Let's just say I am wealthy. I'm not wealthy, not even upper-middle, but let's just say I am and that my annual income is at least in the mid six figures. My only child upon whom I unabashedly dote, attends a K-8 middle school in the Sunset Ridge School District 29 in Northfield, Cook County, Illinois which in 2014 had an operating expense per pupil (OEPP) of $24,452.92. During the same school year the average OEPP for Cook County was $13,088.47.
Now, the question I have to ask myself is, in the interest of equity of opportunity for all students, at least in Cook County, would I agree that the Sunset Ridge School District should forfeit $11,367.45 of the amount now being spent to educate my child?
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Sunday, June 7, 2015
The Changed Roles of the School/District Tech Director/Manager
Ten years ago, the guy in charge of IT had a relatively non-collaborative and straightforward job. Broadly we were responsible for the traditional management functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Specifically we oversaw the procurement, installation and repair of hardware and software, the network and servers. We seldom interfaced with faculty and staff other than to take direction, respond to service requests or request funding. Given the hundreds of tasks involved in successfully performing those functions, we were busy and, if we were lucky enough to have them, our staffs were busy.
The truth has changed. What we do less of and what we do more of, more or less cancels each other out. We still are very, very busy. In most institutions, we are well beyond integrating technology into our classrooms (provisioning with operable computers and interactive whiteboards). A major change, the main goal of the modern IT director/manager, is to facilitate (read "manage") the successful integration of technology into the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities. The ideal approach is through coaching/mentoring, professional development and learning communities. A great discussion about these approaches is at the Center for Public Education website. I couldn't say it better but I will emphasize that we're not talking about traditional workshop-based professional development, which as been shown by numerous studies to be ineffective. Please read the article.
Other affective truths are the changes (I hesitate to use "advancements"--I'll wait for validated results) in educational technology, the students, and pedagogies including: the shift toward mobile technologies; cloud computing (SaaS -software as a service; PaaS-platform as a service; and IaaS-infrastructure as a service); all students are now "digital natives", many being technologically sophisticated; open source software; the need to ensure that students remain familiar with technologies that they might be using after school; learning management systems (LMS) (e.g. Moodle); online courses (MOOC); staying ahead of the available apps and software to support each content area; one-on-one computing in the classroom; bring your own device (BYOD); the flipped classroom; blended learning; learning partnerships; game enhanced learning; project-based learning; peer teaching; brain-based learning; differentiated instruction; just-in-time teaching; deep learning (whatever that is); etc.
Educational technology changes are accompanied by fear and operational and resource problems: privacy, security, safety, available band width, available funding, qualified technicians, committed administrators and board members, and push back to name a few. The technology manager/director must become an expert in change management and an integral part of the change planning and execution team. As technology becomes more infused into administrative and management functions, the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities, the more involved the educational technologist should be.
The truth has changed. What we do less of and what we do more of, more or less cancels each other out. We still are very, very busy. In most institutions, we are well beyond integrating technology into our classrooms (provisioning with operable computers and interactive whiteboards). A major change, the main goal of the modern IT director/manager, is to facilitate (read "manage") the successful integration of technology into the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities. The ideal approach is through coaching/mentoring, professional development and learning communities. A great discussion about these approaches is at the Center for Public Education website. I couldn't say it better but I will emphasize that we're not talking about traditional workshop-based professional development, which as been shown by numerous studies to be ineffective. Please read the article.
Other affective truths are the changes (I hesitate to use "advancements"--I'll wait for validated results) in educational technology, the students, and pedagogies including: the shift toward mobile technologies; cloud computing (SaaS -software as a service; PaaS-platform as a service; and IaaS-infrastructure as a service); all students are now "digital natives", many being technologically sophisticated; open source software; the need to ensure that students remain familiar with technologies that they might be using after school; learning management systems (LMS) (e.g. Moodle); online courses (MOOC); staying ahead of the available apps and software to support each content area; one-on-one computing in the classroom; bring your own device (BYOD); the flipped classroom; blended learning; learning partnerships; game enhanced learning; project-based learning; peer teaching; brain-based learning; differentiated instruction; just-in-time teaching; deep learning (whatever that is); etc.
Educational technology changes are accompanied by fear and operational and resource problems: privacy, security, safety, available band width, available funding, qualified technicians, committed administrators and board members, and push back to name a few. The technology manager/director must become an expert in change management and an integral part of the change planning and execution team. As technology becomes more infused into administrative and management functions, the curriculum, instructional units, lesson plans and learning activities, the more involved the educational technologist should be.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Mental Health Care In Schools
I'm just not so sure that we really want to tack this on to the lengthing list of school responsibilities. At Linda Flanagan's Mind Shift blog, an argument is made for providing mental health treatment within the schools--practitioners on staff. There is little doubt that many students from lower income and urban environments are subject to potentially traumatizing events possibly having a negative effect on the desire and ability to learn. Even a family relocation and new school are emotionally disruptive and require some readjustment. Counseling and therapy may well be in order.
However, schools have already assumed many responsibilities previously reserved to parents: feeding, guiding, disciplining, and providing physical health care, pre-school education, and child care. There is no doubt well-fed, physically and mentally healthy children with parents who actively participate in the learning process will tend to succeed in school. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe mom and dad can be effectively replaced by government, no matter how well-intended. And I just can't stop equating where we are headed with the old Soviet Union's cradle-to-grave state-controlled system. It didn't work there and it frightens me. As what point do parents simply become breeding tools of the state?
However, schools have already assumed many responsibilities previously reserved to parents: feeding, guiding, disciplining, and providing physical health care, pre-school education, and child care. There is no doubt well-fed, physically and mentally healthy children with parents who actively participate in the learning process will tend to succeed in school. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe mom and dad can be effectively replaced by government, no matter how well-intended. And I just can't stop equating where we are headed with the old Soviet Union's cradle-to-grave state-controlled system. It didn't work there and it frightens me. As what point do parents simply become breeding tools of the state?
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Obstacles to K-12 Student Success
In yesterday's post, Diane Ravitch references a survey of the nation's teachers of the year http://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/20/teachers-of-the-year-say-that-family-stress-and-poverty-are-biggest-obstacles/). She quotes Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post:
The greatest barriers to school success for K-12 students have little to do with anything that goes on in the classroom, according to the nation’s top teachers: It is family stress, followed by poverty, and learning and psychological problems.
So the problem isn't due to "low expectations, bad teachers, teachers’ unions, tenure, seniority, and the need for competition and accountability" (Diane's words). Duh! Any of us who had even the vaguest interest in education knew or suspected this all along. Ah, but Arnie and the states won't go down easily. They will argue that, of course, teachers will deflect blame.
At the end of her blog, Diane asks, "Why don’t Congress and the states listen to the experts?" Yes, why? Members of the medical profession are not held accountable for increasing incidents of cancer, maiming automobile accidents, gunshots wounds, and on and on. Yet we listen to them when they site causes. Lawyers (those practicing law, not those writing laws) are not held accountable for the crime rate, yet we respect their opinions. We don't blame architects for the destruction caused by an earthquake, yet we listen to their ideas on building earthquake resistant structures. Go ahead, name another profession whose members' opinions are at least respected. OK, maybe law enforcement recently but I can't think of another.
The greatest barriers to school success for K-12 students have little to do with anything that goes on in the classroom, according to the nation’s top teachers: It is family stress, followed by poverty, and learning and psychological problems.
So the problem isn't due to "low expectations, bad teachers, teachers’ unions, tenure, seniority, and the need for competition and accountability" (Diane's words). Duh! Any of us who had even the vaguest interest in education knew or suspected this all along. Ah, but Arnie and the states won't go down easily. They will argue that, of course, teachers will deflect blame.
At the end of her blog, Diane asks, "Why don’t Congress and the states listen to the experts?" Yes, why? Members of the medical profession are not held accountable for increasing incidents of cancer, maiming automobile accidents, gunshots wounds, and on and on. Yet we listen to them when they site causes. Lawyers (those practicing law, not those writing laws) are not held accountable for the crime rate, yet we respect their opinions. We don't blame architects for the destruction caused by an earthquake, yet we listen to their ideas on building earthquake resistant structures. Go ahead, name another profession whose members' opinions are at least respected. OK, maybe law enforcement recently but I can't think of another.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
The Various Aspects of Educational Technology Support & Integration
There was a time when performing as a Director of Information Technology I realized that educational technology support demands could and should be categorized so as to better prioritize, organize and focus technology staff and efforts. I came up with four distinct categories and a subcategory: 1-the interactive education learning process; 2-the unilateral learning process; 3-technology as a separate content area; and 4-school administration and management. Faculty/staff technology profession development is a subcategory integral of the four categories. These can be readily integrated into the ITIL framework. Note that the focus, while on the institution, does not address the constant back room support required to keep the systems running smoothly.
Faculty/staff technology professional development. I believe that if anything has held back classroom/curriculum technology integration, student self-directed learning and efficient use of school administration and learning management software, it is the insufficiency of technology professional development. I would encourage establishment of a technology professional development program that took into account the personal situations, learning styles and instructional needs of each teacher/staff member and one that included a teacher/staff/administrator individual learning plan agreement consistent with the school’s mission, goals, objectives and budgetary constraints while maximizing use of internal expertise (technologists and teacher/staff-technology leaders from within teacher learning communities and staff offices). Though research has shown that traditional, workshop-based professional development is ineffective, I would not hesitate to lobby the administration, board and community for additional funding to take advantage of select commercial programs that have a proven track record. A bit of aside gripe coming. Remember when Microsoft Office switched from the traditional menu interface to the "ribbon"? Or when your administrators pushed to change out the teachers' desktops for laptops? Or when the Board decided to implement a one-to-one computing program in the next school year? Yep, the techies were expected to develop change management skills overnight, design appropriate instructional sessions and execute.
Given finite technology resources, the interactive learning process should be the highest priority. Basically, it's all about integrating (infusing, if you must) technology into the teaching-learning dynamic within the classroom. Enough has been written and said by others and me in previous blogs. For now, let's just say that success in this category lies at the confluence of curricular content, constructivist pedagogies, and technology—that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning and encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education. Technology support in this category is on ensuring that classroom hardware is available when needed and operates reliably, that required software and apps are installed and functioning properly and that each classroom has reliable access to the network and the Internet. Each classroom should have a primary and alternate method of rapidly reporting issues to the technology department.
More and more emphasis is being placed on the unilateral learning process. This learning process can be defined as one wherein students without the supervision or oversite of, or immediate interaction with, a teacher, school staff member or another student use a digital device while performing learning tasks. Homework is the most common, traditional example. The flipped classroom, one-to-one computing programs and BYOD efforts are placing more emphasis on student self-learning. Whether or not these initiatives are enhancing or will enhance student learning, the tech department is obligated to ensure that the system fully supports the process 24/7. Coming into play here are various compartmentalized servers, interoperative operating system platforms, security and backups, remote access, acceptable use agreements and policies, safety, policies and procedures and I'm sure many more that do not come to mind readily. If students are expected to perform online research, analysis, synthesis, etc. from their own or family computers and the computer or their Internet is not functioning, what then? What if they don't even have access to a computer outside of school? How does the institution accommodate them? If the school provides them, how does a tech department maintain as many as 2,000 tablets? The questions of expense and support are many and complex. If such programs are effective, I believe that the educational gap between the haves and have-nots will continue to grow.
The third category and priority, technology as a separate subject area, seems to have declined in popularity in K-12 schools. The decline in great part is due to perceived student familiarity with common use hardware and software from early ages. At the same time, STEM is being pushed at all levels. And surprisingly, the following is from the Business Insider, September 11, 2014: "This semester, a record-breaking 818 Harvard students — nearly 12% of the entire college — enrolled in one popular class, reports The Crimson. The course, Computer Science 50: "Introduction to Computer Science I" (CS50), pulled in 100 more students than the 700 that signed up last fall, making it the single largest class in the course's 30-year history, as well as the biggest class at Harvard College this semester." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-course-at-harvard-2014-9#ixzz3YMjsSDCt The course has little to do about hardware, instead focusing on such topics as algorithms, software engineering, and web development. A reasonable prediction is that the success at the higher education level will shortly begin filtering down to at least the high school level. Support for technology courses is very similar to that for the interactive learning process, with the important exception of the addition of a highly technologically proficient teachers. Teacher content expertise and hands-on, project-based learning rules!
Lastly, on the priority scale is school administration and management support. Why last? Simply, it is not as close to the learning process nor nearly as time-sensitive. However, support is more complex involving uncommon software applications such as Blackbaud's suite of applications, one or more of the hundreds of school management, bookkeeping/accounting, curriculum management and mapping, lesson planning, grade book, report card and assessment software packages. Keeping these applications repaired and up-to-date along with the incumbent database and database server administration and management (both back room and user) takes a huge slice of time, efforts, and budget from the tech department's resources. Not to mention the training required that needs to be scheduled and performed. Sure to take a big chunk out of the tech budget.
Faculty/staff technology professional development. I believe that if anything has held back classroom/curriculum technology integration, student self-directed learning and efficient use of school administration and learning management software, it is the insufficiency of technology professional development. I would encourage establishment of a technology professional development program that took into account the personal situations, learning styles and instructional needs of each teacher/staff member and one that included a teacher/staff/administrator individual learning plan agreement consistent with the school’s mission, goals, objectives and budgetary constraints while maximizing use of internal expertise (technologists and teacher/staff-technology leaders from within teacher learning communities and staff offices). Though research has shown that traditional, workshop-based professional development is ineffective, I would not hesitate to lobby the administration, board and community for additional funding to take advantage of select commercial programs that have a proven track record. A bit of aside gripe coming. Remember when Microsoft Office switched from the traditional menu interface to the "ribbon"? Or when your administrators pushed to change out the teachers' desktops for laptops? Or when the Board decided to implement a one-to-one computing program in the next school year? Yep, the techies were expected to develop change management skills overnight, design appropriate instructional sessions and execute.
Given finite technology resources, the interactive learning process should be the highest priority. Basically, it's all about integrating (infusing, if you must) technology into the teaching-learning dynamic within the classroom. Enough has been written and said by others and me in previous blogs. For now, let's just say that success in this category lies at the confluence of curricular content, constructivist pedagogies, and technology—that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning and encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education. Technology support in this category is on ensuring that classroom hardware is available when needed and operates reliably, that required software and apps are installed and functioning properly and that each classroom has reliable access to the network and the Internet. Each classroom should have a primary and alternate method of rapidly reporting issues to the technology department.
More and more emphasis is being placed on the unilateral learning process. This learning process can be defined as one wherein students without the supervision or oversite of, or immediate interaction with, a teacher, school staff member or another student use a digital device while performing learning tasks. Homework is the most common, traditional example. The flipped classroom, one-to-one computing programs and BYOD efforts are placing more emphasis on student self-learning. Whether or not these initiatives are enhancing or will enhance student learning, the tech department is obligated to ensure that the system fully supports the process 24/7. Coming into play here are various compartmentalized servers, interoperative operating system platforms, security and backups, remote access, acceptable use agreements and policies, safety, policies and procedures and I'm sure many more that do not come to mind readily. If students are expected to perform online research, analysis, synthesis, etc. from their own or family computers and the computer or their Internet is not functioning, what then? What if they don't even have access to a computer outside of school? How does the institution accommodate them? If the school provides them, how does a tech department maintain as many as 2,000 tablets? The questions of expense and support are many and complex. If such programs are effective, I believe that the educational gap between the haves and have-nots will continue to grow.
The third category and priority, technology as a separate subject area, seems to have declined in popularity in K-12 schools. The decline in great part is due to perceived student familiarity with common use hardware and software from early ages. At the same time, STEM is being pushed at all levels. And surprisingly, the following is from the Business Insider, September 11, 2014: "This semester, a record-breaking 818 Harvard students — nearly 12% of the entire college — enrolled in one popular class, reports The Crimson. The course, Computer Science 50: "Introduction to Computer Science I" (CS50), pulled in 100 more students than the 700 that signed up last fall, making it the single largest class in the course's 30-year history, as well as the biggest class at Harvard College this semester." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-course-at-harvard-2014-9#ixzz3YMjsSDCt The course has little to do about hardware, instead focusing on such topics as algorithms, software engineering, and web development. A reasonable prediction is that the success at the higher education level will shortly begin filtering down to at least the high school level. Support for technology courses is very similar to that for the interactive learning process, with the important exception of the addition of a highly technologically proficient teachers. Teacher content expertise and hands-on, project-based learning rules!
Lastly, on the priority scale is school administration and management support. Why last? Simply, it is not as close to the learning process nor nearly as time-sensitive. However, support is more complex involving uncommon software applications such as Blackbaud's suite of applications, one or more of the hundreds of school management, bookkeeping/accounting, curriculum management and mapping, lesson planning, grade book, report card and assessment software packages. Keeping these applications repaired and up-to-date along with the incumbent database and database server administration and management (both back room and user) takes a huge slice of time, efforts, and budget from the tech department's resources. Not to mention the training required that needs to be scheduled and performed. Sure to take a big chunk out of the tech budget.
Monday, April 13, 2015
What are the desirable personal and professional characteristics of a good manager/supervisor?
A good manager is a manager in the traditional sense: performs the planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling functions in an acceptable and safe manner. However, an “excellent” manager is a manager and an excellent leader. Successful leaders are creative visionaries who develop and pursue goals, objectives and values in a collaborative, communicative, transparent, motivational and cooperative manner while demonstrating that they sincerely care about and respect the stakeholders. An excellent leader realizes that mission accomplishment and valuing and taking care of people are not a zero sum game but are interdependent. Leaders can readily extrapolate operational objectives from strategic missions and goals and facilitate accomplishment. Being visionaries, leaders are not afraid to take calculated risks. A good manager is reactive; an excellent manager is proactive. Manager-leaders are experts in their field, lead by example, are team players as well as team leaders and are capable of applying differing leadership styles depending on the nature and urgency of the situation.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
instaGrok - a better search/research tool
I've not been a big fan of introducing apps into education that are not readily transferable to life after school. There are exceptions when the apps promote age appropriateness and significantly facilitate the learning process. After an initial review, I believe instaGrok does both especially in a 1:1 program coupled with a partial flipped classroom environment.
www.instagrok.com
instaGrok is an educational Internet search engine and research tool that provides a visual mind map of themes related to search keywords wherein users can:
Self-discovery & self-learning = skills
www.instagrok.com
What is instaGrok?
instaGrok is an educational Internet search engine and research tool that provides a visual mind map of themes related to search keywords wherein users can:
- customize the map by drilling down into the mind map and virtually pin web sites, facts, videos and more
- take notes in a journal and create an instant bibliography (EasyBib)
- self-assess
- share work
Why instaGrok?
Self-discovery & self-learning = skills
- Search becomes research
- Facilitates critical thinking (concept synthesis)
- Enhances writing & vocabulary
- Promotes academic language
- Systems perspective (see the connections)
- Safe – age-appropriate academic web orientation
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