Clinging to the Industrial Age

Heare are three great quotes, all concerning resistance to change.

From Dangerously Irrelevant:

The personal computer has been around for about 30 years. For most of us, the Internet has been around for about 10 years. And yet we still have a sizable percentage of teachers and administrators who can barely work their computers. What does this say about us as educators? As employees of supposed learning organizations who purportedly are all about 'life-long learning?'

From Craig's Blog, quoting David Warlick:

No generation in history has ever been so thoroughly prepared for the industrial age.


From Academic Evolution:
Academia wants to have the Internet, but not let it change its exclusive knowledge management practices. It wants to exploit the advantages of online communication without letting such communication challenge its expertise model. But you can't have it both ways. You can't participate in a medium fundamentally built around the concept of openness if you insist on a closed model of expertise and knowledge control. You can try (and academia is trying), but knowledge will simply route around the bad nodes. It comes down to this: the more academia wishes to enjoy the benefits of the digital medium, the less it can hold on to restrictive and closed practices in the production, vetting, dissemination, and archiving of information.

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"Industrial Age" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Skycaptaintwo

Drive-thru Take Out Special-- Hot Links

This weekend's Drive-thru special is a serving of "hot links". Spicy, hot, tasty.

Diigo Education
Faithful readers of this blog know that I am a Diigo enthusiast. With its highlighting and sticky notes it is a fabulous personal research tool, and it offers revolutionary possibilities for collaborative research. Diigo also offers a special account for teachers. which allows you to ...

• create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
• set up Students of the same class automatically as a Diigo group.
• provide students with pre-set privacy settings so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them

Dangerously Irrelevant

Scott McLeod's at Iowa State collects some great stuff at his Dangerously Irrelevant site. He consistently dishes up good stuff. Click the above link and you will be directed to an interesting set of quote, like this one: "Information and knowledge are absolutely fundamental to what education is all about . . . and it would be impossible for the information revolution to unfold and not have transformative implications for how children can be educated and how schools and teachers can more productively do their jobs."

A Virtual Revolution is Occurring at College

The Washington Post recently published an article predicting that "this year may be part of the last generation for which 'going to college' means packing up, getting a dorm room and listening to tenured professors. . . . Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet." Can secondary education be far behind?

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"Take Out" with generous permission of americanvirus

Finding Authentic Audiences

The best education prof I had in grad school was Dr. Fred Goodman. Once he told us once that if classrooms were open to public audiences, that we'd see teachers with clipboards, stop watches, and whistles; just like football coaches. I could completely relate. I thought how conscious I was of using every second of practice time as a basketball coach and how casually some teachers treated the first two or three weeks of school with "easing students in." We've all had teachers who spent large portions of class time telling us about how they spent the weekend or what they watched on television. Would they do this if the class had to perform under the lights on Friday, night? Probably not.

I think public performance should have a prominent place in best teaching practices. As I've noted in Why Blog?, expressing my opinions in a public forum serves to refine my thinking and even hold my feet to the fire of innovation. I've certainly found in teaching an AP course, that knowing the students' scores will be a matter of public record, has a way of focusing one's mind as a teacher. Last spring, I started to set up online exhibition spaces for some of my students' best work and submit these links to our school's online community newsletter. I joined the "Authentic Audiences" challenge based learning group at the ADE Summer Institute, last July, inspiring the title of this post and allowing me to get others' ideas about this topic. I'm absolutely convinced that schools should be aggressively seeking audiences for students.

But what to do in the mean time? Well, I've decided to drop it in the students' laps. My AP Government challenge based learning project requires them to identify an audience and to create an "authentic medium" for reaching it. Cop out or break through? I'll know in a couple of months and get back to you, then!

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Flickr Creative Commons Photo of the Big House in Ann Arbor by jeffwilcox

First Renewed and then Re-olded

A friend of mine recently said that I was the only teacher she knew who was really looking forward to the start of the school year. While some may see this as a sign of mental disorder, I prefer to think that it has much to do with getting into technology integration-- I've felt renewed by the fun and challenge. But I'm starting to feel a bit reolded. There are crusty old features of our school routine that kind of wear me down. I'm feeling a little grumpy, so I've decided to air them out.

We have a 1:1 computing school, but some folks in my building must believe that online communication only belongs in the academic realm of a school. (I'm sure this is not unique to our school community and would love to hear from others). These are the kinds of things distractions and annoyances I'm talking about:

P.A. Messages- It's too easy to just grab the mic and broadcast a message across the building with a P.A. blast, (even though it may be during class). Often the full school announcement is directed to a couple of class officers or concerns one person's misplaced backpack. Tryouts for teams or groups are announced day after day. Never mind that everyone has their own private communication access in the form of a laptop. A couple of years ago, $50,000.00 was raised at one of our fund-raisers for a new P.A. system. Wow, in my opinion that money could have better spent on more nuanced mediums of messaging or training for individuals on how to set up a group email for their club or team.

Student email-- This piggybacks on the last one. Ironically, I recently sat in a department meeting where a request from our Curriculum Council was shared, asking that we remind the students to check their email. Could it be that the students don't check their email because they know that the messages will be redundantly communicated on the P.A., often several times? (And was this a worthy agenda item for the face-to-face meetings where the rather impotent request was made?).

Staff Meetings (large and small) where one-way communication from behind a podium is featured. Face to face communication may not needed for reports and directions that could be blogged or emailed, but those with the power to gather a captive audience, squander dozens of potentially productive hours of staff time this way. I've noticed that this kind of communication usually involves non-curricular matters.

Vote Tabulations - This "Spirit Week" we will be doing tabulations in our homerooms this week to determine how many students are showing spirit that day. OK, fine, I'm all for spirit. but then staff is required to take these required to immediately walk these paper tallies to the front desk for tabulation. What a waste of fifty professionals' time, when there are innumerable electronic alternatives. Granted this example is only a one week sideshow, but it is somewhat representative of the nondigital nature of our homeroom doings.

You are correct that if you have concluded that I am blowing off steam about pet peeves. But in a 1:1 school they need to be called out. Besides disrespecting others' time and attention these "old tech" habits erode progress toward building a school culture that nourishes 21st Century communication networks. This is about all staff modeling and embracing the new tools that we hope our students will master. The medium is sending the wrong message.

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Amish Parking Sign Flickr CC photo by margotmiller

My Ed Tech Manifesto (part 1)-- Creeping toward Connectivism)

I have never really contemplated my "educational philosophy." Even on my first job applications out of college, I fudged that section, blurring principles with methods. This is in part because I am a practical person. I'm willing to compromise and change course. When I coached basketball, I adapted my approach to the players rather than teach them my offensive or defensive "philosophy".

Also, my formal introduction into educational philosophy and was a bit of a disaster. Rebounding from the Sixties, my profs were all about completely open schools and Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Once my grad assistant teachers simply brought two children to our class, and we watched them play for half an hour. The profound lesson of this escaped me. I think it had something to do with not letting these poor innocents become just another brick in the wall.

So why would I start musing about educational philosophy in my thirty-fifth year of teaching? Well, as usual for me these days, it's the unintended consequence of my tech activities. Through the Fall of '08, I had been consumed with the classroom ramifications of the read/write Web. Then, in winter '09, I grappled with writing a staff development proposal for our tech integration committee. In it I called for changing the school culture by establishing school wide social media"projects":

Staff would engage in the same kinds of collaboration experiences we wish to provide our students. And really, if the school is committed to the program, no one should be exempt through special pleading of being "too busy."

Since writing those words I came across a statement by faire alchemist that nailed what I was going for:

. . . .computers have been around for a long time. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the network itself. We're talking about the paradigm of immediate global connection. [We need to] engage this thing for the benefit of the students who are already living their own lives in this digital domain,

When I was drafting my staff development plan I shot it off to several experts, requesting feedback. A thoughtful, nuanced reply came from George Siemens. His paradigm of "connectivism"-- hit me right between the eyes. . . .and is the subject of part 2 (September 16 post).

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"Skirt on a Box Bike" Flickr Creative Commons photo by Mark Stosberg

The Child is Father to the Man (ADE Institute Reflection #3)

From what I can see, the best scientists and engineers nurture a child-like mind. They are playful, open minded and unrestrained by the inner voice of reason, collective cynicism, or fear of failure. -- Steve Jurvetson

During the ADE Summer Institute I sometimes took very brief notes. Looking over these, I spotted "finding the inner child", certainly not a phrase original the session or the speaker. What is more, I can't remember the context. Was it about connecting learners with the "inner child"? I don't think so. If I had to bet, I think it had something to do with the "personal branding" activities we experienced. I believe we were being urged to connect with something deep and authentic within ourselves.

Regardless, I did have a realization about a desire deeply rooted in my younger self. I was trying to express why-- after 0ver thirty years of teaching high school-- I suddenly felt a strong urge to make ed tech presentations to adults. Examining this urge more closely I remembered that when I was young, I loved organizing activities for the kids in the neighborhood-- my peers. I set up little carnivals. I organized whiffle ball tournaments. I kept detailed statistics on our dice baseball card games. Once I got hold of a stop watch and recorded times of everyone's dash around the block. I enjoyed figuring out these systems, organizing the plan, and being in charge.
I still do! As I write, I have three presentations coming up in the Fall. I'm already up to my elbows in the plans. I'm not doing this because I am anxious and neurotic-- I truly enjoy the projects. I'm as happy as I was back when I had that stop watch in my hands.

The personal branding exercises culminated in a one minute video that was shot in a studio at Full Sail University. We authored our own one minute scripts. Mine ended with the statement, "I'm lucky to be teaching at a time when technology provides so many dynamic possibilities." For someone like me who loves to design plans and orchestrate, it seems like I get to stay out in the yard, playing with my friends.

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"Child's Eyes" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Joe Lencioni

The Times They are A-Changin' (or not)

Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
-- Bob Dylan

Will Richardson's outstanding "Tinkering Toward Utopia" blog post contemplates the challenges of achieving meaningful change within our schools. Please read it as I've only pulled out one quote from Phillip Schlechtly's book:

As long as any innovations that are introduced can be absorbed by the existing operating systems without violating the limits of the social systems in which they are embedded, change in schools is more a matter of good management than one of leadership. . . .In these cases, while it is sometimes difficult to break old habits, usually after a brief period of resistance, old certainties are abandoned and new certainties are embraced. For example, teachers now routinely use PowerPoint slide shows where once they used overhead projectors and slate boards. The reason this transition was relatively easy to accomplish is that it did not change the role of the teacher. . . . But when innovations threaten the nature and sources of knowledge to be used or the way power and authority are currently used and distributed–in other words, when they require changes in social systems as well as operating systems–innovation becomes more difficult. This is so because such changes are disruptive in inflexible social systems.

I believe this to be true-- our schools' cultures will need to changed in order to adopt the kind of connected, personalized learning environments that many of us envision. But it's important that those who are reluctant not be scolded and threatened. They'll just hunker down. They must be shown that it's easier than ever before to jump into the Read/Write Web and become acquainted with popular sites and applications. One can branch out from there. Furthermore, as much as I hate "death by PowerPoint" the latest versions of presentation software (Gosh, just check out Apple's Keynote) allow for terrific creativity, multi-media, and web integration. This is a far cry from slate boards.

We CAN also insist to our friends and peers that the important tools which will make learning easier for our students, even if we have to stretch ourselves a bit. Most teachers care enough about the kids to be concerned about giving them the best. At this point, perhaps the best we can hope for is an environment where experimentation and innovation is encouraged "at the fringes", providing successful models for enticing other teachers. Then, other members of the community need to be connected to those driving change.

As I've argued before, leaders must work to support (and model) this kind of exploration by the risk takers in the school community. Laying out guilt-trips is quick and easy (and won't accomplish change). Take a look around. The connectivity afforded by the Web is transforming many of the old institutions at a rapid pace. Educators must accept this and do their darndest to find the best ways to lead this transformation by engaging with it at whatever level possible.

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"Bob Dylan-- The Times They Are A-Changin" used with kind permission of 8270037.

Personal Learning Networks (ADE Institute Reflection)

The Apple Distinguished Educator Summer Institute was a profound professional development experience for me. Over the next few weeks I will share reflections on the experience.

Probably the most valuable take-away is how being an ADE impacts my own "Personal Learning Network." I am now connected to the fabulous resources of Apple Computer. and hard wired into a community of passionate and innovative digital educators.

As Karl Fisch points out, you are already in a PLN:

A PLN isn’t a particularly new idea; learning networks have existed for a long time. What’s new is the reach and extent that’s now possible for a PLN, with technology and global interconnectedness providing the opportunity for a much wider, richer and more diverse PLN than ever before.

I 've been drawing my professional strength from a more global PLN for a year or so. One of my first blog posts marveled at the way Web 2.0 was drawing information from outside my school. It is now much more clear to me that we must help our students use their social media skills to construct their own learning networks. This will help us break down the rigid restraints of desks, schedules, bricks, and teacher-at-student design.

One cannot help to guide students in this enterprise unless he or she has experienced the benefits of a broad and vibrant PLN. If this is new to you, here are basic suggestions for extending yours:

* Join professional social networks like Nings ( "free" online platforms for creating social networks). Start with large ones like Classroom 2.0 and EduBlogger World. Then be on the lookout for more specialized groups. I joined three Nings while at the Summer Institute. Similarly, wikis and listservs provide similar advantages.

* Set up an RSS feed of your favorite blogs. Ever since Will Richardson recommended Google Reader to our staff, I've used it. I try to keep a cap of ten ed tech blogs so that I don't become overwhelmed. Liz Davis provides a simple two minute YouTube tutorial on setting up the Google Reader. After this has become a comfortable part of your life, then begin to engage in the conversations on the blogs.

* Start blogging yourself, or set up a Ning around your own special interests and invite others to join!

* David Warlick suggests virtual worlds: Sometimes called MUVEs, [they] are places on the Internet where people can meet and work together, regardless of geography. Many educators consider their Second Life avatar as their primary node point for their PLN.

* Social Bookmarking offers fabulous opportunities for collaboration. I've enthused about the highlighting, note sharing possibilites of Diigo in earlier blog posts.

* None of my faithful readers will be surprised that I've saved the best for last. As I wrote in Why Twitter? , once you learn to filter who you "follow", Twitter can be a rich source of links, blogs, and easily digestible nuggets of professional reflection. It is extremely low maintenance, requiring less personal investment than Facebook. Twitter has been a key to my own professional growth by leaps and bounds.

Please suggest other ways for educators to build their PLNs!

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Screen Capture of ADE PLN Ning

Food for Thought

Lots of time to read online this summer. Here are some nuggets from my reading. Food for thought.

NCTE Tries to Define 21st-C Writing--- lol

NCTE is trying to wrap their arms around, and control, informal writing styles that predominate Web 2.0 and are labeling them unacceptable. They state that the new generation are learning from,"extracurricular social co-apprenticeship." A term like this will have a typical 16 year old heading for the hills with their iPhones! :-) This sounds like an organization feeling a loss of control trying to control a social phenomenon. Good luck with that.

If We Could Start Over, What Would We Build?

In the networked learning communities of the future, expert learners (we call them teachers, educators, scientists, and researchers today) are going to be recognized for their ability to learn and help others learn, as they continue to construct new knowledge and develop their own expertise.

Why Do I Hate Paper?

Ideas brought forth in a dynamic environment should not be 'written on paper', in the symbolic sense. In other words, they should not be thought of as singular and final products to be graded and filed away; rather, ideas are always in flux and current to debate and change and this is a good thing, an innovative thing, and cooperative interactive online docs with no fixed 'due date' are more natural to use in this environment of thinking -- that is they are more an extension of this type of thinking -- than a piece of paper kept in one's folder smooshed in the grimy depths of one's bookbag could ever be.

Bobb Boots out Top DPS Executives

Our goal is to transform the central office. . . .We want it to be the center of support, not the center of attention for our schools.

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"Food for Thought" Flickr photo available with permission by aporter

Ed Tech Leadership & Transparency

I've been holding onto a couple of quotes for several weeks, but they keep coming back to me, because they help to explain why Web 2.0 has changed education far less than other areas of society.

The first quote is from Will Richardson:

Schools . . . have a responsibility to help kids lead transparent lives online in ways that prepare them for the highly complex relationships they will be having in these virtual spaces as adults. But to do that, schools have to get more transparent themselves.

The second quote comes from fellow ADE '09, Scott Elias:

Of the 52 ADEs that were selected this year, there are teachers, school technology coordinators, college professors, and district-level tech folks. But as far as I can tell, I’m the only school administrator. What’s up with that?

We’ve got amazing teachers doing great things in the classroom and we’ve got district people with good intentions. . . .

Building administrators are the vital link in this chain. How can we get more of them thinking about change? How can we expect our teachers to think ahead if so few administrators do?

It is one thing to read about ed tech, cheerlead and cajole. But how many school leaders are willing to change their own habits and and model their new habits for their staffs? Do administrators use Web tools to communicate? Do they network with other educators through Nings? Do they blog? Do they Tweet? If they don't, then regardless of their best intentions, how can they truly lead their staffs to do these same things?

Changing the culture of a school is necessary to truly take advantage of the read and write Web. It's easier to buy the equipment and furniture than it is to change the culture of a school. But teachers pumping PowerPoint through data projectors and students taking notes on laptops is not change. Such change will only occur if the adults, and particularly those at the top, exemplify a zest for learning about and engaging with the new powerful tools which are radically changing the ways people learn and communicate.

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"transparency" Flickr Creative Commons photo by sleepingbear

I Wonder as I Blogger

A family member recently asked me what I had been reading these days. I sheepishly said, "blogs." Here's a sampling of some interesting stuff I've come across online:

Twitter is a Player in Iran's Drama

The State Department asked social-networking site Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance earlier this week to avoid disrupting communications among tech-savvy Iranian citizens as they took to the streets to protest Friday's reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Myth of the Parasitical Blogger

"One of the favorite accusations that many journalists spout. . .is that bloggers and other online writers are "parasites" on their work. . . .The reality has always been far more mixed than that, and the relationship far more symbiotic than parasitical." [Commenting on NYT columnist's blatant plagiariasm of a blogger].

The Problem with Faculty Meetings

. . . . basically everything that the administration printed out could just have been posted on a blog. . . .If the information is posted on a blog, then it can be responded to and discussion can continue long after the meeting ends. . . .The admins can present the info, we as a faculty can have a discussion, and then that discussion can continue to happen online.

E-learning 2.0

The structures and organization that characterized life prior to the Internet are breaking down. Where intermediaries, such as public relations staff, journalists or professors, are not needed, they are disregarded. Consumers are talking directly to producers, and more often than not, demanding and getting new standards of accountability and transparency. Often, they inform the productive process itself, and in many cases, replace it altogether."

US Public Ed Like GM in the 80s
Why can Apple suggest iTunes to your teen but we're not smarter about suggesting how to learn physics?"

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Flickr Creative Commons Photo of Beware of "Dog" by Doc Acula

A School's Choice-- Parent Pushback or Feedback on Web?

This weekend my Facebook unwittingly hosted a brief exchange critical of my school. This was initiated by a Friend who is also a parent of a student. A day later I came across Scott Mcleod's Help Wanted-- Parents Who Are Blogging about Their Local Schools

The conjunction of two experiences got me thinking about the importance of schools providing 21st Century communication online. Our school's web site is typical. It is primarily set-up on the Web 1.0 model of providing one-way communication of what we suppose folks ought to know about us. Schools should move to Web 2.0 for several reasons:

To Provide the Information that Folks Really Want
Check some of the web pages at your school's site. I bet some are extremely detailed. A case in point: We have a 1:1 program, and the details we post about our laptops are incredibly dense and technical. Quite possibly parents investigating our site and considering sending their child to our school would actually learn more with less of this variety of one-way information. Providing a FAQ with a section for visitor questions and our tech department's expert answers would be more focused and engaging. Some questions could be uncomfortable, but ignoring them will not make them go away. Most importantly, the school would be supplying information that the parents actually want.

To Cultivate Ownership
Won't parents feel a greater stake in the school if their input is valued? What would be the downside of an athletic director blogging and then promoting a conversation with filtered comments to the blog? A school play director could do this. The attendance officer or the principal herself might. Instead of burdening individuals with the responsibility of maintaining a blog, several could take turns on a School Activities page. The options are limitless.

If a group is doing a fund-raising at the school, why not draw stakeholders into the activity by welcoming suggestions in addition to providing information?

It is easy to imagine classroom teachers hosting guest blogs on special activities. Last semester, we had some mock election activities. A blog might have provided interesting information and even elicited parent participation in the activity. There would be no reason to insulate such a civic minded activity.

I think opening up activities to dialogue in this way promotes a sense of community and places the school the posture of being open to constructive conversation.

To Improve the School
Isn't it quite possible that more than good feeling alone may be promoted through dialogue? I've certainly seen my students produce some exceptional out of the box approaches to Web 2.0 collaboration. Isn't it likely that the parents could bring some good suggestions to the table? Why not take advantage of the full range of a community's perspectives and expertise?

The Media is the Message
We have a 1:1 school. We promote Read/Write Web instructional design. Shouldn't we practice what we preach? This is "scary" because it means greater transparency. But in fact this is a change that is happening in the great society (a very change that instigated our push for ed tech in the first place!).

Of course it is possible to continue avoiding doing any of the the things that I have suggested here, but as Mcleod's article implies, this will not stop parents from communicating and interacting online. It seems to me that a school only stands to gain by welcoming constructive two-way communication with today's technology.

I would love to hear your suggestions and reactions.

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"One Way Out" Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Wombatunderground1

Twelve Tweets

Twitter limits tweets to 140 characters based on the question, "What are you doing?" From the flotsam and jetsam of the Twitter stream produced by the 100 people I "follow", I have fished out twelve recent treasures for you to contemplate:

When people are in their element, they are in their most authentic selves . . and it is essential for our communities The "Yellow Pages" was delivered this morning to my doorstep. What's the point?

I don't recall ever teaching "Man versus To-Do List" as a form of dramatic conflict when I was teaching literature classes.

Isn't prayer kind of the ultimate backchannel in some ways?

Social media is like grilling; sometimes it'll look done on the outside but not inside. Strategy is a must.

“The web has made kicking a** easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest.”

Teaching creative thinking and flexibility etc is not extra curricular, it needs to be part of the core curriculum

I'm content stating that knowledge is a configuration of connections....

[A quote about using Twitter to backchannel at a conference]- "It is like passing notes during class."

Teenagers can't multi-task as well as adults because their brains are still learning how to process multiple pieces-

My biased realization- IT Teachers & Specialists who don't use Twitter are not keeping up to date.

labcbaker I think I'm in love...with Garageband.
ScottElias@labcbaker Ah, yes. GarageBand love.



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"Tweet Tweeting Birdie Pin Badge" with kind permission of icklebird

Education "Suicide Watch" (with apologies to Frank Rich)

Dramatic blog title? It's not totally off the wall. As a resident of Southeastern Michigan I have been following the wrenching decline, diminution, and possible deaths of GM and Chrysler with anxiety and fascination. When an acquaintance from Massachusetts referred to this process as "creative destruction", I considered it callous, even offensive.

On the other hand, I think I have been guilty of the same emotional distance as I have followed the Newspaper Death Watch. I spoke often and openly with the journalism students in my AP Government classes about their pursuit of a rapidly evaporating dream.

I was jolted out of my emotional disconnect from old media death-throes when the Ann Arbor News suddenly announced it would cease publication in July. Grandfather Baker worked for Booth newspapers his entire career and ultimately became editor of the Ann Arbor News. The end of the paper seems a slight against his memory.

But the problem seems so obvious, doesn't it? How could the a business model based on the processing and physical delivery of ink-on-tree-pulp to the nation's doorsteps be sustainable? The high-speed internet kicks the traditional newspaper's butt on the all important issues of immediacy and cost. But naturally, many of us are concerned real journalism will die along with the old media. Might this not have dire consequences for our democracy?

In Sunday's New York Times (which I read online of course) Frank Rich reflects on these very issues. In a piece entitled "The American Press on Suicide Watch" he chronicles the industry's "self-destructive retreat from innovation" and suggests that newspapers might survive this technological revolution, just as the movies adjusted to tv and music evolved in a post-Napster world. His darkest concerns focus on the future of investigative journalism and the inability of "blogs" to substitute for true reporting:

Opinions, however insightful or provocative and whether expressed online or in print or in prime time, are cheap. Reporting the news can be expensive. Some of it — monitoring the local school board, say — can and is being done by voluntary “citizen journalists” with time on their hands, integrity and a Web site. But we can’t have serious opinions about America’s role in combating the Taliban in Pakistan unless brave and knowledgeable correspondents (with security to protect them) tell us in real time what is actually going on there. We can’t know what is happening behind closed doors at corrupt, hard-to-penetrate institutions in Washington or Wall Street unless teams of reporters armed with the appropriate technical expertise and assiduously developed contacts are digging night and day.

Personally, I think the best chance of something like our old newspapers surviving is Kindle. Last week Amazon introduced the Kindle DX, which may set the standard for newspapers, magazines, and books the way iTunes has done for digital music.

What does any of this have to do with education? Much. In the short term, teachers can enjoy the tremendous windfall of free information being provided by old media as it offers free content online in order to lure advertising . Without this free-for-all my digital anthology project would be much more difficult.

But how different is the education "old school" mind set from "old mainstream media" titans who steered their industry into the rocks. "Old school"continues to privilege ink-on-paper, brick and mortar, one teacher to 30 students. Administrators treat school calendars and schedules as sacredly as the old-time newspaper editors treated "deadlines".

But news doesn't stop happening at deadlines and learning doesn't stop when the bell rings. Most in the ed establishment still conceive of teaching as something that happens when an old guy like me stands in front of students at desks and delivers lectures from the podium. For them, "technology" means the old guys does death-by-PowerPoint instead of death by chalkboard.

Since education is so heavily subsidized by public funds, it's not on the verge of dying as my teaser implies. But how can we suppose that a process so stale and outmoded can contribute to a thriving society which competes in a flat world of rapid change? We risk a great deal by clinging to the old ways.

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"Old Man with Newspaper" Flickr Creative Commons photo by andreas.plesnik

Drive-thru Weekend Take Out

Monitoring Gmail Labs
If you are a Gmail user, you would be doing yourself an enormous favor to check out the features at Gmail Labs. Among many other add-on features, Google now allows you to
* access your inbox offline.
*create a Google Document from an email.
*mark messages as read without reading them.
*undo "send" (five second delay).
*add a button that lets you send a reply and archive the conversation in a single action.
*insert images into an email.
....and much more.

The labs have been churning out new features like crazy. To stay abreast, I recommend that your subscribe to the Gmail Blog. It's the perfect blog, because the team only reports when it has something to say (Just like the Drive-thru?).

Using PowerSchool Comments Creatively
I’ve always disliked the programmed “comments” options that electronic grade books provide. Currently I use custom comments in PowerSchool, but often unconventionally. For example, I will use the comment section to log notes on participation or other classroom behavior. I may use the comments to indicate that a student didn’t bring notes for an open note quiz, or neglected to take advantage of an extra credit opportunity. Of course, I make plenty of positive comments to students, but recording some basic facts about shortcomings for my own records is very helpful at conferences with parents or counselors. They are less likely to float theories of how the teacher may be the cause of the student's under performance if the teacher has noted specific occasions where the student has been unprepared or distracted. I have found this documentation extremely helpful for "cutting to the chase."

Handy Storage at Box.net
At our school, teachers use Moodle to post files that students need for class. But when the students use Wikis or the teacher needs to host larger files than your Moodle administrator will allow, it’s nice to have another third party storage option. I’m a big fan of Box.net. They provide one gigabyte of file storage free (upgrades to larger storage options are reasonable). After an easy upload, the tools for embedding, sharing or downloading the files are highly intuitive. If you are a regular reader of the Drive-thru, you’ve come across more than a few hyperlinks to Box.net files.

P.S. The Drive-thru continues to publish on M,W,F for the rest of the school year.

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"Take Out" with generous permission of americanvirus

Building Virtual Audiences for Students

Teachers' Lounge Series, part 4 of 4

Ron and I were talking about podcasting several months ago, and during the course of our conversation he inquired about my course web sites. He expressed an interest in developing a drama department site, and I've been nagged by the thought ever since. My course sites were pretty easy to develop with Apple's iWeb-- It's user friendly and I had several months experience.

I think course web sites are important because 1) They allow a much better view of the class than a mere paper syllabus. 2) People simply expect to get detailed information online these days. I think a 1:1 computing school like mine should put as much well designed information on the Web as possible.

In creative areas like drama this seems particularly desirable. But why should it be on the drama, poetry, or music teacher to design and maintain the site? Shouldn't a school's community resources be used to actively support the efforts of our artistic teachers and students as they try to build their audiences?

As I've argued in "Tooting Your Horn", students respond to performance and since those outside our walls are coming to expect information about us at their fingertips, why not show them the best of ourselves? To illustrate how effective this can be, I've found four different high school sites that I would hold up as examples.

I loved the student art portfolios at the Conestoga H.S. site. It is my impression that the department has taken the initiative to archive its students work this way. Most extraordinarily, it appears that each student has designed her own page with links, so the media itself communicates the message of this department being exceptional.

The Parkview High School drama site is absolutely packed with production photos and slide shows. I would have loved to see some video, but obviously they are exhibiting their students in the next best way. Northampton High School Theater Net appears to be a beautiful work in progress. Simple tools have been used to create an elegant design for a site packed with information. They are beginning a wiki, which contains a very interesting layout. Imagine how such a wiki could accommodate student memories of their experience with a play or club at your school.

The Wooster High School Music Department won't perhaps win any awards for design, but I was blown away by how much actual music I could find there. What is more, the site contains very creative ways to make connections with members and alumni. I loved the "history" page and the way bios of middle school teachers are included on the staff page. The site is dynamic and fun. If I had a young child in the district I would conclude that my child would have a great experience if he or she were part of this program.

I have a couple of reflections before I conclude this topic that I keep pounding like a drum (see vlog/blogs and Staff Development, part 3). First, I'm in two departments which work very hard at our school's open houses to recruit students. Yet, in both we lay out our texts in order exhibit what we are doing. It seems to me that exhibiting our students' accomplishments gives far greater testimony of how we stand out. Secondly, I recently sought waivers from a few parents in order to exhibit their kids' videoes online. One student told me that her dad had balked. Fine, except this same student had been recently featured in our major daily newspaper with photographs, and unlike my exhibit, with full name and personal information. I think both examples indicate that many of us still cling to printed paper as a privileged way to communicate. From here in the trenches this seems irrational and the sooner we take advantage of broadcasting our students' achievements ourselves, the better.

As I postscript, I note that I am interested in starting a Web Design club at our school to help folks like Ron show off the fabulous work that his department does. I envision club members could benefiting from mentoring by alumni and parents in our school's extended community. I already have a prospective partnership with a web design ace-- my friend, Rick (Who will be guest blogging on these pages soon).

But to tell you the truth, I am skeptical about pulling this off. Ambitious projects like these need the support and encouragement of folks throughout entire school. I think we all have to embrace the reality of the communications revolution and make the vey best of it.

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"E.E.D.L.M.V." Exhibition by moi Creative Commons photo courtesy by Simon Pais-Thomas

Retiring? NO, Reinventing!

"Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now"
-- from My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

This year, I have frequently been asked the question, "When are you retiring?" The main reason for this question is fairly obvious. My good friend and office mate announced his retirement early this school year. Never mind that I am seven years younger than he is. What with my balding pate, I probably look older. Besides, I have taught 34 years and for many teachers it's "30 and out".

But I'm not remotely ready. As I told Ann J, early this year, I have the sense of being on top of my game like never before. I've always sought change in my professional life. At first it was new preps in the English Department (at least 11 different courses). Then in the mid 1990s I began teaching American Government. And as this blog attests, the latest version of me is that of Web 2.0 evangelist. My new favorite thing to do at school is conducting staff development workshops on the magic tricks which I have discovered. Being selected as an '09 Apple Distinguished Educator is not the culmination of that new obsession, but the beginning of something even more radical and exciting in my life. I'm not sure where it will lead, but certainly not to early retirement. I've never felt more excited about my professional life.

This post was adapted from a recent Facebook note.

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"Carnival Father Time 2" Flickr Creative Commons Photos by dou_ble_uou

Sage Schuste Seduced by Cyberspace?

His disciples lead him in / And he just does the rest / He's got crazy flipper fingers / Never seen him fall /That deaf, dumb and blind kid / Sure plays a mean pinball.
-- from Tommy

I realize that enthusing about wikis, Google Docs, blogs, and other forms of social media has caused some of my colleagues to question my values, loyalty or even sanity. I suppose I can see how they might think I am drunk on the idea of Web 2.0 being the answer to everything. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. I am into teaching with the best tool for the task, not preferring the new one for its own sake. And frankly, I still believe what David Brooks recently noted in the Times:

We’ve spent years working on ways to restructure schools, but what matters most is the relationship between one student and one teacher.

It's been my privilege to teach next door to a gifted teacher who has impacted literally hundreds of students by touching their hearts. I've never encountered anyone who more passionately teaches about literature and life. He has a remarkable ability to do this with keen humor, yet tenderness; great rigor, but unique sensitivity. Boy, do the students respond. And some are forever changed. But after forty-one years in the classroom, Tom Schusterbauer is getting set to retire in June.

You might suppose at this point that I am on the verge of recanting my profession of faith in the ability of new technology to change education...... Naw.

Though Tom has claimed that he is "no techie" and even "befuddled" by tech, I like many of his "friends", read these statements online, thanks to his recent discovery of Facebook. Talk about a marriage of message and messenger! He has virtually exploded as a one-man super nova of networking with the students who have passed through his classroom semester after semester for forty-one years. His teaching persona has become crystallized online and threatens to thrive well beyond his classroom days. His exquisite "notes" are not to be missed, sometimes producing dozens of responses to his thought-provoking reflections on life. (Does he realize that he is blogging?). If he is no techie, how has he mastered the Goliath of all social media? When I "friended" him, he had just written "In Defense of Facebook." (Hmn....Can you say, "Web 2.0 evangelist"?). I chuckle at his protestations about tech, but I am truly astonished by his Facebook tour de force, and love to check online for his musings, even though we are office mates.

You see, it's not a choice between people and machines. It's about teaching. And someone who is passionate about connecting with students will want to try new ways to teach as the world changes. Web academic, Danah Boyd, recently remarked at the Microsoft Techfest:

Social media is here to stay. Now we just have to evolve with it.

Evolving with it does not mean surrendering our passion for teaching. In fact as Tom has shown, it can amplify our passions far beyond the physical and temporal limitations of classrooms and school years.

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"Captain Fantastic...." Creative Commons Flickr Photo by Gregory Wild-Smith

Larry's Adventures in Wiki Land, Part 2

Whew! My American Government students' wikis are done. You may recall from Part One, the students were charged with assembling curriculum materials for a civil rights or civil liberties project. They then taught this portion of the curriculum to their classmates. I'd like to share some observations on this experience while the memories are fresh:

* More students were actively engaged with the wikis than comparable "paper" report projects of the the past.

* I found it necessary to intervene mid-point in order to remind some groups that the wiki materials should be prepared to instruct their
peers rather than impress me. The instructional design feature still ended up being the weakest aspect of the wikis. This point would need more emphasis in the future.

* Students reported that the projects were "challenging" (good!). But there were no complaints from parents or students about anyone being thoroughly overwhelmed or confused. I enjoyed serving as a guide, and though I was involved inside and outside the class I never felt overwhelmed either. In most groups a tech-adept person surfaced to teach others or take over the reigns for pulling together the PowerPoint.

*Retrospectively, students expressed that they needed more time to meet (in physical space) as they neared the deadline (as opposed to the early stages). I can see why, particularly as related to page design and PowerPoint issues. Point noted for next time.

*Some students reported that they initially had trouble conceiving the idea of the wiki and that consequently the groups set unrealistic goals for themselves. Now, I will have models to show others.

*All of the wikis had solid instructional value, but the study guides which accompanied the wikis were sort of useless because they were overwhelming in quantity of questions. In the future I would adivise the students to provide fewer study questions and better directions on where to look in the wiki in order to find the answers. The embedded slide shows were outstanding, though we had to trouble-shoot some minor technical challenges getting them onto the wiki.

*The most gratifying aspect of the wikis were the variety of media employed. A few groups created their own videos. These were very effective and I will encourage more original material in the future.

* The in class presentations based on the the wikis were several cuts above the usual fare. Our Associate Principal was present for two and was very impressed. In nearly every case the students showed a strong command of the material. I credit the wiki building experience as rooting the knowledge more deeply in the presenters.

*You would like to see the wikis, perhaps? I plan to share them on March 25, when I post, "Tooting Your Horn"
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Screen Capture of "American Government Wiki Hall of Fame"

Techno Topsy-Turvy

Recently, a very bright former student of mine, Elisa Gomez, contacted me through Facebook. Elisa is now in law school, and when she learned about my exploration of Web 2.0, she posted an interesting reaction on my Wall:

....well, to be honest, i think that i spent most of my mandatory school years being told that "those durn computers" aren't worth much/are useless/are a distraction. even now, law school professors are pretty suspicious of how everyone is taking notes on their laptops. I think I'd probably be a little freaked out to suddenly have my teachers promoting online collaboration as valuable and a worthwhile tool. When I was in high school, I was pretty sure I was on the cutting edge and everyone over 30 was stuck in the past. Turning that topsy-turvy is never comfortable!

Upon reflection, it occurred to me that since getting into tech, I have witnessed a number of things go topsy-turvy:

* Some of my most politically progressive colleagues have arch-conservative attitudes towards tech.

* After 41 years of reading his students' work, a retiring teacher has discovered Facebook and now hundreds of present and former students read his "Notes" for a change (More on this, Sunday).

* After a lifetime of trusting newspapers, magazines, and journals to filter information for me, I vet my own experts and do most of my reading through Tweets and Google Reader.

* As we all know, teachers with seniority often seek out the experience of young teachers for tech guidance.

* Media Specialists now lead curriculum discussions rather than merely serving as support staff.

* Though I often blog about my school, the Drive-thru probably has had more visitors from other countries (25) than from MHS.

*Based on my reading, I have the impression that Web 2.0 use as an instructional tool is more prevalent in elementary classrooms than the halls of higher education.

Do you have any examples to add to my list, or would you remove something?

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"Head over Heels" with kind permission of Heaven's Gate (John)