The First Explorer to Travel around the Horn of Africa

Walking past a history classroom yesterday, I heard a teacher, probably reading from a test, ask, "Who was the first explorer to travel around the Horn of Africa?" She then listed four possibles. I recognized two of the four and immediately knew the answer to be the first listed, Vasco Da Gama. I doubt, however, that I would have been able to answer that question had it been a fill-in-the-blank. I'm not sure exactly when I learned about Vasco. Probably in late "grammar" school. But I do know that, unless you count yesterday's experience as a "need to know," I have never in the past 55-plus years needed to know that the first explorer to travel around the Horn of Africa was Vasco Da Gamma. I wonder what else I learned that I have never needed and have since forgotten that I know. How much of my education K through masters was a waste of time and effort?

Google Docs

Have I mentioned that I'm a Google Docs proponent? I've tried a few of the others, e.g., Microsoft Office SkyDrive and Zoho and for my and my students use, Google Docs just works. The applications are not nearly as robust as desktop versions of office suites, yet they are more than adequate for most of us. Assuming few changes over the next six or so months, I plan to migrate our school to Google Apps next summer. I find that the three most valuable features of  Google Docs are 1) the cost (free); 2) access from any computer with Internet access; and document collaboration.

If you're new to Google Docs and are interested in getting starting, you might want to view the video tutorials at http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/09/learn-about-google-docs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GoogleAppsBlog+%28The+Google+Apps+Blog%29.

Pushing College

One of my favorite blogs, discussing the student loan problem, posted the following in part:

I fully understand that this fix [eliminating government student loan guarantees] would likely prevent thousands, if not millions, of young people from attending college, because schools would have to become more picky as to who was accepted in order to keep costs down.  Millions of poor people will either have to put college off or go part-time, taking longer to finish their schooling. 

To me, that’s fine.  A stint in grad school grading papers opened my eyes to the fact that there are a lot of young adults out there who absolutely do not belong in college--they simply don’t have the intellectual capability to handle a traditional university course load.  And we are not doing the poor any favors at all by putting them $20K, $50K, $100K or more into debt when they are barely into their wealth-creating years.  We can’t continue setting up entire generations of young people to fail for the false promise that a piece of paper provides.

I agree. Not solely because of the huge debt being accumulated, much of which is never paid, but also because unprepared students who drop out before being awarded a degree consume huge amounts of limited scholarship dollars--dollars that if more prudently appropriated, could have eased the debt load of more qualified and motivated students.

I teach at a high school that brags that 98% of graduates are accepted into college and proudly displays (one of those thermometer things) the amount of scholarship dollars graduating seniors have received. The college counselor does a fantastic job of conducting a two-week, one hour daily, College Boot Camp; orchestrating college visits; transporting students to college fairs; hosting college admission and college attending alumni speakers; guiding, assisting and following up students' completion and submission of college applications; and educating students and parent/guardians about the intricacies of financing college. Yet the school does not track student college attrition and I know that many graduates are not academically, intellectually, emotionally or psychologically prepared to attend and succeed in college. Actually, many of them, probably about half, come to us unprepared for 9th grade, so we play a catch-up game that we cannot win.

Sadly, by achieving the high rate of undeserved college acceptances, I believe we are doing a terrible disservice to our graduates, indirectly lying to them by giving them the impression that they are ready for college. How disappointing and potentially hurtful will it be when they have to drop out owing thousands of dollars?

Can Educating Children Be Compared to Training Dogs?

"Dogs: An unusual guide to school reform" -- a blog by Marion Brady in The Washington Posts' The Answer Sheet.

I'm not sure I agree with the premise. It's like comparing apples to oranges but I do agree that our current ed system's grouping of students into grade levels guarantees that we lose many who have an aptitude for one or some but not all subject areas.

Students Are Bored! Duh....

Headline:

Latest HSSSE results show familiar theme: bored, disconnected students want more from schools

Some excerpts:

"The numbers between 2006 and 2009 have consistently shown a troubling trend among high school students in the U.S."

"'We've got similar numbers in terms of kids who are bored every day -- about 49 percent of the kids are bored every day, 17 percent every class. That's two-thirds of the kids who are bored at least every day.'"

"But students did clearly indicate what might motivate them. Asked to respond to the statement that they welcome opportunities to be creative at school, 82 percent said they agree or strongly agree. As for what methods they preferred in the classroom, 65 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, 'I like discussions in which there are no clear answers.'

"'Many students would be more engaged in school if they were intellectually challenged by their work. Discussion and debate is still one of the highest rated kinds of teaching, as are group projects,' Yazzie-Mintz [project director] said. 'Technology projects, art and drama projects also have a good number of kids saying they really like this type of teaching.'"

Now we need a study to determine if cause (bored) and effect (substandard performance) are in play--more money wasted on the obvious.

Blame the Teachers 2?

Back in July I addressed research that indicated that student performance is mostly (80%) due to environmental and cultural factors leaving only 20% due to teachers (13%) and schools (7%). Another study reported on by the author in the CommonWealth finds that "there is surprisingly little difference between the quality of teaching in so-called “good” schools (wealthy, suburban schools with high MCAS scores) and “bad” schools (inner-city schools with low scores) when the results are averaged across all teachers in the district and disaggregated by student demographics, specifically race and poverty." The author, Edward Moscovitch, president of Cape Ann Economics and chairman of the Bay State Reading Institute, using the data from the study goes on to debunk most of the popular carrot and stick reforms being initiated as a result of federal pressure: merit pay, charter schools, and firing teachers.

Must Read - Moursund

I am a strong proponent of project-based learning (PBL) and a fan of David Moursund, a prolific writer of over 50 books, many of which focus on technology in teaching and learning. Twenty-six of his books are available for free online and what I consider one of his most valuable books, Project-Based Learning Using Information Technology, is available from ISTE (David was the founder of ISTE) for $34.95 ($24.45 for members).

For a shortcut version of his thoughts on PBL see this website where he provides a syllabus, outline and other materials for a one credit course/workshop on PBL.

Building on Commitment 3 - Planning

At the pyramid base lies the corner stone-proof of commitment in the form of a planning processes that incorporates supportive funding. If your district's or school's strategic planning process is too vague to discern something more than lip service, as many are, look for an operational process with more specificity.

Planning as opposed to plan is a necessary distinction due to the rapidly changing nature of technology, and recently, of schools. The planning process needs, of course, to produce a dynamic document of some form open to review and comment by all stakeholders. Publication tends to connote a closed process; posting online on a website that allows sharing and interaction would be more desirous.

21st Century Skills???

The term is relatively new to the educational lexicon yet maybe should be replaced, considering we are more than a decade into the 21st Century. But that's not really the issue, is it? What are 21st Century skills? And can or should they be taught?


The Partnership for 21st Century Skills categorizes the skills, in part, as 21st Century Themes, Creativity and Innovation, Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Communication and Collaboration, Information Literacy, Media Literacy, ICT (technology) Literacy, and Life and Career Skills. Who can argue with these? When broken down further these "skills" appear to be even more platitudinous. For example, consider Life and Career Skills: Flexibility and Adaptability; Initiative and Self-direction; Social and Cross-cultural Skills; Productivity and Accountability; and Leadership and Responsibility. All desirous attributes for sure. It is extremely doubtful that prior to the coining of the term "21st Century Skills" educators did not realize the importance of such characteristics and behaviors to student achievement and eventual success.


Seems that promoters and some supporters intend that 21st Century skills be taught, that they should be considered additional content areas. Teachers have always encouraged students to internalize desirable personal attributes and practice behaviors consistent with accepted societal standards. Most of these "21st Century" so-called skills are of the "go forth and do good" genre. Teachers can teach about critical thinking or creativity, for example, but can they teach students to be critical thinkers or to be creative? Project- and problem-based learning exercises and assessments give students opportunities to practice processes that are representative of critical thinking and creativity but these are instructional methodologies unlikely to instill either.

Blame the Teachers?

From Changing the Odds for Student Success: What Matters Most, Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning(McRel}, by Brian Goodwin, 2010.

"When it comes to student learning, research points to the tremendous influence of a handful of variables as the root causes of their successes or struggles. MCREL research conducted by Robert Marzano in 2000, published as A New Era of School Reform: Going Where the Research Takes Us, analyzed multiple influences on student achievement and found that 80 percent of the variation in student achievement can be attributed to four student­-level variables:
"1. Home environment 2. Prior knowledge 3. Aptitude 4. Interest and motivation
"That leaves just 20 percent of the variance in student success related to teachers (13%) and schools (7%)."

Web 2.0 and Gpanion

As a user and teacher of Web 2.0 technologies and cloud computing, I find Gpanion very useful. Explore it. Especially look at the "More Apps" page to find little known but valuable gems. Set it to open automatically in a tab in your favorite browser.  I use it as a sort of online desktop.

Not Only Do They Walk Among Us and Vote but They Make Laws

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Kahn Academy

A great teacher resource, especially at the high school level, are the Kahn Academy videos. Salman Khan, the creator of these learning videos, focuses on math, science and finance with a little bit of history and economics thrown in on the side. Currently there are about 1,400 videos available that would serve well as homework assignments, homework helpers and possibly to accommodate different learning styles. The videos are discipline specific and not supportive of cross-curricular or project-based learning, nonetheless they are thorough over a broad range.

Ecology of Education

If you are not already subscribed to the Ecology of Education blog, you should be. It does a fantastic job of capturing the perspective of teachers as we traverse through the jumbled world of education reform.  From the home page: "Ecology of Education is a multi-author blog dedicated to issues, trends, and ideas in education. The authors represent a range of niches related to teaching and learning."

Building on Commitment 2

I introduced a Maslow-type pyramid about a year ago. Since then additional experience and reflection have produced an expanded model (see image). In future blogs the layers will be discussed in some detail. For this blog, the focus will be on "Board and Administration Commitment--Strategic Planning." Again, progression up through layers is dependent on each lower layer being substantially satisfied.  Beyond lip service, this is not something the instructional technologist can readily garner. The reasons are reasonable: most board members and administrators did not learn in a constructivist and technologically integrated environment; technology is expensive; additional staff are required; studies conducted so far are neutral; fear of the unknown; and the natural reluctance to change. Too often, in our enthusiasm, technologists jump in to levels above "Commitment..." prematurely. Most of us have experienced the resulting frustration.

So where does that leave the technology integration specialist, the instructional technologist, the technology director, facilitator, coordinator, manager? Not only do we need to possess content knowledge, at least at the basic level, across a large number of disciplines; to be expert in instructional design; to know all there is to know about technology grants and eRate; to be great teachers and trainers; to be superior communicators orally and in writing; to know everything about hardware, software, the Internet, and systems infrastructure from technician to director level; to be experienced and superior supervisors, leaders and managers; and to know how to successfully integrate technology into the most ridiculous instructional unit or lesson plan, but we also need be expert change theory practitioners.

Available to assist are two potentially influential stakeholder groups: students and parents/guardians. But even within the parent/guardian group a gap exists between what they want in the way of technology in the schools and what they are willing to pay for. Many schools and districts have moved beyond the commitment level to some extent simply due to the realization and acceptance that technology is now ubiquitous and that pressures and funds from state and the federal governments are dependent on technology integration progress. So be it. While not an ideal scenario, I am willing to run with it.

Teaching to the . . .

In another great blog,"Teaching to the App," Steve Taffe, who writes the Blog-Ed Indetermination blog, hit the nail on the head (mostly) regarding technology in education. And I am guilty! Oh, I've known better for a number of years, yet I have allowed myself to get caught up in teaching to the application.

In his blog, Steve relates teaching to the test, brought on by NCLB high stakes testing requirement, to teaching to the application. His criticism focuses on taking a too narrow a view of the education process. In the case of teaching to the test, test results are so critical to a public school's funding and reputation, that they are willing "to prepare students for these tests to the detriment of a broader education." Independent schools, e.g., Catholic schools like mine, while not required to take these tests, might be guilty of adopting a different kind of examination, that of "teaching to the app." The following is a list of examples Steve provides:
• how to set margins, create footnotes, track changes, add comments, and so on in Microsoft Word
• creating formulas and charts in Microsoft Excel
• creating an Apple iMovie
• creating a podcast in Apple GarageBand
• editing photos in Adobe Photoshop
• making presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint

In addition to being the school's Technology Director, I teach three courses in an inner-city high school, two of which are technology rich. The basic technology freshmen course focuses on four subject areas as stated in the syllabus: keyboarding, word processing, spreadsheets and presentation. The other course is all about Web 2.0 technologies, sharing and collaborating. However, and sadly, each course is taught as Steve describes above and is unrelated to other-courses content. I'm a tool teacher! I have made the process (the tool) more important than the outcome. He proposes framing the instructional content more broadly so that "Users are free to choose their own tool or tools, focusing more on the outcome than the process":
• word processing
• spreadsheets and graphing
• moviemaking
• podcasting
• photo editing
• presentations
I have done so in the syllabus, but not in practice. How can this be turned around?

Two reasonable approaches come to mind. The first has been shoved at us over and over, with limited success, and that is to integrate technology into the classroom and curriculum. This supposedly is the ideal solution, however, one not readily achievable in the short-term in many schools as it requires:
1) students who have progressed through ISTE's NETS at appropriate grade levels,
2) technology resources often beyond the schools' ability to purchase and sustain,
3) a long-term commitment to technology professional development (teachers and administrators), and
4) redesigning the core curriculum to include technology tools.
The second, more affordable and simpler to implement approach is to leave the old computer lab in-tact and to integrate core content into the "computer" teacher's lab and curriculum. Core subject teachers submit requirements/projects that compliment the technology curriculum, the computer teacher integrates them into her/his curriculum and upon completion they both assess results.