Dangerously Irrelevant

Stone Age Administrator award?

Sometimes a story is just so egregiously stupid that you not only have to post about it but encourage others to spread the word too. This might be one of those situations (hat tip to Jon Becker)...

This picture is of a 5-year-old kid named Adriel Arocha. His family wants to move to Needville, Texas. Adriel is of Native American heritage and has never cut his hair in his life. No big deal, right? Well, apparently it is because the superintendent of the Needville Schools, Curtis Rhodes, won't allow Adriel to enroll in kindergarten unless he cuts his hair. Why? Because - unbelievably in 2008 - the district doesn't allow boys to have long hair. Really.

Read the article in the Houston Press, particularly the part where the superintendent defends the school district's backwardness. Check out Adriel's family's blog about the situation. Feel free to publicly ridicule this school district because Curtis Rhodes is giving administrators everywhere a bad name. What university trained this guy?

Maybe it's time to create a Stone Age Administrator award...

Photo credit: Houston Press

Productive and powerful

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

I’m in the midst of reading Clark Aldrich’s Simulations and the Future of Learning. As Aldrich walks me through the process of developing a leadership simulation, he has a number of interesting things to say about video game and simulation design. Thanks to Aldrich’s clear and engaging prose, I’m finding myself unexpectedly captivated by the nitty-gritty of the workflow of simulation production.

So far the statement that has resonated with me the most, however, pertains as much to education as it does to the gaming industry. Aldrich said:

The goal of learning in any organization (business, educational, governmental) should be to make its members more productive (p. 3).

I’ll agree with that. And I probably would add to the end of that statement “… and more powerful.” I think that additional phrase takes the edge off what might be construed as a focus solely on preparation for work and expands it to include personal empowerment.

Productive and powerful. Isn’t that what we want for the children in our schools? Isn’t that we want for the educators with whom we work? Productive and powerful. I like it.

We have 50 million public school students in the United States. Are the thousands of worksheets that they will complete in their lifetime making them more productive? Are their countless hours of individual seat work going to lead to greater personal empowerment? Are they getting opportunities to be both productive and powerful on a regular basis?

What about our subpopulations? Are socioeconomically-disadvantaged students often getting the chance to be powerful? Do our students with disabilities or our students whose primary language is not English have multiple, ongoing opportunities to feel like they are productive, contributing members of our communities?

What about our 3 million public school teachers? Are the tens of millions of hours that they spend in staff development and training each year actually making them more productive? Do you think the bulk of them feel empowered by their ‘learning opportunities?’

Do we regularly ask ourselves these kinds of questions in our school organizations? As educators, should we?

I have some hard thinking to do about my own graduate classes and degree programs here at Iowa State…

Wrong place to have incorrect grammar

The Teacher Salary Project is intended to call attention to the important and difficult work that teachers do. I agree that teachers "deserve more." Is it wrong of me to also wish that the first words that pop up in its video trailer weren't grammatically incorrect [or was that intentional?]...

We learn from failure more than success

Samuel Smiles, a Scottish author, said:

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

Kenneth Boulding, an economist and systems scientist, said:

Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.

Given our schools’ dominant emphasis on getting the right answer, I wonder how often students get a chance to actually learn from their failures (as opposed to simply being told that they are unsuccessful or incorrect). I’m guessing probably not enough…

Contest - 140-character book reviews - Your vote counts!

Voting for the finalists in the 140-character book review contest is now open:

• CLICK HERE TO VOTE!
• See the results to date

I picked nine of my favorites. It was extremely tough. There were LOTS of great entries!

Voting deadline: noon Pacific time, Friday, August 1

Too many cooks spoil the broth

Distributed (or shared) leadership is all the rage right now in leadership circles. And rightfully so. School leaders should tap into the wealth of expertise and experience that their staffs possess.

But determining which (and how many) people should participate in the decision-making process can be challenging. Too few and you risk an oligarchy. Too many and you get this (hat tip to Seth Godin):

The good news (and the bad) about math

The good news from the most comprehensive study ever done of gender and math performance?

‘No gender difference’ in scores among children in grades 2 through 11. [see research summary]

The bad news?

In most states [the researchers] reviewed, and at most grade levels, there weren't any questions that involved complex problem-solving, the ability needed to succeed in high levels of science and math. If tests don't assess these reasoning skills, they may not be taught. [see CNN article]

Tracy Rosen is revisiting digital literacy

Head on over to Leading From the Heart and leave Tracy Rosen a comment on her thought-provoking post about revisiting digital literacy. Here’s the comment I just left her:

I am by no means a ‘literacy’ expert. For me, the idea of literacy means something like ‘fluency in the dominant information landscape(s) of your time, both as a consumer and as a producer.’ In the past, that has meant being an adequate reader and an adequate writer. It is increasingly clear that the dominant information landscape of our present and future is one that is digital, networked, interactive, hyperconnected, dispersed, rapidly-changing, multimedia, and so on. This new information landscape requires additional fluencies beyond those needed for a paper-based world.

Fluency in paper-bound text and graphics is still a necessary skill today. The need to be a high-level reader and writer is going to be around for a long while. But the dominance of the written word slowly will be eroded by other forms of audio/video expression. For me, the exciting thing about many of these new ‘literacies’ is that students and educators now have unprecedented opportunities to create things of value to the larger world, to have a legitimate voice, and to reach authentic audiences.

Like any good progressive, Chris Lehmann advocates emphasis on facilitation of students as digital citizens rather than emphasis on preparing students to be digital workers. I too am very much in favor of empowering students personally and on the citizenship front. But I also want my kids to have a meaningful, rewarding career (that, hopefully, also contributes to society in some way). And that means getting what Richard Florida calls a ‘creative class’ job – one that requires autonomy, independent judgment, creativity, innovation, creative problem-solving, and, yes, fluency with digital technologies. Creative class jobs are facilitated and enhanced by digital technologies, not replaced by them (as often happens with service or working class jobs).

So I empathize with your concern, Tracy, about respecting others’ approaches to sense-making. And I too am concerned with the differential access that developing countries and underserved student populations have. But I think the task for all of us is to bring them into the digital, global 21st century, not to define ‘literacy’ in ways that continue to disempower them socially and/or economically for decades to come (note: I’m not saying you’re doing this).

Here’s an old post of mine on social justice that might be of interest:

  http://snipurl.com/35ivk

Thanks for a thoughtful, thought-provoking post. I look forward to reading others’ comments!

No Facebook for you!

Over at the On Our Minds @ Scholastic blog, Tyler Reed is pondering the recent announcement by the Lamar (MS) County School District that it will prohibit teachers from communicating with students via social networking tools such as Facebook or MySpace.

The question in my mind is:

Why treat social networking spaces differently than any other means of teacher communication?

The issue is actual inappropriate teacher communication and/or behavior (which I'm guessing is already covered by board policy), not the method by which teachers communicate with students. A prohibition on use of social networking tools does absolutely nothing to prevent inappropriate teacher communication with students via other channels. So the district either needs to implement similar policies for telephones, snail mail, written notes, instant messaging, cell phone text messaging, e-mail, online video, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and the like or it needs to justify why social networking sites are so evil compared to all the other ways that teachers and students can communicate.

If the district is going to ban social networking and other 21st century communication tools, it's going to be awfully busy making policies since new tools pop up every week. Also, one of the first things you learn in law school is that you should never make a rule you can't enforce. How on earth would the district ever monitor this?

Facebook and MySpace are the 5th and 7th most popular sites on the Internet, respectively. Instead of exploring how teachers, students, and parents can use these sites productively, the district instead has turned into the social networking Nazi: no Facebook for you! Just for kicks, I took a look at the performance of the Lamar County schools. My suggestion for the school board is that perhaps its time and energy would be better spent raising the low academic performance of the students in the poorest school in the district rather than passing unnecessary and unenforceable policies.

This whole thing is just goofy...

Leadership Day 2008 - Summary

As you can see below, there were a number of great Leadership Day 2008 posts. If I missed someone, my apologies in advance. Please add your link in the comments section (I recommend using tinyurl.com) so that we all can find your contribution.

Happy reading!

• Tracy Rosen noted that reflective school leaders need to start digging deeper for essential questions around student learning in relation to the use of technology.
• If administrators haven't become at least somewhat savvy about digital technologies, Jeanette Johnson can just about guarantee that they are neither leading nor functioning as effectively as possible.
• Edwin Wargo said that technology leadership is like connecting the dots but with murky starting and ending points.
• As I read Sheila Teri’s reflection on the progress that her school has made, I also enjoyed listening to her ‘mix tape’ about change. That rocked (literally)!
• Rob Jacobs asked if schools prepare students to be creators or just inactives and spectators. He also asked In what way is your leadership preparing your school and your students for the literacy of technology?
• The Science Goddess asked leaders how they justify to parents the inequity of access to 21st century skills that they are providing. She also said it is not okay for one of her building principals to refer to those who use social networking as ‘freaky!’
• Beth Ritter-Guth blogged about leadership in virtual worlds. Very cool.
• Sylvia Martinez said ‘Just Do It,’ reminding administrators that it’s their responsibility to lead with positive energy, not fear.
• Kevin Hodgson told school leaders to break down the walls, let teachers play, ask the students, and don’t block the world. Nice use of ToonDoo, Kevin!
• Lisa Sjogren apparently has the good fortune to work with someone known as the Chief Learner. Lisa noted that either you get it or you don’t.
• Jon Becker posted some reflections on whether a progressive pedagogy for 21st century schools is possible in high-risk communities.
• Because of a high rate of administrator turnover, Paul Cancellieri and other teachers have banded together to move their school forward.
• After noting that educators literally groan when given the opportunity to learn, Bill Ferriter discussed how digital tools can be of assistance.
• Louise Maine offered a Top Ten list of tips for her administrators. My favorite may have been her admonition that we are not going to please everyone (so please quit trying and lead instead!).
• Carolyn Foote wants leaders to bring teachers together into democratic communities and set them free. Sounds good to me, Carolyn!
• Vicki Davis used her Leadership Day post to reflect on NECC and remind us that in the 1990s content was king, now contact is king.
• On July 4, Hugh O’Donnell declared his digital independence to blog without regard to local social pressures while simultaneously reaffirming [his] intention to remain ethical, truthful, and transparent.
• Frank Buck affrimed that a great way to hook administrators is to help them see how digital technologies can make their jobs easier.
• Stephanie Sandifer said that leaders need to transform their schools into places where 1) teachers see themselves first as learners who are invested in improving their instructional practice through reflection and inquiry, and 2) students are more globally connected in a way that enhances and supports their individual learning.
• As a professor, of course I was extremely interested in Justin Bathon’s thoughts about how university educational leadership programs could better utilize digital technologies in their preparation of school administrators.
• Like Justin, I also noted that we have neglected our leaders’ learning needs when it comes to digital technologies.

The Faculty Room blog asked its panel of contributors to blog about effective technology leadership. Nine of them took up the challenge (awesome!):

• Gerry Kosater noted that effective technology integration occurs when there is strong administrative support and when leaders create learning communities that empower teachers to collaborate and learn together.
• Joe Scotese reminded us to put on our skeptic’s hat because computers often are used inappropriately and their mere use is heralded as an educational experience in and of itself.
• Michelle Crisafulli generated a lot of comments when she suggested that we should simply put the monkeys in charge of the zoo.
• Dana Huff said that unfortunately administrators often get in the way of teachers with good ideas.
• Ellen Stubblefield interviewed her director of elementary curriculum, teaching, and technology to try and determine whether administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders.
• Cindi Rigsbee pondered the dual issues of feeling behind and being concerned that her use of technology often seems forced instead of stress-free and seamless.
• Greg Farr mused on the power of being surrounded by technology, even while on vacation in a 40-year-old cabin in the mountains of New Mexico.
• Michael Ashton creatively blogged about effechnology leaderschoolship (you’ll have to read his post to understand). I’m with you, Michael!
• Chris Lehmann said that we need to do some things in our classrooms better than ever before: research, collaborate, create, present and network.

Finally, in case you missed them, here are all of the links from 2007:

• Leadership Day 2007 – Summary

A HUGE thanks to everyone who participated in Leadership Day 2008. See you next year on July 4!

Our policies have to shift

Al Gore said:

We have to abandon the conceit that isolated personal actions are going to solve this crisis. Our policies have to shift.

He was talking about global climate change but he might as well have been talking about our attempts to transition schools into the 21st century…

Are 21st century skills a solution to a problem that may not exist?

Sylvia Martinez said:

Of course not all “olden days” teachers were drilling students. . . . When people think about the past, of course we all have had different experiences. Talking about how school used to be is meaningless; it’s too dependent on your personal experience. Unfortunately, we hear this kind of language all the time, whether it’s to point at the “bad old days” or the “good old days” Neither of them exist in reality.

21st century skills . . . is a solution to a problem that may not exist. It may just be a reflection of our vast, yet fundamentally faulty collective memory of things that never were.

To which I say:  [see also the reports cited at The hits just keep on coming]

The chief source of the “problem of discipline” in schools is that … a premium is put on physical quietude; on silence, on rigid uniformity of posture and movement; upon a machine-like simulation of the attitudes of intelligent interest. The teachers’ business is to hold the pupils up to these requirements and to punish the inevitable deviations which occur.
– John Dewey, Democracy and Education (1916)

And:

What students do in the classroom is what they learn (as Dewey would say) . . . Now, what is it that students do in the classroom? Well, mostly, they sit and listen to the teacher. . . . Mostly, they are required to remember. . . . It is practically unheard of for students to play any role in determining what problems are worth studying or what procedures of inquiry ought to be used. . . . Here is the point: Once you have learned how to ask questions – relevant and appropriate and substantial questions – you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know . . . [However,] what students are restricted to (solely and even vengefully) is the process of memorizing . . . somebody else’s answers to somebody else’s questions. It is staggering to consider the implications of this fact. The most important intellectual ability man has yet developed – the art and science of asking questions – is not taught in school! Moreover, it is not “taught” in the most devastating way possible: by arranging the environment so that significant question asking is not valued. It is doubtful if you can think of many schools that include question-asking, or methods of inquiry, as part of their curriculum.
– Neil Postman & Charles Weingartner, Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)

And:

The data from our observations in more than 1,000 classrooms support the popular image of a teacher standing or sitting in front of a class imparting knowledge to a group of students. Explaining and lecturing constituted the most frequent teaching activities … And the frequency of these activities increased steadily from the primary to the senior high school years. Teachers also spent a substantial amount of time observing students at work or monitoring their seat-work … Our data show not only an increase in these activities but also a decline in teachers interacting with groups of students within their classes from the primary to the secondary years. . . . Three categories of student activity marked by passivity - written work, listening, and preparing for assignments - dominate … The chances are better than 50–50 that if you were to walk into any of the classrooms of our sample, you would see one of these three activities under way … All three activities are almost exclusively set and monitored by teachers. We saw a contrastingly low incidence of activities invoking active modes of learning.
– John Goodlad, A Place Called School (1984)

And:

Classrooms in which there was evidence of higher-order thinking: 3 percent. Classrooms in which high-yield [instructional] strategies were being used: 0.2 percent. Classrooms in which fewer than one-half of students were paying attention: 85 percent.
– Mike Schmoker, Results Now (2006) [citing a study of 1,500+ classroom observations]

And:

The average fifth grader received five times as much instruction in basic skills as instruction focused on problem solving or reasoning; this ratio was 10:1 in first and third grades.
– Robert C. Pianta, et al., Opportunities to Learn in America’s Elementary Classrooms (2007) [study of 2500+ classrooms in more than 1,000 elementary schools and 400 school districts]

And:

When you code classroom practice for level of cognitive demand . . . 80% of the work is at the factual and procedural level. . . . [Teachers] will do low-level work and call it high-level work.
– Richard Elmore, excerpt from Education Leadership as the Practice of Improvement (2006)

And:

It’s so boring, daddy.
– 7-year-old Tess Richardson, excerpt from Boring Schools, Boring Content (2005)

What do YOU think?

Contest - 140-character book reviews

It’s time for a new contest! This one has nothing to do with K-12 education. Just an idea that caught my fancy that I hope will catch yours too. As usual, the winner gets everlasting fame and a CASTLE mug…

140–character book reviews!

Using the Twitter limitation of 140 characters, write a book review. Can you sum up the essence of a good read in 140 characters? Of course you can!

Here are some pathetic examples. I know you can do better than these!

The World Is Flat. The world is flat.

To Kill a Mockingbird. Girl meets recluse. Lawyer dad fails to defend innocent Black man. Recluse saves girl from real villain. Girl learns important life lessons.

Guidelines

• An entry consists of the book title and the 140–character review. The title of the book and any accompanying explanatory text does not count against your total, but the 140 characters should be able to stand alone as a summation of (or commentary on) the book. This limit will be strictly enforced.
• Any book you want - fiction, nonfiction, textbook, graphic novel, whatever. No limits other than it has to be a book (although you might want to review a book that others have heard of). Could you do this for movies, music, blogs, restaurants, etc.? Absolutely. But not for this contest.
• Submit your entry as a comment to this blog post, please. Otherwise, as I’m discovering with the Leadership Day 2008 entries, I might not find it.
• Multiple entries are welcome.
• Extra points for creativity, humor, cleverness, etc.
• Feel free to use the image above to spread the word about the contest (click on it for a larger version).
• You’ve got 10 days. Entry deadline is July 26, 2008.

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Update: Given the number of entries it looks like we're going to have, I'll pick my top 5 to 7 favorites at the end and we'll have a group vote to determine the winner. So come back July 27 to start voting!

Update: See the winning entry!

The personalization - and polarization - of America

[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]

The personalization movement, enabled significantly by communication and design technologies as well as global manufacturing supply chains, is well under way…

If I want to, I can personalize – and often even custom design – my shoes, my clothes, my jewelry, my car, my house, my computer, my soda, my candy, my cell phone ringtone, and so on. Even when I can’t design myself what I purchase, the seemingly limitless choices that I have allow me to customize my lifestyle in infinite variations (how many kinds of toothpaste or dog food are there?). Sites like CafePress even allow me to custom brand my own goods if the current range of choices isn’t satisfactory.

The personalization movement applies to where we work as well. Richard Florida has written extensively about how we are sorting ourselves into communities of talent. Creative, talented people are migrating to certain cities and college towns. Companies are following people rather than the other way around. As a result, the vast majority of economic productivity and growth is coming from these ‘creative communities’ while smaller communities or non-creative cities are left behind.

Not only does the personalization movement extend to our jobs, it also applies to our homes. As The Big Sort describes, even within our communities we are clustering with other like-minded people. Whole neighborhoods reflect particular lifestyles and exhibit little ideological or lifestyle diversity. Finding someone in your neighborhood that doesn’t look, act, or think like you is becoming increasingly difficult.

Never before have our politics been so polarized. The so-called ‘independent voter’ is all but nonexistent. Voters that actually listen to both sides and then make a decision comprise less than 10% of the voting population. The rest of us already have sorted ourselves out on one side or the other. The key to politics today is mobilizing the voter base on your side, not persuading independents. The key to the 2008 Presidential election will be the Right’s mobilization of church groups, civic organizations, and other groups that traditionally exhibit stronger ties versus the Left’s mobilization of younger voters, urban areas, and other groups that traditionally exhibit looser ties.

Personalization even extends to education. Between private schools, charter schools, magnet schools, online schools, and home schools, the options for parents to customize their children’s education have never been greater. The same goes for our religious institutions, as churches, temples, mosques, and other places of worship increasingly segment their services to target particular groups.

As I noted in my earlier post about narrowcasting, we also are personalizing our information streams. Our magazines, music sources, television stations, Internet sites, and news channels all are more customizable and individualized than ever before. The likelihood that we might run into information that runs counter to our existing beliefs is less and less probable with each passing day.

So where’s our common ground? As we increasingly utilize digital technologies, employment choices, neighborhood selection, and other lifestyle decisions to segment ourselves, where will we find the glue that holds our country together? Shouldn’t we be talking about this as a society? Doesn’t this need to be discussed somewhere in our educational system?

Blogging, tweeting, and the uncovering of personality

Will Richardson has yet another post that’s generated a great deal of discussion. This time it’s about the value of Twitter for conversation. Will ponders Twitter’s impact on conversations and suspects that maybe it’s making us lazy…

For me it’s about the conversation but, more importantly, it’s also about the uncovering of personality. The social web is about people and connectivity, right? So every blog, tweet, Skype chat, comment, Flickr photo, YouTube video, Facebook update, or Ning post - they’re each another gap-filler for me. Chink by chink, brick by brick, pixel by pixel - the picture becomes more clear and complete. Is this someone with whom I want to connect? Is this someone with whom I want to converse? Is this someone from whom I want to learn?

That’s the power of Twitter (and blogging and … ) for me. Is it maddeningly disjointed and unconnected? Absolutely. But that’s what happens when everyone has a voice and when there are numerous tools to express ourselves. Our aggregation and monitoring tools will get better in the years to come. In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate the power and potential of our new information landscape, despite all of its frustrating flaws and growing pains, because I know that it has greatly enriched my life and exponentially expanded my horizons (cue the violins)…

Photo credit: weblogg-ed.com

'If I already know what someone is trying to teach me, I am not learning'

I couldn’t agree with you more, Arthus. You’ve just highlighted an enormous failing of our entire system of schooling.

I know that there’s been a great deal of consternation and conversation that has occurred about some of your recent Tweets. I’m going to take a different tack and instead applaud you for being willing to fight tooth and nail for your own learning. An admirable trait in a young adult. Keep on fightin’ the good fight.

Collaborative action? Not yet.

Chris Lehmann’s post last week regarding Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and educational change was particularly thought-provoking for me. If you haven’t yet read Chris’ post or the book, move them both closer to the top of your reading list. I thought Chris did an especially nice job of describing how the edublogosphere has been good at the task of sharing and is doing pretty well at community production (thanks, everyone, who’s contributed to the Moving Forward wiki) but has not yet done so well at collaborative action. Why? Because it’s hard to do, as Chris and Shirky note, particularly within communities that have loose ties like we edubloggers do.

Chris feels, however, that we possess the capacity to engage in collaborative action and that we maybe, probably, should be thinking in this direction:

The hardest challenge facing our community is that we've done a very good job at going after the low-hanging fruit. We've done what was easiest to do... and most of us would agree that it hasn't been easy so far. To take things to the next level is going to be hard. Not impossible... and a lot easier because of the tools we have at our disposal today, but hard none-the-less. 

But "hard" shouldn't be the reason we don't do it.

While I admire (as always) Chris’ good cheer and ‘we can do it even though it’s hard!’ attitude - and even usually possess a high concentration of those myself - right now I’m a bit more skeptical that our loosely-knit ‘community’ has the capacity, time, or even desire to begin engaging in collective action, at least at the level that Chris describes. I say this despite all of the incredible value that I gain from the edublogosphere.

At the very least, collective action is going to require a very focused target outcome and some folks who are willing to shoulder the heavy load of visioning / coordinating / re-centering focus. And I just don’t see that happening right now. I see a lot of good people who care a lot and are even willing to do numerous great things for kids, schools, and/or fellow bloggers. But I don’t see us as being in a place yet where collaborative action can occur on any meaningful and important scale (and I’m also not sure what that place would look like so I’d know that we were there).

Of course I’d love to be proved wrong…

[I confess that I’m also feeling a bit despondent today about the whole prospect of influencing American policymakers regarding K-12 education. After all, if an initiative with a $60 million budget and the backing of billion-dollar foundations isn’t getting much traction in terms of putting educational issues on the political radar screen, what the heck are our chances?]

Contest winner - Dismaying class assignments

It’s time to announce the ‘winner’ of the Dismaying Class Assignments Contest. With due recognition to Heather Voran’s music notation note cards, Rick Tanski’s (and David Keane’s) tissues for class credit, Louise Maine’s biome coloring, Amy Vejraska’s number scroll (complete with sand bucket prize!), and all of the other worthy entrants, I’m going to award a CASTLE mug to Sylvia Martinez for her entry regarding high school students’ coat hanger mobiles. Molly, you were an extremely close second with your entry about alphabetizing Revolutionary War battles…

Thanks to everyone who participated. Stay tuned for my next contest!

CoverItLive - Dr. Kent Peterson

Live blogging Dr. Kent Peterson, U. Wisconsin-Madison, talking about school culture and climate at the West Virginia Institute for 21st Century Leadership...

I'm too busy...

Joel Adkins blogged…

For the past few months, I have played around the edge of the new philosophers. I have been reading their blogs, listening to the podcasts, reading the books they recommend, joining their Ustreams, and even observing the Twitter conversations about everything from baseball to new uses of technology. I have been an observer and an active participant. . . .

I wish I could Twitter and Plurk all day too.
I wish I could research blogs and contribute to the online conversation like they do.
I wish I could Ustream and connect with this global philosophy shift in live streaming.
I wish I could participate in their witty and fun conversations and travel tips they share all day and night.
I wish I could get online and ask for participants from your district because mine…well..they gave up on listening to me months ago because I am “too far out there”.
I wish I could read all those books you all talk about and listen to those podcasts while I get ready to take on a new day.

But I can’t. I have to work.

To which I responded…

[Y]ou know what?, I have a job too. I’m director of a national center, a postsecondary instructor / researcher, and coordinator of the Educational Leadership program at a major research university. Like most of us, I’m unbelievably busy. And, yet, I find time to do some of this stuff also because it’s IMPORTANT.

So we have to recognize the time challenges that people face. But we can’t go around saying that the issues are insurmountable because they’re not and because if we believe that then our K-12 teachers (and postsecondary instructors) get a free pass to ignore the societal revolution that’s swirling around them.

What do you think? Head on over to Joel’s post and let him know…

Mindful precedent

Below is an excerpt by one of my Master’s students from our online discussions about data-driven schooling practices. I liked the emphasis on mindful precedent…

The last chapter [of On Common Ground] talked about barriers to action. Full disclosure: I am usually one of them.

The fifth barrier is described aptly as mindless precedent. In other words, some teachers will simply and automatically reject change because that's not the way it's always been done. Trust me when I say I love this phrase. To me, it helps explain some of the dumber "traditions" of high schools, ranging from prom queens to early senior graduation to valedictorian speeches at commencement. It's everywhere, and it's not going away.

However, I would like to ask about mindFUL precedent. Many times in administration I've detected (and/or endured) a quick dismissal those who question whether or not a reform is a good idea. Given that we've been reforming schools for about a century now, and still have the same basic problems (some learn much, many learn, most don't learn enough) there is validity in some of those questions. At the beginning of last year two of our administers told our faculty on the first day back to school that the school is going to do "what's best for kids" and that those who weren't on board should find another job. Welcome back, indeed. Immediately most of our faculty tuned them out.

Reform efforts are critical. Continuing pursuit of better educational delivery is essential, and morally compelled. Reform must be completed in a school that is built on a foundation of trust, respect, and humility. If we as administrators pretend to have all of the answers, there are going to be a lot of people that suffer because of it. Calls to action are good, but we better know where we're going, why we're going, and how we're going to get there.

When do leaders fall into the trap of ignoring mindFUL precedent? What are some things that we can do to avoid doing so? And how can we tell the difference between mindful and mindless precedent?

Leadership Day 2008 - We have neglected our leaders

[I’m late for my self-initiated Leadership Day 2008. I went to visit my mom for a few days and forgot to take my laptop…]

Most of our school leaders have received no training whatsoever when it comes to 21st century schooling. If you asked your average principal or superintendent what it means to to prepare students for a digital, global society, she would be hard-pressed to give you a halfway-coherent answer. If you asked an auditorium full of administrators if they’ve ever heard of The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, you’d be lucky to get a few raised hands. Why is this so? Because…

1. Only a few of the more than 500 school administrator programs have even a single course dealing with digital technologies. Many of the courses that do exist deal with basic office software (yes, still) rather than technology-related leadership issues. A course that even mentioned Web 2.0 tools or the societal impacts of social software would be rare. Courses that actually focus on the leadership necessary to transition schools into the 21st century are almost nonexistent.
2. The professional development opportunities that school districts and state departments of education provide for their administrators deal primarily with data-driven accountability, literacy, discipline, finance, law, and other similar topics. All of those are important but, again, the transition to a digital, global society and the leadership necessary to get there is hardly ever present in these training sessions.
3. Most national- and/or state-level principal and superintendent associations offer workshops, institutes, and/or conferences for their members. The number of association-delivered conference sessions and other learning opportunities for administrators that pertain to technology leadership is exceedingly low. One reason given is that ‘we’re service organizations and our members don’t ask for them.’
4. Numerous technology-focused grants and initiatives for students and teachers are available from state and local governments, corporations, and foundations. In contrast, it’s awfully difficult to find anything substantive for school leaders. It’s a little perplexing since most corporations and foundations understand the importance of good leadership in their own organizations. Yet there has been a lack of commitment to investing in the leadership side of things when it comes to their own K-12 technology initiatives.
5. There are few, if any, good books out there that help school leaders understand what effective school technology leadership looks like. There are a variety of helpful online resources but they're widely dispersed, often difficult to find, and unknown to most administrators.

In sum, all of the primary learning and support mechanisms for school administrators are failing woefully when it comes to 21st century leadership preparation. To paraphrase Joel Barker, we’re focusing on today at the expense of tomorrow.

We should be putting a great deal of pressure on school districts, state departments of education, university preparation programs, and national- and state-level leadership associations to pay greater attention to 21st century schools and the leadership skills necessary to get there. We also should be asking for greater emphasis on leadership training from our corporate and foundational partners and our policymakers. The lack of attention by any one of these groups is dismaying. The aggregate lack of attention by all of them is downright irresponsible.

We must set aside dedicated training time, programs, and monies for our leaders. Administrators have their own unique needs and responsibilities; their training should be different than that of other educators. We can’t simply lump them in with teachers. Nor should we continue to offer generic professional development monies or programs without designating some of them specifically for administrators. Our pattern of block grants instead of administrator-only set-asides seems to always leave our leaders short.

Finally, we should recognize that most of this is not our leaders’ fault. Sure, they should be demanding more from the entities that serve them. But it’s our collective shame that every aspect of their learning system fails them.

Leadership Day 2008 is tomorrow

Hope you’ll join me tomorrow for Leadership Day 2008. Please use these tags to mark your post: leadershipday2008, schooltechleadership

NECC 2008 - See you next year!

Dean Shareski’s a sharp cookie, Carolyn Foote’s my savior, Miguel Guhlin’s a beach bum, and Doug Johnson’s a curmudgeon. David Jakes is under the bus, Cheryl Oakes likes cobbler, and Jon Becker likes waffles. Sylvia Martinez is a rock star, and Jeff Utecht is … hey, where’s Jeff? Darren Draper’s on the A list and I proudly hung with some guys on the D list. I tell you, NECC 2008 was smokin’ hot!

A shout out to ALL my new Edubloggercon / NECC Unplugged / Blogger’s Cafe / San Antone peeps! Pry those iPhones from the Tweetin’ fingers of Wes Fryer and Chris Lehmann. Surgically remove the webcams from Lisa Parisi and Steve Dembo. Tell Konrad Glogowski to quit his TV repair business. Y’all get some rest ‘cause next year we’ll be in my hometown, the nation’s capital – er, capitol – um, das kapital – oh, you know, that place where I’m Just A Bill was filmed.

Remember the Alamo! (if you can after all those prickly pear margaritas)

A few more pictures from my NECC Flickr set

NECC 2009 - Who wins?

Okay, let’s think about this for next year…

Famous Blogger wants to spend time at NECC conversing with / learning from friends (who might also happen to be other Famous Bloggers). Not Yet Famous Blogger and Loyal Reader would like to spend time conversing with / learning from Famous Blogger.

Who wins? Does FB have any obligation to NYFB and LR?

NECC 2008 - Channel overload

Is anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the information available here at NECC? It’s bad enough when we’re at home, but the focused concentration of all of these people on this single event within a short time period, combined with the proliferating use of both older tools (Twitter, blogs, RSS, tags) and newer tools (Summize, Ustream, CoverItLive), along with all of the new people I’m meeting (and thus want to add to my ‘personal learning network’), is leading to some serious mental overload.

Is it possible to actually attend conference (and unconference) sessions as well as … ?

• talk to people
• monitor the various Technorati tags (ebc08, necc, necc08, necc2008, individual session tags)
• monitor the various Flickr tags (ebc08, necc, necc08, necc2008, individual session tags)
• respond to the blog posts, Flickr pictures, or comments that you discover
• post on your own blog!
• follow the NECC conversation in Twitter and Summize and Hitchhikr
• participate in the NECC Ning and/or your Facebook/MySpace social network(s)
• read and respond to cell phone text messages
• track down and read the various wikis, handouts, etc. that are floating around
• track down and watch the various Ustreams and CoverItLive backchannels that are floating around
• investigate some of the new technology tools that you learn about
• and so on (I’m sure I’ve forgotten something major!) …

Maybe I’m getting old, but my brain hurts. In a good way, but it still hurts.

Photo credit: 'a' stands for headache

NECC 2008 - Other notes from the ISTE Digital Equity Summit

Here are the rest of my notes from ISTE’s annual digital equity summit at NECC…

Discussions

• Wyatt Sledge, Forth Worth (TX) ISD, told me that the district just hired a dedicated technology trainer for its administrators. Awesome!

Expert panel

Lara Sujo de Montes, New Mexico State University

• Digital divide v. digital equity
• Divide = lack of access to equipment
• Inequity = lack of access to benefits of learning and using that equipment
• Digital inequity reproduces existing social and socieconomic inequities
• The Internet is 2/3 in English but only 10% of world population speaks English
• Developing countries: rural, unemployed, uneducated farmers or unskilled wage laborers, subsisting on $1 or $2 per day, ethnolinguistic minorities
• Request distance learning courses for high school students, develop online materials yourself (even for a traditional course), install Moodle
  

David Thornburg, Thornburg Center

• Digital equity and space exploration as a STEM curriculum
• Half of workers at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will retire in the next decade; 15% of Boeing engineers are eligible to retire right now; we don’t have enough new people to replace them
• We need to go beyond teaching about STEM and help students see themselves in those jobs
• There is a lot of beauty and joy in STEM
• In prison they let you out early for good behavior. Schools don’t do that.
• I’m tired of corporations thinking of children as wallets with bodies.

Ashanti Jefferson, Chicago Public Schools

• Described some of the work CPS is doing with its kids

Al Byers, National Science Teachers Association

• NSTA Learning Center: significant gains in the learning of science teachers who participate in its online learning modules
• Teachers must have a voice in their own professional development if we want to see positive results
• If you include elementary and middle school teaches (who teach science but don’t think of themselves as science teachers), there are 2.1 million science teachers in the USA

Discussion

• Thornburg: Students in affluent schools use technology in creative, innovative ways. Students in disadvantaged schools use computers for decontextualized drill-and-kill exercises.

NECC 2008 - From digital divide to digital opportunities

Here are my notes from ISTE’s annual digital equity summit at NECC. There is too much information to fit in one post so I’m breaking it up…

From Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities
Dr. Paul Resta, U. Texas-Austin

• Current estimate of world repository of pictures/words/movies = 7 exabytes (Library of Congress is largest in world = 20 terabytes)
• It’s not just more information. More is now different.
• UNESCO Digital Opportunity Index allows the tracking and comparison of countries in different aspects of the information society
• Essential conditions – access to…
• Basic literacy skills
• 26% of world adult population (1 billion people) is non-literate (2/3 are women)
• ICT devices, software, and sufficient bandwidth for Internet connectivity
• Most of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East has less than 10% of the population with personal computers
• High-income economies are far ahead (International Telecommunications Union, World Information Society 2007 Report)
• The top 1,000 companies in the world have over 70 million computers to dispose of
• Low-cost laptops: OLPC (600,000 orders from Birmingham (AL), Peru, Haiti, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Mexico, Uruguay, Mongolia), EeePC, Intel Classmate (150,000 orders from Nigeria, Libya)
• Cloud computing (virtual servers) means not much power has to reside on the computers themselves
• Asia and Europe both have more Internet users than North America; a near-perfect relationship between Internet use and income
• Broadband access takes up 2.1% of high-income (and 909% of low-income) yearly wages
• USA is now 15th in broadband penetration (see www.itif.org)
• Wireless access is increasing exponentially in many developing countries
• Meaningful, high-quality, culturally-relevant content in local languages
• 68% of Internet content is in English; next highest is Japanese (6%)
• 4Directions project is an indigenous model of education to create culturally-relevant curriculum resources
• Virtual museum partnerships
• Creating, sharing, and exchanging digital content
• The majority of the 7 billion videos streamed on the Internet each month are user-generated
• The number of blogs has roughly doubled every 6 months
• We need to enable indigenous voices and to use the Internat to foster cross-cultural understandings and share knowledge
• Educators who know how to use digital tools and resources in pedagogically-sound, culturally-responsible ways
• UNESCO ICT Competency Standards for Teachers
• Development of National Plans for ICT in Teacher Education
• Teacher Learning in E-Learning Age (UNESCO, forthcoming)
• Effective leadership in policy and planning
• Removing policy barriers and formulating new policy frameworks
• Broadband challenges require new thinking
• There is a need for ICTs customized to the needs of the poor in the developing world
• How do we ensure that the USA stays competitive?
• What is our role as educators to help address the global digital divide?
• From the Digital Divide to Digital Opportunities

NECC 2008 - A look ahead at the communications industry

Here are my notes from ISTE’s annual digital equity summit at NECC. There is too much information to fit in one post so I’m breaking it up…

Communications Industry: A Look Ahead
Link Hoewing, Vice President, Internet and Technology Policy, Verizon Communications

Everything is moving from fixed to mobile technologies (both voice and broadband)

• Consumers are in control
• Three paradigms: wireless, IP, broadband
• Anytime/anywhere high bandwidth connectivity
• Lifestyle/business pesonalization
• Universal connectivity and standards
• Greater control by users at ‘the edge’
• Extension of high-capacity capabilities from hubs to endpoints
• Interactive applications and services to address social as well as business issues
• Statistics
• 54% of all homes now have broadband
• 82% of all Americans have a cell phone
• 5.6 million African-American homes had broadband access in 2005. By 2008 that was 16.1 million homes (over 40 million individuals)
• People are increasingly using cell phones as mobile data devices, not just telephones
• Some homes have 30 to 35 digital devices (computers, televisions, cameras, etc. (Pew/Internet home media ecology)
• Everyone is losing lines. Verizon had 4% line loss in 2007. Cable VOIP, wireless, cell phones, etc. 33 million homes in Verizon footprint; Verizon lost 2 million last year.
• Verizon’s new strategy is built on broadband. It’s busy upgrading its lines. Verizon had the largest expenditure of capital in the country last year (more than GE, NTT, Walmart, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhllips, etc.).
• 80% of Verizon lines are DSL capable (90% in urban areas).
• $63 billion in network upgrades since 2004 (more than any other company). EV-DO reaches 228 million people today. LTE (4G) by 2010 with 75 Mb down.
• 15–50 Mb broadband service is available. 100 Mb service is in trial. There is a need to support high-demand multimedia applications.
• The shift in emphasis is from locations (landlines to homes) to people (mobile) and connectivity.
• Everything is being driven by the technology, by competition, and by consumers who want their devices to do more.
• Solving key challenges by changing the paradigm
• About 90% of health records are still on paper
• Real-time information on energy usage can lead to 13% reduction in energy use
• Prudent use of technology (e.g., e-commerce) could reduce human-induced global emissions by 15% by 2020
• Truly individualized approaches and ‘learning communities’
• Students entering school and gaming turn out to be primary reasons for people to sign up for broadband

NECC 2008 - SETDA PD Roundtable

Here are my notes from Tuesday’s Professional Development Roundtable sponsored by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). This was an EXCELLENT conversation.

Effective professional development for educators

• Peer-to-peer training is particularly effective for teachers and administrators. Training also should be job-embedded. The focus should be the project or task, not the technology.
• Alabama has found that the graduates of their Gates grant initiative constitute the bulk of the innovative school- and district-level technology leaders in the state.
• Dr. Mary Ann Wolf, Executive Director of SETDA, asked me to talk about CASTLE! Administrators need dedicated funding, training, and TIME to learn.
• Coaching models for professional development (PD) work extremely well.
• New York City has a comprehensive PD model that includes principals, teachers, etc. Principals want to see best practices and what’s working in other schools. In contrast, teachers want people to come to their classroom, to discuss ‘what works here.’ Having an in-school professional developer works really well for teachers. It’s important to have both the in-class and the off-campus components.
• A lot of people don’t really know what high-quality PD looks like.
• Brenda Williams, West Virginia Department of Education: If you get professional development right, student learning will improve.
• Steve Andrews, Intel: The politics of cost is incredible. EDC has found that If you can get one PD coach per building, the results and progress are amazing.
• Project-based administrator training needs to involve the team, not just individuals. The principals need their assistant principals, teacher leaders, etc.
• We need to get teachers into other classroom via learning walks, observations, lesson study, etc.
• Principals need to have an actionable theory of change.
• There are a number of strong PD models in existence. SETDA is going to try to collect and then disseminate some of these models.

Barriers to effective, scalable professional development

• Lack of adequate, large-scale Internet access in training facilities. The West Virginia Department of Education forced state hotels to step up or risk losing all of its workshops!
• IT people still aren’t talking to curriculum people, assessment people, etc.
• There is a fairly large number of obstructionist teachers.
• Time, perceptions of endurance, perceptions of efficiency. Teachers wonder if it’s worth investing in a technology because it is changing so fast. Teachers have seen a number of technologies come and go [and they have resisted all of them!].
• Lack of exposure to effective models for technology-related PD.
• Many teachers view technology as a classroom distraction rather than as a meaningful learning tool.
• We don’t bring IT people into the process soon enough. They need more lead time and more involvement.
• Statewide programs have trouble ensuring consistency and implementation fidelity.
• Intentionality is important. Technology training that’s driven by subject learning goals (e.g., we need to get our math scores up) is more successful. Dedicated time and focused assessment also are necessary.
• Leadership turnover and program sustainability are issues.
• Leaders need help translating models of effective PD and time reallocation to their local implementation context.
• Content area people need to be involved in the tech training. Instruction first.
• Tom Carroll, NCTAF: Are we applying the right treatment to the right teachers? One technology PD model does not fit the learning needs of all teachers (just like students).
• Students need to be the ultimate focus of teacher PD efforts. It’s not about the tools, it’s about how it benefits the students. Having students demonstrate and discuss can be a powerful motivator to teachers. Clayton Christenson: The disruptive innovation in education is not charter schools or online schools. It’s student-centered learning.
• New teachers are effective users of personal technologies and are comfortable with instructional technologies. However, they have few models of good technology integration in their schools and they also probably had instructional technology courses in their pre-service program that were separate from their content methods courses.
• Preservice teachers do not come out of college as instructional designers.
• Steve Andrews, Intel: One of the most incredible opportunities of our lifetimes is before us.
• We need to use pride, greed, hope, love, and guilt to get teachers moving.
• Schools’ poor use of technology is having negative impacts on the retention of young teachers.

Policy and practice recommendations

• Specific guidelines of 1 instructional coach per 1,000 students.
• Concrete strategies for changing how we do business (at all levels), maybe differentiated by setting, size, and locale.
• Strategies for informing and engaging parents / community members.
• A comprehensive K-20 vision and agenda – state level and/or national level – that drives forward movement.
• Mandatory interactions between K-12 and higher education. [NCATE requires that colleges work with schools?]
• We need to pay more attention to our leaders!
• Colleges of education are not going to accept any responsibility (for technology training, outreach, service, PD) until legislatures, departments of education, and/or accrediting agencies make them do so. [U. Minnesota performance review: ‘Dr. McLeod’s work with schools is exemplary but inappropriate.’]
• We need to follow up statements of ‘It’s so expensive to do this’ with the reply ‘What is the cost of not doing this?’ We need to think more in terms of investment (not cost) and return on investment.
• We have to figure out what to take off educators’ plates (the idea of prioritized abandonment).
• Most high-functioning companies spend about 4% of their budgets on employee training. We come nowhere close to this in K-12 education.
• We need to remember the interconnectedness of the success of the whole. We don’t want others to cherry pick components of what should be a comprehensive approach to systemic school reform.

NECC 2008 - Refreshing ISTE's NETS-A

Here are my notes from the NETS-A Refresh session…

Dr. Don Knezek, CEO of ISTE, asked me to stand up and describe the innovative work that CASTLE and I have done regarding the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). That was very kind of him to recognize our work. Thank you, Don!

Tim Magner, Director, Office of Educational Technology, United States Department of Education

• We know how important leadership is.
• We’ve spent over a decade on teachers and students but we’ve neglected our leaders.
• Leadership involves change.
• The new NETS-T (teacher standards) really emphasize modeling.
• With leaders we have to take it up a notch.
• The skills for leaders have to emphasize adaptation to a rapidly-changing world.
• We need leaders to look beyond today to the next generation of school.

Table activities (responses of my group)

• Identify three characteristics of administrators who are effective technology leaders.
• The entire room seems to be in favor of calling it NETS-L (leaders), not NETS-A (administrators).
• We worked on Standard VI (Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues).

It makes more sense to align the NETS-A with existing leadership standards (e.g., ELPS) than it does to align to NETS-S or NETS-T.

NECC 2008 - CoSN CTO Leadership Forum

Here are my notes from Monday morning’s CTO Leadership Forum, sponsored by CoSN. The focus was on digital content and the role of the CTO (chief technology officer)…

Ann McMullan, Executive Director of Instruction, Klein ISD, Texas

Clearly, if the superintendent isn’t involved in these conversations (about digital learning], it doesn’t happen. If you don’t have your key central office personnel on board, it simply doesn’t happen.

Hmmm… that sounds familiar!

Some key resources from CoSN

• Empowering 21st Century Superintendents initiative
• Small District Technology Leadership wiki

Table activities (notes from my group are below)

When will education reach a ‘tipping point’ where digital content becomes pervasive in education? What roles should the district technology leader assume?

• It’s different for every district. In some schools it’s already pervasive; in others they’re not even close.
• I see districts that are or want to but they don’t have the bandwidth to handle it.
• Technology is increasingly becoming part of the curriculum department.
• We need to standardize on new equipment that can handle this new digital content.
• The greatest limiting factor we have is time. If we want to teach 21st century skills, it’s gotta come out of somewhere. Even when innovative 1:1 situations exist, central office still says ‘just make sure those test scores go up.’
• You don’t get rewarded for risk.
• No one’s going to thank you for taking care of today if you fail to take care of tomorrow. (Joel Barker)

What is the impact of emerging technologies and critical initiatives such as Web 2.0 technologies on the future role of the district technology leader?

• To block it. (joking!)
• If you throw it all wide open, you run the risk of one incident causing everything to be shut down.
• But we cannot be reactionary anymore. We have to avoid the ‘New York Post’ syndrome. We’re so afraid of the one bad thing that we miss all the good things that could happen.
• What is the worst consequence of your best idea? These tools give kids control of their own education!

What role does district technology leadership play in closing the gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces? What needs to change in teaching styles and instructional delivery of a school district in order to enable effective learning of 21st century skills?

• We covered this up above.
• Getting past the overwhelming emphasis on test scores.
• When are we going to stop assessing students on fact regurgitation and instead assess them on their ability to find and interpret information?
• We have to get back to trusting teachers.

If we assume that digital content will evolve from our current model of ‘electronic text books’ to newer modes of learning objects and collaborative work spaces, what does that mean for the future of student access in our supported networks?

• Textbooks are not going to go away. They will not be substantively replaced by digital content.
• Most of my group saw digital content existing primarily as a supplement to paper textbooks, even 30 to 40 years from now. [sigh]

Chris Lehmann asked me, ‘Why are people still paying for content?’ I replied, ‘So we don’t have to think about our instruction.’

The Congress on the Future of [Digital] Content

Some findings from the May conference…

• Overall vision
• Visionary leadership
• Stakeholder involvement
• Rigorous content and curriculum
• Ongoing professional development
• Assessment and data to individualize instruction
• Content that is engaging and flexible. Students are increasingly producers of content.
• Curriculum and teaching strategies: alignment, scope and sequence, assessment, 21st century skills, problem-based learning.
• Support for effective use of content: Ongoing, more money, more tech. Some vetting is still necessary.
• America’s Digital Schools 2008: 1:1 is growing rapidly!
• Barriers
• Insufficient access to technology in schools and at home
• Loack of ongoing professional development
• Insufficient funding for content
• Old curriculum and NCLB
• Vetting and adoption process
• No alternative business models
• Intellectual property rights
• Fragmentation of market
• Complexity of transactions
• The Vail, Arizona district has gone completely to digital content?
• All adoption processes should enable adoption of digital materials and promote flexibility of content selection.
• Districts in Texas are paying for paper textbooks to get the accompanying digital content. They then also pay to store the unused textbooks.
• Recommendations
• Flexibility
• Educators should be the ones driving the selection of content. They need the ability to ‘chunk’ (select only pieces of) content during the selection process.
• Professional development
• Outreach / public relations
• The public does not yet understand the need to move to a different model of instruction. We need to help them reframe their mental models of what ‘school’ is.
• In the end, someone has to pay for a different model.
• A Chicago Public Schools survey showed that 70% of its students had better technology access at home than at school.

NECC 2008 - Sunday fun

Yesterday was a fun day here at NECC. Other than the SIGTC Forum, I had nothing scheduled. Of course I hung out in the Blogger’s Cafe!

When I showed up at the Cafe, Jeff Utecht and Brian Crosby were busy hacking the monitor that ISTE had placed there (left side of the picture below). That monitor was later used to broadcast the keynote speech by James Suriowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds (thanks, Konrad Glogowski, for getting the sound fixed!). On the larger screen (right side of the picture below) we displayed Vicki Davis’ CoverItLive backchannel conversation about the keynote so that others could follow along.

I was one of Vicki’s CoverItLive ‘panelists.’ It was a little weird to be sitting three feet behind her and other panelists but only interacting online rather in person (I’m behind the red table in the picture below). That said, everything went very smoothly and people in the Cafe could hear the keynote better than folks in other lounges because most of our lively side conversation occurred online rather than out loud during the speech.

If you ever get a chance to see Ewan McIntosh’s blog aggregator, he organizes his incoming education feeds by geography (Africa, Australia, etc.). He does a phenomenal job of ensuring that he’s receiving a variety of perspectives. As he said to me yesterday, “For every problem we’re discussing, there’s usually already a solution out there somewhere. It’s frustrating sometimes to hear U.S.-centric conversations about dilemmas that often have been addressed in other countries.” Also, interestingly, Ewan told me that his primary blog audience is his boss!

This is a picture of two managers in our BlogBall08 (edublogger fantasy baseball league), Brian Smith and Ted Sakshaug. My team beat Brian’s 8 to 2 this week!

Here’s a picture of Susan Brooks-Young as she runs the NECC orientation session for administrators. She did a great job of running a session for which the room needed to be twice as large. I sat next to someone from Georgia who apologized for putting her ‘grocery store feet’ near my face (I was sitting on the floor) [explanation: apparently your bare feet get really dirty when you walk through a grocery store]. Over 70% of the participants were first-time attendees of the conference (that’s a good thing, I think).

On our way to dinner we took a few pictures (yes, that’s James Surowiecki).

Here are some other pictures from my NECC Flickr set. The last picture is of Jon Becker and the ‘Chip Nazi.’