Dangerously Irrelevant

Just Say No to Wikipedia

A middle school librarian in New Jersey has gotten some media attention for her anti-Wikipedia campaign:

Linda O'Connor regards Wikipedia the same way former first lady Nancy Reagan campaigned against drugs. . . . She put up a sign saying "Just Say No to Wikipedia" over the computers in the school library. . . . Wikipedia is blocked on all computers in the Warren Hills Regional School District.

I’m highly skeptical.

If the district is going to take a principled stand against Wikipedia because some information is biased or incorrect, is it also taking out all of the encyclopedias (which research has shown, on average, to be as inaccurate as Wikipedia)? Is it removing all of the news magazines and newspapers? The article makes a big deal about how school librarians preview materials before they’re placed on the shelves, but I can guarantee you that librarians and media specialists do not have time to screen every word of every incoming publication. They miss errors and biases just like the Wikipedia community does. Also, it’s ludicrous to pretend that the school library vetting process is free of bias. Oh, and I challenge you to find a school library that doesn’t have old, outdated (and thus inaccurate) non-fiction and/or reference materials on its shelves.

This is all of a bunch of hooey. This shouldn’t have even been a story. When is the Associated Press going to run this story?

Schools teach kids how to wisely and appropriately navigate 21st century information channels

Or this one?

New Jersey school district blocks kids from using one of the most important and powerful information resources in existence because of mistaken beliefs about inaccuracy and bias

Or maybe this one?

Wikipedia is an amazing contribution to the body of human knowledge. New Jersey school district says ‘No thanks.’

Or is it asking too much of the newspaper press to avoid bias by showing the other side of this issue?

GDP overachievers

Yesterday Karl Fisch and I were e-mailed a link to a video from Shocking Economics. Although I’m neither a demographer nor an economist, the video got me thinking… (bear with me here; there’s a point at the end of all of this!)

As you can see in the spreadheet I made [.xls or .pdf], there is an extremely strong positive correlation (cell E2) between a state’s overall population rank (column D) and its overall GDP rank (column F). In other words, the more people in the state, the bigger GDP it has. California has the most people and it has the biggest GDP. This makes sense.

However, some states seem to be more GDP-efficient than others. For example, Connecticut is ranked 29th in overall population and 23rd in overall GDP, but is the 4th-ranked state when it comes to GDP per capita (column G). In contrast, Alabama is ranked 23rd in overall population and 25th in overall GDP, but is the 45th-ranked state in terms of GDP per capita. Connecticut’s GDP over/under (column H) is +19 (23 minus 4). Alabama’s is -20 (25 minus 45). Connecticut appears to be a GDP overachiever, while Alabama seems to be an underachiever. Dollar for dollar, person for person, Connecticuters are contributing more to the overall national economy than Alabamans.

As the spreadsheet shows (cells K26:K29), states in the Northeast and Pacific regions (as defined by the U.S. Census) are, on average, more GDP-efficient than states in the Midwest or South. There are moderately strong correlations between states’ over/under ratio and their overall population rank (cell E4), overall GDP rank (cell H5), and GDP per capita rank (cell H6). States with smaller populations are moderately more likely to have a higher GDP per capita rank and a better GDP over/under ratio.

So here are 10 select states [click on image for larger version or download the PDF]:

While some of the states (Montana, Maine, New Jersey, and Maryland) have overall GDP ranks and GDP per capita ranks that are congruent, you can see that there are large discrepancies in GDP over/under between the lowest states (Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Arizona) and the highest states (Wyoming, Alaska, Delaware, and Rhode Island). Florida is #4 in overall GDP but #34 in GDP per capita. Wyoming is #48 in overall GDP but #5 in GDP per capita. The lower states seem to be under-contributing to the national economy.

So how does a state like Michigan or Arizona increase its GDP per capita? Well, in today’s day and age, I think these states need to follow the lead of West Virginia (over/under of -9). West Virginia is making strategic, long-term investments in 21st century skills initiatives for its schools. To its credit, it sees that a focus on digital technologies and preparation of a globally-competitive workforce is the best solution for an anemic state economy. It’s probably no coincidence that five of the first six states to join up with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (in red on the spreadsheet) have neutral or negative GDP over/under ratios.

I don’t know if all of this would make sense to an economist, much less a ‘shocking’ one, but it sits well intuitively with me. Although the video points out that our system has worked well for us to date, it also is true that our world is transforming itself in revolutionary ways. Don’t we want our state educational systems to be proactive rather than resting on their laurels and one day waking up to find that their economic models no longer work?

Some great quotes

From Simon Evans:

Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in a different time.  – Hebrew proverb

From Greg Farr:

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.  – Jacob Bronowski

From Richard Florida:

In the US, there are nine cities with more than 1m inhabitants. In China, there are 49. You can be travelling across China, arrive in a city that is twice the size of Houston, and think: I've never even heard of this place.  – Rob Gifford

Youth violence and electronic media

This arrived in my e-mail inbox yesterday:

CDC REVIEW OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA AND YOUTH VIOLENCE
Research Shows Increase in Electronic Aggression

In September 2006, experts from academic institutions, federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations gathered at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, to better understand the varied ways new media technology – blogs, instant messaging, chat rooms, email, text messaging and the Internet – influences youth aggression. The two-day meeting, "Electronic Media and Youth Violence," was held to review current research and to discuss the implications for youth, parents, school staff, and educational policymakers. Data from the review show although rates of electronic aggression are lower than rates of physical and verbal aggression, these rates seem to be increasing. In 2000, 6 percent of internet users ages 10 to 17 said they had been subjected to online harassment; by 2005, the percentage had risen to 9 percent – an increase of 50 percent. 

The complete review can found in the December 2007 supplement of the Journal of Adolescent Health. To access a complete copy of the Journal and the supporting issue briefs, which summarize the research and discuss the implications of these findings for youth, parents, school staff, and educational policy makers, please visit www.cdc.gov/injury.

A few thoughts…

1. Most parents probably don’t do near enough at home to teach and monitor children’s appropriate usage of electronic communication tools. We know that schools and religious institutions don’t when kids are with them. So why should we be surprised that some children and adolescents are using these tools for inappropriate purposes? It’s like Lord of the Flies out there when it comes to adult supervision!
2. The JAH research articles on this topic are impressive. It’s going to take me a while to read through them all. My first scan, however, is that while there seems to be a bevy of top notch, peer-review-quality research there, it’s all on the harmful effects of communication technologies and none on the empowering effects of the same. We need good, data-based information on this topic, but I’d like to see academia provide some counterpoint research on the positive aspects too, not just more fear-driven research. I want to also see a two-day meeting on Electronic Media and Youth Empowerment. We’re not going to back to a tech-less society. Why can’t we get info on both sides of the coin so that we can make intelligent decisions about this stuff?
3. ‘An increase of 50 percent’ sounds ominous. An actual rise from 6 percent to 9 percent doesn’t. Presentation makes all the difference.
4. The policy implications from the expert panel crack me up. Essentially the panel said ‘The federal government should do very little. The states should do more. School districts and schools should do the most.’ In other words, they could have just typed the word ‘federalism’ on a piece of paper, handed it in, and gone out for coffee. Nice job, folks!

Responsibility for asking the right questions

The American Association of School Administrators (AASA), the national organization for school superintendents, asked me to write a column for its monthly magazine, The School Administrator. That article is now available:

• Responsibility for asking the right questions

In the article, I recommended that superintendents ask some key leadership questions:

• When and why do we use digital technology in our classrooms?
• How does our usage of digital technologies align with our curricula and instructional goals?
• How do we know whether technology is being used effectively in the classroom?
• What positive results are we seeing from our use of digital instructional technologies?
• What are the barriers to effective technology usage by students and teachers?
• How can technology better facilitate student learning?

What would you add to the list?

The importance of being 'clickable'

I blogged before about my regular column on technology and higher education for Technology & Learning magazine. My latest article is now available:

• The importance of being 'clickable'

Here's an excerpt:

In the Internet era, it's not enough to have good ideas or content. People also have to be able to find you. Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, puts it this way: "[The risk is] obscurity: the risk that one's work will get lost in the vast digital wilderness of content and voices....In today's information-soaked environment, writers and content creators need to find ways to permeate people's consciousness." . . . [M]y academic colleagues are not clickable.

FYI, I sent Will Richardson a big thank you for his post that inspired the article.

Did You Know? and LeaderTalk are finalists for the 2007 Edublog Awards

It's time to vote for the 2007 Edublog Awards. There are LOTS of great candidates. Go vote for your favorites and discover new ones!

The Did You Know? video that went viral (10 million online viewers and counting!) is nominated for most influential blog post. Although it was my slightly modified version of the video that went viral, a vote for the post is really a vote for Karl Fisch's vision and creativity. Although Karl's own blog is nominated in this category, I confess that I am hoping that Did You Know? wins instead.

I'm also delighted that LeaderTalk is nominated for best group blog. This is a real tribute to the nearly 50 busy administrators and faculty who somehow find time each month to share what it's like to live the life of a school leader today. FYI, we're always looking for new authors. Drop me a note if you'd like to write for LeaderTalk!

[revision: I forgot to note that the TechLearning blog (for which I am a contributor) is also a nominee for best group blog. Oops!]

The Edublog Awards are one way to recognize great blogging. In December I'm going to highlight some other bloggers who I think deserve a bigger audience. Stay tuned!

Technology usage and overlap

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

We can imagine a continuum of frequency of technology usage that looks something like this (click on image for larger version):

People use digital technologies at various levels at both home and work. We can arbitrarily categorize the frequency of their technology usage as a range of very low to very high. Of course individuals may fall into one category at home and another at their workplace.

We can imagine a second continuum of technology usage overlap that looks something like this:

In other words, the digital technologies that people use at work will overlap to various degrees with those used at home. Some folks will have little to no overlap, using one set of tools at home and another at work, while others will utilize similar software and hardware in both locations.

[There’s at least a third possible continuum: type of technology usage. However, I’m not smart enough to figure out how to incorporate into this post how people use their digital technologies so I’ll leave that for someone else. There probably are other dimensions of this as well. Maybe we’ll hear from the tech integration folks!]

We can conceptualize different individuals or job classes by using these two continua. For example, we probably would be safe in guessing that someone working in the information technology industry is likely to use technology a lot both at work and at home. That IT professional also may have substantial crossover between home and work in terms of tool usage. In contrast, a secretary might have a technology-intensive work life, using a computer nearly every minute of every day, but have a less-intensive technology experience at home. Finally, a fast food worker may not use technology much at work or at home, the latter perhaps because of income challenges. Lest I offend anyone, let me note that these are just generalizations to illustrate the use of the two continua; we all can think of many exceptions to these examples.

If we use these continua to think about K-12 schools, then I believe the issue probably looks something like this:

Speaking generally, the people in charge of implementing technology initiatives likely are high users at both home and work, with a fair amount of overlap in terms of the tools that they use. Teachers and administrators, on the other hand, probably are not using technology near as often. Also, they likely have relatively little crossover between the specialized technology systems they use at work (e.g., student information systems, electronic gradebooks, PowerPoint, parent portal software, and “clickers” for formative assessment) and what they use at home (e.g., digital photo management, games). What overlap does exist is probably mostly in the arenas of e-mail, word processing, and browsing the Internet. Finally, as we know, students’ personal lives usually are much more technology-rich at home than at school. They use many more tools, most of which are not allowed during the school day.

It would be interesting to discuss these continua with a school staff, ask educators to draw their own diagrams, and then compile the results in some way. For example, if we assign the numbers 1 (very low) through 5 (very high) to the first continuum and 1 (no overlap) through 4 (high overlap) to the second, we can think of individuals as numeric triads (home-work-overlap). Using the examples above, an IT professional thus would be 5–5–4, a secretary 3–4–3, and a fast food worker 1–1–0. A media specialist might be 4–4–3, a principal 1–1–1, and a student 5–1–1. Once the triads were determined, they could be analyzed for purposes of sparking discussion.

I’m not strongly invested in these continua. There probably are better ways to think about these two dimensions and, if so, I’d love to hear them. But I do think it’s helpful to try and diagram issues in a way that makes sense to people. If we believe that moving schools forward on the technology front is desirable, we have to help educators create mental models that are easily understandable and useful.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

UCEA 2007 - How national technology policy REALLY gets made

Friday was the first day of sessions at the UCEA convention. CASTLE sponsored a panel discussion on national K-12 educational technology policy, moderated by Drs. Sara Dexter (U. Virginia) and Matt Militello (U. Massachusetts-Amherst).

 Listen to the podcast! (73.9 Mb, 81 minutes)

Panelists

• Hilary Goldman, Director of Government Affairs, ISTE
• Dr. Mary Ann Wolf, Executive Director, SETDA
• Doug Levin, Senior Director of Education Policy, Cable in the Classroom

Some main themes

• In the mid– to late 1990s, there were LOTS of national funding initiatives aimed at K-12 ed tech – all were replaced by EETT, which is much smaller and more limited – today, EETT has declined from over $700 million to $272 million – in the past, the Bush administration has even attempted to zero out the EETT budget – Congress has saved the program but at increasingly lower levels
• There is a perception that the job is done
• Teachers have not been trained how to use technology to improve student learning outcomes
• Educators are moving slow – lots of missed opportunities – extremely incremental change in a revolutionary environment
• TPCK model – preservice teachers should not take separate ed tech classes – should be integrated with content-specific methods courses
• We are finally starting to get research that is helpful for policy purposes – for example, the eMints program in Missouri and other states
• The amount of education that people need is astounding – state and federal policymakers, education associations, the public – they make major assumptions about what is happening that just aren’t true
• Example: because nearly all schools are wired, people truly think that means that all kids have access to the Internet – far from being true – only buildings and teacher computers are wired – every student is NOT wired and connected
• Example: lots of money has been poured into student information systems – as a result, people think that teachers are getting data that informs their day-to-day instructional practice – again, this is far from true – in most districts, the data that are in these systems are not that granular
• You have to use sexy vocabulary – the terms of art – that capture policymakers’ attention – right now it is global competitiveness
• High school reform and other change efforts – technology is not specifically articulated as a component – it thus gets lost or left out
• Ed tech policy is still fairly immature - we’re in our tweens
• Groups like NEA, AFT, NSBA, AASA, NASSP, and NAESP are not knowledgeable about technology – they advocate for Title I, IDEA - they don’t advocate for ed tech
• The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is trying to change the conversation rather than trying to figure out how to fit ed tech into existing paradigms / models / laws - this is a real herky-jerky process
• There is not, and has not been, a systemic long-term research agenda, funded by policymakers, to answer key research questions about K-12 educational technology
• What kind of research is needed to further the cause of K-12 educational technology?
• Most education academics are naive about how policy gets made – don’t really understand the policy process – much educational research is not pertinent or helpful to policy conversations and the questions that are being asked by policymakers - we have to remember that ed tech is only one voice of many
• ETAN – www.edtechactionnetwork.org – you don’t have to get to DC – can plug in your e-mail and zip code and get resources and information – just 12 letters can make a difference – meeting in local offices back home also make an impact – asking questions at local town halls sponsored by legislators
• We were blessed in the 1990s with the folks that were in the U.S. Department of Education (US DOE) – there are lots of places where this can break down – there are not strong advocates there today – one place to focus advocacy efforts is the US DOE, not just legislators
• Why has school leadership been left out of the ed tech policy conversation and policy efforts? – historically, efforts were focused on affecting the classroom, not on changing the system – promising levers appear to be 21st century skills, data-driven decision-making, and cybersafety
• We could draft Title II legislation around professional development for administrators regarding technology leadership

[left to right: Sara Dexter, Matt Militello, Hilary Goldman, Mary Ann Wolf, Doug Levin]

The 'organization man' is still alive and well in government

Richard Florida has a great post on his blog about how government agencies are the last bastion of ‘organizational age’ thinking and activity. This is definitely true for the state departments of education I know and much of this rings true for school districts as well.

UCEA 2007 - Kick-off

I'm live blogging from the annual UCEA Convention in Alexandria, VA...

UCEA is the University Council for Educational Administration, a consortium of the educational leadership preparation programs from many of the largest research universities across the world. University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Texas-Austin, Washington State University, Fordham University...  those kinds of places. Iowa State, my institution, is a UCEA member, which is why I was able to take CASTLE (which is a UCEA center) with me when I left the University of Minnesota. The yearly UCEA convention is a must-attend for most educational leadership faculty from large universities. Faculty from smaller institutions attend too, as do a fairly decent number of graduate students (mostly those who are graduating and looking for faculty jobs!).

I think two things make a conference great: what happens inside the conference (sessions, networking, conversations in hallway and lobby) and what happens outside the conference (restaurants, shopping, and other attractions within walking distance). What happens inside UCEA is usually fabulous. Interesting sessions (if you're interested in educational leadership research) and great conversations almost always occur for everyone. I'm baffled, however, by our hotel choices some years. For example, Albuquerque is a great city but there was nothing near our hotel except for a convenience store. This meant that everyone had to eat breakfast and lunch in the tiny hotel restaurant. Standing in a line of hundreds of people for 60-90 minutes just to get a cheeseburger doesn't leave good feelings about the conference. The same thing happened in Kansas City. There are great places to eat and shop there, but we were miles from them. Judging by our surroundings here in Alexandria, I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen this week. Other than the hotel restaurant, the closest places to eat are an Arby's and a McDonald's, both of which are a 10-minute walk away. Ugh.

Fear and paranoia in American schools

Dave Sherman, principal of South Park (IL) Elementary, sparked a lot of conversation at LeaderTalk with his post about school change and school safety. He has extended that discussion to his own blog, asking these key questions:

Are we just paranoid that something bad may happen in our schools because there have been a handful of school shootings in the last decade? Should we stop all this security talk? As I write this, I am preparing for our very first lock down drill with our students (see previous post). Is it all a waste of time?

Visit Dave’s blog and let him know what you think!

Michael Wesch dust-up

A few weeks ago I highlighted some videos made by Michael Wesch and his students at Kansas State University. If you haven’t seen them, I encourage you to do so.

David Warlick liked A Vision of Students Today. Gary Stager didn’t. And Michael was stirred to make a clarification. The comments on all three blog posts are informative and interesting.

The great part of the Web, of course, is that it makes all of this conversation public, transparent, open to participation by others, and, dare I say, even possible. Sure, before the Internet and blogs existed, Michael, David, and Gary could have exchanged thoughts about Michael’s work via mail or e-mail. But this is more powerful (and much more fun).

Violent video games as exemplary teachers of aggression

Iowa State University researcher Dr. Doug Gentile studied 2,500 children and adolescents and found that violent video games do indeed foster hostile actions and aggressive behaviors. Here's the money quote:

We know a lot about how to be an effective teacher, and we know a lot about how to use technology to teach. Video games use many of these techniques and are highly effective teachers. So we shouldn't be surprised that violent video games can teach aggression.

Get the full story at the ISU News Service.

2007 Weblog Awards

Today is the last day to vote for the 2007 Weblog Awards. Here are the nominees in the Education category. So far the students at James Logan High School (Union City, CA) are ahead by a substantial margin.

Route 21 and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

At the SETDA Leadership Summit and Education Forum, we’ve been talking a lot about 21st century skills, so I thought it might be helpful to highlight some of the work that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills has been doing.

The Partnership has been quite busy lately. In October, it announced new poll results that showed that a significant majority of voters ‘are deeply concerned that the United States is not preparing young people with the skills they need to compete in the global economy.’ Here’s an excerpt from the full report:

As I noted on my blog earlier this week, on Monday the Partnership, SETDA, and ISTE released a paper on maximizing the impact of digital technologies for 21st century learning. The document contains examples of successful programs that can be used as models, guiding questions for stakeholders, and action principles for moving forward. Plus there’s also this great (if depressing) quote:

No industry or organization can remain competitive today without making comprehensive use of technology as a matter of course in all of its operations. . . . [E]ducation is the least technology-intensive enterprise in a ranking of technology use among 55 U.S. industry sectors, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Today the Partnership released a new resource, Route 21:

[Route 21] represents the first comprehensive, go-to online resource for high-quality content, best practices, relevant reports, articles and research to assist practitioners in implementing 21st century teaching practices and learning outcomes. Route 21 harnesses Web 2.0 features to allow users to tag, rank, organize, collect and share Route 21 content based on their personal interests. Individuals will continuously update the site with relevant examples as well as share their reactions and insights on implementing 21st century skills in their state, district or school.

You can read the press release, watch the 10–minute video, or dive right into the resources and tagging tools:

Also, for those of you who didn’t know, the Partnership recently updated its famous rainbow framework in order to better highlight essential supporting conditions:

[read more about the framework]

In addition to the resources already described, the Partnership has a number of useful reports, issue briefs, and literacy maps, the latter of which are intended to give some examples of 21st century literacies in practice. Many of the Partnership’s presentations are available online, as are some nifty tools for educators and policymakers.

In short, the Partnership is working hard to help us move our nation’s schools forward. There are numerous helpful resources on the Partnership’s main site and in Route 21. I encourage you to check out what the Partnership has to offer.

SETDA - Wrap-up

SETDA has been a great conference. I have appreciated the opportunity to network with the people in charge of educational technology for each state department and have had some interesting and powerful conversations about the state of ed tech across the country.

Yesterday I was on discussion panels for most of the day so I couldn’t exactly take notes. I was supposed to be on the 21st century skills panel with Ken Kay and others but was moved at the last minute to the panel on transformative leadership. The best part of that move was the chance to meet and spend time with Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia.

Chris is my hero. He’s progressive, he’s smart, he’s enthusiastic, and his school is doing really neat things with its 1:1 laptop initiative for urban kids in Philly. In short, he’s a great model for 21st century building-level leadership. If you want to get a sense of what Chris is all about, listen to his interview with Steve Hargadon and check out his blog, Practical Theory.

Today everyone is heading to “the Hill” to meet with Congressional representatives and their staff about K-12 educational technology funding. Wish ‘em luck.

SETDA - Lunch

Today I had the odd experience of hearing United States Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), recipient of SETDA’s federal policymaker award for his co-sponsorship of the ATTAIN bill, say to the lunch crowd that he was going to tell us a few statistics that most of us didn’t know and then recite a few of the slides from the original Did You Know? presentation.

I think I’m proud? I know I’m glad he is behind ATTAIN. But I’m also going to send him the new version!

Here’s a paraphrase of a great quote from Frances Bradburn: “Yes, you absolutely need tools and training and all those other things. But the key is to begin.”

SETDA - What it takes to compete

Notes from the 2007 SETDA Education Forum…

What it takes to compete: Seeing U.S. education through the prism of international comparisons

Prof. Andreas Schleicher
Head, Indicators and Analysis Division
OECD Directorate for Education

• Finland gets 9 applicants for every teaching post because it is considered a profession worth working in
• Jobs in lower skill sectors, and indeed entire sectors of the workplace, are disappearing
• In the 1960s, the U.S. was first in the world re: percentage of persons with high school or equivalent qualifications (ages 25 to 64). Today it is 13th. Within two generations, the educational landscape has changed dramatically.
• College-level graduation rates: U.S. international rank dropped from 2nd to 15th between 1995 and 2005
• By 2015, China will have twice the number of college graduates as the U.S. and EU combined
• PISA – international assessment of what students know and can do - covers 87% of world economy – how well can students extrapolate from what they have learned to novel situations
• U.S. fell below the OECD average when it came to the performance of 15-year-olds to extrapolate and apply in mathematics (dozens of countries were ahead of U.S.)
• Levy and Murnane have analyzed demand for skills between 1960 and 2002
• Demand for routine manual skills has declined
• Demand for nonroutine manual skills has declined steeply
• Demand for routine cognitive skills (that are easy to teach, easy to test, easy to break into small pieces) has declined steeply
• Demand for nonroutine analytic skills has increased sharply
• Demand for nonroutine interactive skills has increased sharply
• Percentage of students at Levels 5 or 6 on PISA has an almost linear relationship to the number of researchers per thousand people
• Money explains about 1/3 of cross-country variation in mathematics performance – U.S. and Italy have expensive education systems but get lower payoff than other countries that spend less but differently
• Best-performing educational systems have both high challenge and strong support systems
• Low challenge and weak support = poor performance and stagnation
• High challenge and weak support = conflict, demoralization
• High challenge and strong support = systemic improvement
• Best-performing educational systems have high ambitions, teacher access to best practice and strong professional development, intelligent accountability and intervention in inverse proportion to success, devolved responsibility so the school is the center of action, integrated educational opportunities, movement from prescribed forms of teaching and assessment toward personalized learning
• Only 12% of variation is across schools: the overall system predicts most of math performance
• “Knowledge poor” profession and national prescription = uninformed prescription, implementation of curricula = U.S.
• “Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”

A perfect storm

Michael Flanagan, Superintendent of Public Instruction, State of Michigan

• “Can we agree that our kids aren’t going to work in a verb conjugation factory?”
• Michigan is facing a perfect storm: changing global workforce needs combined with declining ability of automobile factory workers to make a decent living (or even a living at all since jobs are being exported)
• Many, many educators said “those kids can’t do Algebra 2”
• Trying to move Michigan from teaching to learning
• Requirement for students to take one online course before graduation is an attempt to jump start the situation, turn pedagogy in another direction
• No longer automatically accrediting teacher education institutions every 5 years; now leaning on universities to change their preparation practices
• Showed the video of Paul Potts to emphasize that there is hidden talent in everyone and that we can bring that out if we choose

SETDA - Maximizing the impact (take the survey!)

SETDA, ISTE, and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills released a document last night called Maximizing the impact: The pivotal role of technology in a 21st century education system.

Take this survey and see how you’re doing on the ‘Guiding Questions for Stakeholders.’ Due date = November 14. I’ll publish the results on November 16.

SETDA - Awards

Michael Flanagan, the Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction, won SETDA’s policymaker award tonight. My favorite quote: “Quit using overheads! The bowling alley had them before we did AND they got rid of them before we did!”

Lan Neugent, Virginia’s Assistant Superintendent of Technology, won SETDA’s state leader of the year award. Kudos to them both!

SETDA - Mary Ann Wolf

Earlier in the day.

After she won her pink ‘Making It Happen’ jacket!

SETDA - Empowering administrators with professional development

My presentation today with Mary Mehsikomer from the Minnesota Department of Education went well. I got to talk a lot about CASTLE and what we do and got a few state educational technology directors fired up about focusing on the technology leadership needs of administrators. You can download my presentation (FYI, slide 12 refers to higher education). I am hoping that some interesting opportunities will arise as a result…

SETDA - Making data user-friendly for classroom teachers

More from SETDA…

Making data user-friendly for classroom teachers

Neal Gibson, Project Manager, Arkansas Longitudinal Data System, Arkansas Department of Education (along with Jim Boardman, Assistant Commissioner, Arkansas Department of Education)

• Dr. Richard Wang, MIT: dimensions of data quality (access is the most important!)
• Intrinsic (accuracy, believability, objectivity, reputation)
• Contextual (value-added, relevancy, timeliness, completeness)
• Representational (amount of data, manipulability, interpretability, ease of understanding, representational consistency, concise representation)
• Accessibility (access, security)
• The goal is to empower teachers, to have them own data rather than just having the data pushed out to them by districts and state departments
• State department is working with Triand to develop and deliver online formative assessments statewide
• The Triand system also allows teachers to upload lesson plans into the system and link them to state standards; other teachers can then search and use the lesson plans
• Neal also talked a bit about data mining with the state’s formative assessment data. Very cool...

SETDA - Hangin' with ISTE

I ran into Dr. Lynn Nolan, Senior Director of Education Leadership, and Dr. Don Knezek, CEO, of ISTE. I only see them about once a year so I talked them into a quick picture!

FYI, these are the two busiest people I know.

SETDA - 21st century skills

I’m live blogging from the SETDA Leadership Summit…

21st century skills

Frances Bradburn, Director of Instructional Technology, North Carolina Department of Public Instruction

• State has signed on to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills framework
• North Carolina requires students to complete a 4–component, performance-based graduation project (research paper, product, portfolio, and oral presentation)
• Students also must pass a computer skills test to graduate
• For licensure, has ‘executive’ standards, not principal / superintendent standards
• Joint Commission on Information Technology was a unified voice advocating for the School Connectivity Project (broadband for every school)
• LOTS of neat stuff going on in the state (Learn and Earn, New Schools Project, Learn and Earn Online, North Carolina Virtual Public School, IMPACT, Literacy to Learn, eBistro, Project K-NECT, Quest Atlantis)
• Many initiatives are facilitated by corporations working hand-in-hand with the state department
• Funding technology facilitators, literacy coaches, E-Rate personnel, and regional engineers
• Frances maintains a blog

Brenda Williams, Executive Director, Office of Instructional Technology, West Virginia Department of Education

• State has signed on to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills framework
• Secured critical policymaker support: Governor, Board of Education, legislature
• Had to show folks that 21st century skills are a little different than the old SCANS skills
• Numerous non-technology-related academic policy initiatives align with technology-oriented initiatives
• 8th grade student technology assessment is aligned with classroom assessment (following the Rick Stiggins philosophy)
• Teach 21
• Think.com

2007 Edublog Awards

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First impressions

[cross-posted at LeaderTalk]

These are the signs you see when you enter Minnesota or Iowa along Interstate 35. Guess which one leaves the better impression?

While traveling recently, I had the unfortunate experience of overhearing two male restaurant employees ogling a young female traveler as she walked through the airport. All of the people sitting around the servers’ station got to hear all about how ‘hot’ she was, what they’d like to do to her, etc. They were completely oblivious to their surrounding customers and to the fact that their sexist (and graphically vulgar) behavior reflected poorly on the national chain restaurant for whom they worked.

I have seen a similar phenomen when I visit schools. I can think of many school organizations where receptionists, secretaries, and other front office employees seemed oblivious or indifferent to the fact that their conversations, behaviors, and work environments reflected upon the institution. While waiting in school or district front offices, I have been ignored, overhead confidential conversations about students, been treated to complaints about bosses and the school system, and heard vulgar language. I have seen signs on walls like ‘Lack of planning on your part DOES NOT constitute an emergency on mine!’ and ‘I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.’ I have seen students and parents treated poorly, either in person or on the phone. And so on…

I always wonder what parents or community members think when they visit these offices. Like me, do they wonder about the level of professionalism of the office staff? Are they concerned about the level of customer service that they are going to receive? Are they worried that their visit may become fodder for later public conversation or ridicule? Do they wonder why an administrator is ignoring this?

You only get one chance to make a first impression.