized test scores. Will Richardson wrote in Owning the Teaching…and the Learning “Today, in our parent conferences, I asked my daughter’s teacher if there were opportunities for her class to work on extended projects, projects that in the end would have a purpose beyond the grade and the classroom. Projects that, to quote Marco again, would “have wings.” The response I got was this: with all of the objectives that must be met for the state tests coming up in the spring, there just isn’t time for it. When I asked my son’s teacher whether she had read his blog, her answer was that blogs were blocked at school and so, no, she hadn’t. And so I am frustrated, and I am wondering what will it take to make our classrooms places of learning rather than places of teaching.”

As I said, it is frustrating when the bottom line for “success” is defined as increasing standardized test scores to satisfy the federal No Child Left Behind Act, when the aspirations and ideals we could be basing success on, i.e. “makes valuable use of the building technology”, could be so much more.

2006-11-03T07:09:00.000-06:00

I Love Teaching

I am writing this at 10 p.m. and feel exhausted. Just taught a three-hour off-campus graduate class for Aurora University and District U-46 as an adjunct instructor. Ninety percent of my graduate students, all K-12 teachers, in this class had me in other courses before. One benefit of having returning students is that they know what to expect from one of my courses:
--- investigation of the research dealing with the theoretical focus of the course (in this particular course investigating WebQuests);
--- discussions of the participants professional concerns and needs and the use of technology to assist in addressing them;
--- creating teaching units or lessons for their classrooms incorporating the foundations / theories learned in the graduate class.

Another benefit is that they understand how to use the blog we use to facilitate communicating reflections and concerns.

Using an off-campus site is always not without its challenges. I’ve taught in this school and computer lab before. I had emailed the school’s support tech with a list of applications I would be using and web sites to be accessed (filter and network concerns) and even addressed logging-in issues. I knew this room did not have a projector and brought mine. And there was the housekeeping duties associated with adjunct teaching such as registration and assorted paperwork.

Still, as teachers know, things just don’t always go as planned, especially when using technology. The door was locked and we had to track down someone with a key. Some graduate students couldn’t log in to their home school servers (I prefer my graduate students to have access to their work at their home school where they will be using the products developed in this course) for a variety of reasons, but they did get access eventually with a phone call to the district’s Help Desk (a resource dedicated to provide immediate assistance in solving network tech problems). Some students couldn’t log onto our blog and those issues had to be addressed. Half way through class we even received a message over the network informing us that our computers would power down in five minutes. My students told that this was a new energy-saving program the district had built into the network and that I shouldn’t be concerned as long as we kept using the keyboard and moving the mouse.

As a matter of fact, distractions like these are to be expected by teachers. I realize that some people want everything neatly flowing on course, but teachers understand this rarely happens because we are dealing with people and with devices. So we learn to take diversions in stride while continuing to focus on the important stuff and, in the end, the class went well.

Through it all, I was exhilarated, perhaps from the rush of adrenalin that comes from teaching. I draw energy from the interaction / interplay / relationship with people, goals and process that is teaching. One of the greatest feelings in the world is when you help someone “get it”. Because I had not taught since last summer, I realized that I missed the act of teaching. Working as consultant is wonderful, and I get a great deal of satisfaction from it. Yet, in the end, I love teaching.

2006-10-26T17:15:00.000-05:00

Reasons for Learning

Bud Hunt, who teaches high school language arts and journalism, made an excellent point in his K-12 Online Conference 2006 presentation Journey through the Week as I Journey Up (or Down) the Road . Bud stated “I guess one of my concerns about technology in the classroom is that it (the discussion) quickly becomes about the computers. ‘What are we going to do with the computers?’ We teach the processes of communication rather then the reasons for the communication...What I think they should learn first is why they should be connected to anyone else first…. Then they have a real reason to know (how to use the technology).”

In the same vein, David Jakes in a Techlearning blog answered the question “What factors contribute to the sustainability of an innovation in the classroom?” David suggests that one factor is “The innovation clearly adds value to an instructional process, and extends student learning to a new place that could not be achieved unless the innovation was present.” Another factor is “There are visible and tangible results as a result of the innovation. Teachers need to see that the innovation improves what he or she does and makes a difference for student learning.”

Teachers are pragmatic. The philosophy of a new teacher quickly becomes “If it helps me to do my job better by helping my student learn better, I’m for it”. People who don’t take this path can’t distinguish the wanted from the unwanted, relatively valueless material in the blizzard of pedagogic material hurled at teachers and get snowed under fast.

Therefore, once teachers see a value in trying something different in the way they help kids learn, they are much more willing to try it. Whenever I work as a consultant with individual teachers, I try to ask “What are you teaching?” This begins a discussion within the framework of what teachers feel they need. Sometimes the situation is obvious, such as when a class went on a field trip and the teachers was very happy to learn how to use our school’s digital camera, download and manipulate the images. Another situation was when our school got a subscription to United Streaming downloadable videos and teachers discovered that they could improve reading comprehension by giving students a conceptual framework by first showing a movie relating to the reading topic. In this case teachers were demanding tutelage on downloading and using streaming videos as well as a discussion on best teaching practices in using the videos. A third situation was when a teacher was looking for a way to have her students mentored by others who were outside of the classroom and couldn’t be physically in the class. In this case, she was excited about the potential of using a blog (Blogmeister) and is presently working on it.

If a need is felt for the communication and publishing by both teachers and students, and if the structure and guidelines of the learning exercise are optimally planned for, the activities can be wonderful learning events. Then the required technology will be felt as a necessary component (just in time learning), and not as an unwanted add-on to be resisted or ignored by teachers.

Technorati Tags: professional development education school technology learning teaching students

2006-10-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

Small Steps

Today I worked with an elementary school teacher as she created her first blog ever using David Warlick’s ClassBlogmeister. She would like to use blogging as a way to have her students be mentored by historians. In her “break time”, while her students were with the art teacher, she managed to register and choose a template for the blog. Then she had to leave to get her students. She asked for another session a few days from now to learn more.

Another teacher wanted help with Excel. She needed to work with (enter grades into) the school’s sports eligibility list, but she couldn’t find the zoom button in order to make the size of the sheet manageable to work with. What had happened is that Standard and Formatting toolbars had somehow gotten side by side instead of one under the other and the zoom button wasn’t to be seen. After showing her how to fix the problem, she worked on it for about half the time her students were in music class (another “break time”), and then left to refill her coffee cup and treasure those few precious minutes of solitude (those who have been elementary teachers will understand the feeling) before she too had to round up her cherubs.

A third teacher need help logging in to her email account (the new principal uses email a lot for communications with the staff, and teachers are accordingly using it a great deal).

In one sense you might say that little was accomplished today: only three small things. And yet that’s the way that most people learn, when they want to. It applies to adults as well as students.

Some people refer to these as teachable moments. The trick is to encourage the creation of these teachable moments and have the necessary support available when they arrive. Call it professional development if you will. I like to visualize this process as taking small steps in the path towards proficiency. It is really the small steps that get us there, wherever we envision taking ourselves and our students.

Technorati Tags: teacher professional development technology education support

2006-10-23T16:15:00.000-05:00

Proposal for the Read/Write Web 2.0 in a New High School

A local school district recently put out a request to the general public. It requested input concerning the focus of a proposed new academy for the district’s newest high school.

As background, each of the four major high schools in the district already has a distinct academy, a sort of school within a school, incorporated in its curricular framework. According to School District U-46’s web site, the “focus areas for the academies are: Science, Engineering and Technology; Gifted and Talented; Visual and Performing Arts and World Language and International Studies. Students enrolled in the academies are immersed four or five periods daily in classes related to the academy's focus. The remainder of their studies is in the comprehensive programs where they take classes with students outside of the academies.”

I had suggested to the concerned committee that the focus of the new academy be Connectivity and Communications, in which students will research and apply connectivity tools, as well as investigate various forms of communication media to express their learnings. The Connectivity and Communications Academy allows students to:
--Investigate tools which allow us to increase our connectivity and communications, such as wikis, blogs, and podcasts.
--Investigate and develop learning communities both within the academy and with appropriate groups outside the academy in order to not only expand sources of inquiry but also to share learning beyond the classroom wall.
--Apply these tools and skills to learning in all subject matter disciplines where safe and practicable.
--Use the ideas of connectivity and communications learned to increase post-secondary options for graduates.

The rationale for this focus is based on recent evidence of how connectivity and communications is changing the way people relate to each other, a way of learning subject disciplines using these tools will tend to change the nature of teaching in the academy to one that is engaged, project based, collaborative, research centered, and mentor based. Notice that most of the other academies focus on what students should learn (Sciences, Arts, Languages and such). This academy would focus on how students learn. Students would learn from others in powerful new ways. Students would use wikis, blogs, RSS, telecasts and podcasts and other features of the Read /Write Web 2.0 while superseding classroom walls as they expand their sources of learning and mentoring as well as having new venues for publishing their work. Research has shown that motivation increases dramatically when work is done for others besides the teacher.

David Warlick wrote “What is especially powerful about blogging and wikis is that the technology has, to a greater extent than ever before, gotten out of the way. The tech is so simple and so intuitive, that it's almost entirely about the communication, about the conversation. I think that it's what makes this so compelling to students. It's no longer a writing assignment. It's a communication assignment.” Please go to David Warlick keynote address for the K12Online2006 Conference for more thoughts on this (note: after downloading the file, access it using QuickTime player).

Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat (reviewed by Kathy Connolly) contends that workers will survive in the flattened world by becoming one of four types of “Untouchables:”
--“Special” – extraordinary at what they do, such as world class physicists or athletes.
--“Specialized” – their work is not easily digitized or substituted
--“Anchored” – the work must be done in a certain place, such as plumbing or electrical work
--“Really adaptable" – ready and willing to learn a new job when the old one goes away

If students learn how to be flexible, how to locate and validate information, how to work with others, whether in person or through connectivity tools, in order to revise information in creating a useable product and how to communicate their results effectively, then our students will be on their way to being “Really Adaptable” or “Specialized”.

I feel it isn’t really the blogs, wikis, aggregators, or whatever technology tools are presently in fashion that’s most important. Instead it’s the human thinking processes that really count. As Stephen Fink wrote “ Maybe blogs and wikis are code words that stand for those good things--student involvement, participation, critical thinking, responsibility for one's education, finding one's voice, sharing power with students, new roles for teachers, collaboration ....When students communicate with an audience they are usually at their best. Therefore, blogs and wikis are tools that help to unleash the power of individuals and create an environment characterized by creativity, student involvement, participation, critical thinking, responsibility for one's education, finding one's voice, sharing power with students, new roles for teachers, collaboration.” Will Richardson said "I wonder if maybe, and it’s a big MAYBE, we’re nearing another level in the conversation. It’s one where we talk about how the realities of the ways in which our kids are already starting to learn outside of school need to be leveraged inside of school. One where we really start to take a look at teachers as learners modeling learning first. And it’s one where people start to recognize that this isn’t about technology as much as it’s about assembling a new vision for their own practice and for their students’ education." Will Richardson also wrote "Last week, George Siemens put up .pdf’s of his new book Knowing Knowledge, and I’ve been reading through it on and off for the last couple of days. It’s been pushing my thinking even more about what connectivism and connected learning really is, and I’m amazed at how much it resonates with my own experience.---The idea that knowledge is not only a product but is also a process.---That know where and know who are much more important today than know what or how.---That learning is all about network creation and attending to that network.---That the learner is the teacher is the learner."

The human product we would expect from such an academy and the learning processes that are involved in producing them would be inexorably intertwined.

References:

Educational Weblogs by Michael Lackner
http://www.mustangblog.typepad.com/educationalweblogs/
The Blogvangelist, Teacher Magazine October 2006 p.22-9
Introduction and background: Towards Social Constructivism and Community in Online Teaching and Learning (educational basis for on-line conncectivity learning) by James Farmer http://incsub.org/blog/2004/communication-dynamics-discussion-boards-weblogs-and-the-development-of-communities-of-inquiry-in-online-learning-environments
Research Links for Engaged Learning http://www.coollessons.org/researchsummary.html
Derailing Education: Taking Sidetrips for Learning David Warlick http://k12online.wm.edu/k12online2006_optz.mp4 (use Quicktime player to open the movie file)
K-12Online Conference 2006 http://k12onlineconference.org/

Technorati Tags: education school technology academy blog wiki web2.0 learning

2006-09-19T14:19:00.000-05:00

Professional Development Musings

David Thornburg has said that "If you bring in these (new) technologies and don't think ahead to how they'll be used to promote learning and the acquisition of skills, then the only thing that will change in school is the electric bill’. A school district knowing how to use new technologies to promote learning is not enough. The transference of this knowledge to teachers who daily struggle to implement the district’s educational mission is essential.

Teachers are always on the lookout for teaching ideas to improve the ways they are doing things. The ‘just in time, not just in case’ adage applies not only to student learners but also to adult learners. If teachers see professional development as filling a need, they are much more likely to buy into the process. In my experiences there are two approaches to professional development which are particularly effective in serving the needs of teachers. Both approaches tend to use a sustained approach to professional development, which is better than the one-time workshop route.

In the first approach, some school districts such as District U-46 are employing an on-site professional development using the position of Instructional Technology Facilitator. This person is a teacher who holds a regular teaching position in the school but who also consults with the school’s faculty in developing instructional uses of technologies. The person holding the Instructional Technology Facilitator’s position generally receives a very modest stipend which, if the job is done right, is a great bargain. The strengths of this professional development approach are that the Instructional Technology Facilitator:
--is frequently available for assistance, instruction and reteaching;
--knows the people they work with and therefore is approachable;
--understands the technology availability and basics of the school’s equipment, network, applications, etc. in relation to what is educationally feasible;
--knows what fellow staff members will be teaching and therefore is in a position to address the ‘just in time’ aspect;
--knows the expertise of fellow staff members in using technology to improve learning;
can help individual teachers ‘take the next step’

Another approach to professional development is using a strategy such as Aurora University’s Collaborating Academic Partnership Program (CAP), which works closely with school districts to establish professional development partnerships. As stated by Aurora University ‘Through this collaboration, the College of Education strives in cooperation with partner staff to address the unique staff development needs of its partner affiliates." Even a one hour graduate credit course tenders fifteen hours of sustained professional development. In my experiences, teachers welcome beneficial professional development associated with the opportunity to get graduate credit.

The graduate courses I have taught in the Aurora University CAP program in partnership with School District U-46 required participants to make a teaching unit as a final product that can be used in the teacher’s classroom to help student learning. In one respect teachers appreciate the time, new resources and mentoring made available to them during the graduate course as they work on developing new ways to teach. In another respect, new ways of teaching can be thought of as adding another component to the pressure of high stakes testing. Teachers are very concerned with the coverage of curriculum. I try to alleviate the misgivings of trying something new by beginning my courses with a review of research dealing with engaged learning using technology and other related educational theories. A discussion in my courses that seems to recurrently arise focuses on the ‘coverage vs. learning-in-depth’ issue. When teachers realize that their students learn and retain more, and teachers therefore realize test scores should increase with these new ways of teaching, then many apprehensions are diminished. At the end of the course participants have indicated that they are very happy with this form of professional development during which they created an instrument to help their students learn in a better way.

In both types of professional development mentioned above, I think that the dissemination of learning activities is extremely important. Sharing helps build a culture of collegiality necessary for healthy educational environments. My hope is that individual schools as well as districts would make available a database of the products created during professional development activities for the rest of the teachers in the district. Perhaps they can also develop a regular process of sharing ideas, such as during a portion of faculty meetings.

As important as professional development is, we must not forget that the process of professional development is systemically entwined with timely access to appropriate technology as well as prompt tech support when glitches happen. Because teachers as a group are extremely pressed for time, they tend to be very pragmatic. They do not to want to experience frustration and waste time on developing teaching methods that won’t be used because of a lack of availability of reliable resources.

Technorati Tags: professional development education school technology learning teaching

2006-09-19T14:09:00.000-05:00

Career Opportunities

I recently met a number of people for the first time during a social function and a few of us began discussing our careers. An investment trader, when he found out I was an educator, confided in me that his job did not allow him to contribute to society in the way a teacher’s can.This statement surprised me.

This man made many millions of dollars for his company each year trading currency, bonds, and debentures (whatever they are) in overseas markets. He led a team of highly skilled and driven people to accumulate vast wealth for his firm. And yet he was ‘saddened’ (his word) that his career didn’t afford him the kinds of opportunities ‘to make a difference’ (his words again) as teachers have.

Reflecting on this, I do see his point. Consider such educational mission statements as this one from the Newark (NJ) Public Schools, which recognizes ‘that each child can only be successful when we acknowledge all aspects of that child’s life; addressing their needs, enhancing their intellect, developing character, and uplifting their spirit.’

Teachers have an abundance of occasions each day to address issues such as these. Along with helping our students learn new academic skills and concepts, we also nurture them. The prayer of St. Francis ‘where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy’ could have been written as part of a teacher’s job description.

Each time a child learns a new academic skill, we make a difference. Each time a child’s tears turns into smiles, we make a difference. Each time we help a child to learn to care about others, we make a difference. The possibilities for teachers to make a difference are as endless as the numbers of lives we will touch in the course of our careers. Clearly many of these differences lie outside of the domain of the standards movement our nation is embedded in. But as Albert Einstein (who by the way knew something about standards himself) said ‘Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted’.

Obviously there are other jobs that allow opportunities for contributing towards society. I’m just pleased to be part of a profession that makes it a point to make a positive difference, day after day.

2006-09-19T13:54:00.000-05:00

Research Competencies Students Need in a Technical World

Things were different when I went to school. in the fifties and early sixties. As an example of one difference, we trusted the information we received. Textbooks, encyclopedias, magazines, and films were there to supply us information we could depend on. We weren’t in school to question the information; we were there to write reports about, as examples, the Boston Massacre, the space program, the Holocaust or Martin Luther King.

No one questioned the resources we used to write our reports. It never crossed our minds to mistrust the materials our teachers supplied us. We were taught how to use the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature to find magazines, not to debate whether or not the information contained in the magazines was accurate. We never had to face the dark side of knowledge or even know that it existed.

As said, things were different when I went to school. The sources of information that are now available to our students have increased since then by the hundreds of billions. Before, an editor had to scrutinize a work before it was published as a book or in magazines. Today this is not necessarily true for the information sources our students have available (among these being web pages, blogs, podcasts, uploaded videos, etc.). For example, it’s possible for a student to find a web page written by a Northwestern University professor stating that the Holocaust never happened as well those proclaiming landing a man on the moon was a hoax and the tragedy of 9-11 was a conspiracy created by our own government. Students can find a web site about Dr. King which looks legitimate on the outset but which has facts skewed because it is published by a white power group.

It follows then that another type of literacy is very necessary; an information literacy. Students must be able to narrow their search using the best resources. For example, can they find evidence from both sides of a debate, such as what really did happen during the Boston Massacre? Can they evaluate information by determining its validity and reliability? Can they rephrase information to show understanding, or are their notes and written work simply a result of copy and paste? Do they respect copyright by citing their sources?

To paraphrase an old saw, knowledge is power, but only knowledge that can be trusted as true. As future citizens of our form of government, our students need to know how to find information, how to separate the wheat from the chaff and determine what the truth is. Teachers need to help our students by designing learning activities that fosters information literacy.

(This article first appeared in the ICE Cube Bulletin, Volume 2006, Issue #1 p.18 published by the Illinois Computing Educators)

Technorati Tags: education school technology learning teaching research competencies students

2006-09-19T13:38:00.000-05:00

How to Walk Backwards and Other Things I Learned While Teaching in a Catholic Elementary School

Retirement was great. After teaching for thirty-three years in middle schools or high schools in this country and overseas, I became an educational consultant. I was enjoying working with school districts and individual schools, community organizations, private educational firms, regional offices of education, as well as giving presentations at conferences.

Then, three years after retiring from full time teaching I was asked to take the seventh grade position at St. Thomas More School, a pre-K through grade 8 school in Elgin, Illinois. STM School was one of those I was working with, giving workshops and mentoring teachers and other staff. Penny Reid, the principal of STM, had asked me to assist her in interviewing prospective teachers. The request came unexpectedly. When discussing the parameters of the teaching position with her, she casually asked ‘Would you consider taking the position’’ Though I had kept my teaching certificate valid, I had no intentions of teaching full time again and abandoning my consulting business. Cool Lessons Consulting (coollessons.org) was just beginning to really take off. Putting the consulting work into hiatus and letting my clients know that I am no longer available was something that wasn’t even considered. It surprised both of us when I didn’t respond ‘No’.

It came down to two reasons why I eventually agreed to teach full time again. The first was that I enjoyed working with Mrs. Reid and the staff of STM School. The second was that I needed to ‘walk the talk’. For years I had been suggesting teaching ideas to these people who would become my fellow teachers, but have never personally been through the day-by-day trials they go through as elementary school teachers.

The following is a list just some of the things I learned while teaching in a Catholic elementary school. One is that elementary school teachers are extremely pressed for time. I realized that it takes any new teacher time (measured in years) to develop a variety of educational experiences to help students learn. In the middle and junior high schools I am familiar with, we would have, on an average, three preparations (different lessons plans) each school day. Some years we would have fewer preps and very infrequently did I hear about more.

As an elementary teacher we had six preps. For those who don’t think this is a big deal (obviously people who haven’t tried it), someone once said “Teaching is an easy job to do poorly, and a tough job to do well.” I won’t get into the fine details of lesson preparation: just suffice it to say it takes an immense amount of time to plan. First one has to evaluate student progress and then prepare learning experiences you feel will be successful. Therefore, my workday extended from about 5 a.m. through 11 p.m. On school days I had no other life than education. On weekends, one of the two days was devoted to school related matters. During a weeklong vacation, typically at least two of the days were like wise taken up.

Included in the ‘pressure of time’ theme, I liken elementary school teachers’ jobs to images of pony express riders who, without a break, arrive on a galloping mount, jump off, run to the next horse and, without stopping, climb aboard while their chargers are moving on the dead run towards the next destination. This analogy expresses exactly the feelings of time pressure teachers experience as learning experiences flow from one to another in order to keep students on task and on time. Add to this the ‘extra’ things to consider, some happening each day, and some sporadically, which can make for a hectic experience. Some of these are: picture, lunch, field trip and magazine money collections; schedule changes; morning, lunch and closing prayers; rehearsals for singing at Mass; helping students get ready for the morning scripture readings and for mass readings; and going over to the church to attend masses, participate in Reconciliation (the Sacrament of Penance for all you old timers), Eucharistic adorations and the Way of the Cross.

Related to the ‘pressed for time’ theme is something that is easily forgotten by some who claim teachers have it easy because of their shortened work day. As mentioned before, we are one of the few professions in which our clients (the children we teach) are physically with us throughout the day. Lawyers are not legally responsible for knowing where their clients are and having to constantly physically supervise them; neither are doctors, accountants, businessmen and women, policemen, etc. Few of these have ever had to ask someone to ‘cover for’ their clients for a needed washroom break. Of course, teachers do have a thirty minutes lunch break (unless one has playground duty and gobbles down food, rushes out the door to supervise children and to take heed of assorted ‘owies’ and problems in caring ways. Even that thirty-minute lunch break many times is only twenty minutes (it takes time to accompany your students to lunch and to pick them up afterwards). I was amused by an article written by a journalist who taught in an elementary school for a day. She went home totally exhausted, wondering how people can do that kind of work without opportunities to mentally refresh themselves as the journalist had while working in her office.

Another thing I learned is how like a loving family the STM School is. One positive aspect of working in such a small (about 240 students) school is that everyone seems to know everyone else. The STM School office and teaching staff not only knows the names of each student, they also know their siblings and parents by name, as well as their family background. Students regularly come into the office just to say hi, or for a hug, or for reaffirmation in one way or another. They are always greeted in a loving fashion. People pitch in and help each other. When something happens, someone is there to provide backup. It’s truly amazing what a group of people can do when they have a common vision and the will to reach it.

The vast majority of teachers I have known are caring people. You have to enjoy associating with children and want what is best for them in order to be a good teacher. Jaime Escalante, of ‘Stand and Deliver’ fame, states that all schools should show and teach respect, hard work and discipline. STM School does all this under an aura of true Christian love. On a side note, one advantage of teaching in a Catholic school is that we could address the entire child’s educational, physical and spiritual growth. Kids many times have a strong sense of ethics and want opportunities to talk about events. When ‘stuff’ happened, we could deal with it within a moral framework. Another lesson was that my STM students really knew the system. In my previous teaching jobs, I established classroom management procedures due to the fact that students fed into my middle school from a half dozen or so different schools. However, because my STM School students had been together as a group for years, they were used to doing things a certain way and as a new teacher I had much to learn about their established routines.

My students frequently made suggestions as to how I could improve classroom management techniques such as which ‘jobs’ needed to be done and how they should be done, based upon how they did it in previous years. Included is the routine of how the class should be moved from one location to another, such as to the LRC, lunch, music or art. When it was time, the girls and boys automatically got into separate lines and marched down the hallway with the teacher in front walking backwards to assure discipline in the ranks. I had marveled at seventh and eighth graders doing this when I started teaching there, and vowed that you wouldn’t catch me walking backwards in front of a class. However, due to the nature of the seventh grade students’ need to establish their independence by the class forming a moving, talking amorphous blob in the hallways, I had to admit I was wrong and learned to walk backwards without running into obstacles.

Related to this, I learned that there are some good and also not-so-good things about students being together as a group for a number of years. The good was that they treated each other like family members. They basically cared for each other and did much sharing. They knew the strengths and weaknesses of each person in class much better than I did and when, in private conversations, they expressed their thoughts on whether or not certain individuals would come through as part of group learning activities, their prognoses were right on the money. They knew who could carry home the homework for ailing students, and who could get rides after school with whom. The no-so-good was that they treated each other like family members, brothers and sisters. They had their alliances with others already established when I came. It was difficult for a person to move from one clique to another. They also knew exactly what buttons to push and how far they could push with each person in class before that person would be set off.

Because of working with the same students most of the day, I knew my students as individuals more quickly and better than ever. It’s more difficult for a student to ‘hide’ academically in such a situation than it is if the teacher only sees the person fifty minutes a day as in middle or high school.

The list of what I learned is by no means all encompassing. All and all my experiences just reinforced my belief that people who work in schools deserve all the respect we can give.

In my middle school teaching career, I have heard some people hope to have a chance to move ‘up to’ high school. I think that the State of Illinois allows high school districts to tax 150% that of elementary or unit school districts, seemingly implying that the high school has an exalted status (money does speak). These attitudes seem to me to turn what should be the true priorities of education on its head.

I had to resign from teaching full time due to medical concerns (it was difficult when faced with the fact that one can no longer perform up to the standards one sets) and am back to being an educational consultant. I did ‘walk the talk’ and found that engaged learning principles do work in an elementary school setting. My consulting business has picked up again surprisingly fast, at which I am as busy as ever.

In the end, I can proudly say that I was an elementary Catholic schoolteacher.

Technorati Tags: Catholic education school technology learning teaching students

2006-09-19T13:22:00.000-05:00

School Dreams

Like clockwork, every year I start to dream about school a few weeks before the first day in late August. Guess it is my brain’s way of getting ready for the beginning of school.

If you are an educator, have you ever had this particular dream? In the dream you are trying to teach a class but the kids are being TOTALLY unresponsive. You are running into a brick wall. It’s the educational counterpart to that common dream in which you’re trying to run but discover your legs are moving awfully slowly, as if you are held back by some unseen force. Your frustration with what’s going on in the classroom builds and builds, but your students also seem to be being held back by something. The things you are trying with your students just don’t work. Students are doing off-task things because they are mentally lost, bored, or uninvolved, and these add up to an educational anarchy. Deep in your soul you know there has to a better way to reach them.

Waking up, it’s a reprieve to realize it was only a dream. But this dream has had a basis in reality at times. It’s uncomfortable to recognize that we’ve all been there at one time or another - the realization that the kids we teach just aren't getting it, and that there just has to be a better way.

The purpose of my work is to allow educators to explore other ways students can learn. The way students learn can dictate not only how well they learn but also what they learn. The process can become a part of the product.

As a side note, I read that when military personnel make a career transition to teaching, they are surprised by the lack of continuous schooling teachers do through out the year to improve their skills. In the military, people are almost always going through training. I think that some of the reasons educators don’t are due to the pressures for our time and our attention we constantly face. Unlike lawyers, doctors, policemen or businessmen, we are almost always with our clients (students) throughout the working day. In those times without our students, we are conferring with other professionals, planning, evaluating, setting up, cleaning up, etc. etc.

I hope you find these postings are worth the time and attention you so graciously are allocating; ‘worth it’ in terms of discussing how we help students to learn in the best ways possible.

Hello

2006-09-19T13:05:00.000-05:00

Permit me to introduce this web log and myself. The purpose of this blog is to share some thoughts about education.

As to vitae, I am most proud of being a teacher in public and private schools, here and abroad, for thirty-four years. I am presently a full time educational consultant (Cool Lessons Consulting) working with many schools to help teachers ensure all children have access to quality engaged learning activities.

David Thornburg has said "If someone brings a lot of new technology into your school district, and doesn't provide staff development, the only thing that will change is your electric bill." This quotation spotlights my role: I am a teacher, not a techie. We all admire techies for the wonderful tools they create and keep running. I help focus these tools on helping teachers to help student to learn better.

I have taught for Aurora University (Aurora IL) as an adjunct Instructor and have presented for multiple Role of Technology in Education Conferences and at a National Educator's Computer Conference. I've also presented at multiple Kane County Office of Education workshops, multiple School District U-46 and private schools' staff development workshops. My web pages at http://www.classblogmeister.com/www.coollessons.org, as well as the graduate courses, workshops, presentations, etc. permit me to help teachers explore other, more effective ways their students can learn.

The learning experiences I endorse through inclusion in my web pages are effective not only because of technology, but because they also involve students in activities that challenge them to solve problems by doing quality research, analyzing and rearranging information, synthesizing possibilities, making judgments and then creating interesting products in order to communicate their results. Technology can be used as tools in making these exciting learning experiences even deeper, richer and more motivating. It can give new purposes to learning. It can be used to transform the way students learn.

Awards and recognitions include: Kane County (IL) Middle School Educator of the Year Award; Kane County Distinguished Educator Award; Dolores Kohl Foundation Award for Outstanding Service in the Field of Education. The web site http:/www.coollessons.org has also won a number of awards.