Dangerously Irrelevant

Calling all bloggers! - Leadership Day 2009

Since the past two have been so successful, I am putting out a call for people to participate in Leadership Day 2009. As I said two years ago:

Many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators) need help when it comes to digital technologies. A lot of help, to be honest. As I’ve noted again and again on this blog, most school administrators don’t know

• what it means to prepare students for the 21st century;
• how to recognize, evaluate, and facilitate effective technology usage by students and teachers;
• what appropriate technology support structures (budget, staffing, infrastructure) look like or how to implement them;
• how to utilize modern technologies to facilitate communication with internal and external stakeholders;
• the ways in which learning technologies can improve student learning outcomes;
• how to utilize technology systems to make their organizations more efficient and effective;
• and so on…

Administrators’ lack of knowledge is not entirely their fault. Most of them didn’t grow up with these technologies. Many are not using digital tools on a regular basis. Few have received training from their employers or their university preparation programs on how to use, think about, or be a leader regarding digital technologies.

So… let’s help them out.

Guidelines

On Sunday, July 11 12, 2009, blog about whatever you like related to effective school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs, wants, etc. Write a letter to the administrators in your area. Post a top ten list. Make a podcast or a video. Highlight a local success or challenge. Recommend some readings. Do an interview of a successful technology leader. Respond to some of the questions below or make up your own. If you participated in years past, post a follow-up reflection. Whatever strikes you. The official hashtag for your post and/or Twitter is

#leadershipday09

Please also link back to this post to ensure that I find yours. If you don’t have a blog, comment on someone else’s post and/or send your thoughts to me and I will post them for you. I will do a summary afterward of what folks wrote and talked about [bloggers, this means some new readers probably will head your direction; this is a blog carnival for technology leadership!].

Some prompts to spark your thinking

• What do effective K-12 technology leaders do? What actions and behaviors can you point to that make them effective leaders in the area of technology?
• Do administrators have to be technology-savvy themselves in order to be effective technology leaders in their organizations?
• What are some tangible, concrete, realistic steps that can be taken to move administrators forward? Given the unrelenting pressures that they face and their ever-increasing time demands, what are some things that administrators can do to become more knowledgeable and skilled in the area of technology leadership?
• Perhaps using the new National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A) as a starting point, what are the absolutely critical skills or abilities that administrators need to be effective technology leaders?
• What strengths and deficiencies are present in the new NETS-A?
• What is a technology tool that would be extremely useful for a busy administrator (i.e., one he or she probably isn’t using now)?
• What should busy administrators be reading (or watching)?
• How can administrators best structure necessary conversations with internal or external stakeholders?
• How should administrators balance enablement with safety, risk with reward, fear with empowerment?

Here are the ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT posts from the past two years

• Leadership Day 2007 – Summary
• Leadership Day 2008 – Summary

A badge for your blog or web site

Please join us for this important day because, I promise you, if the leaders don’t get it, it isn’t going to happen.

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of June 1

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week… 

Edjurist

Scott Bauries discussed how the No Child Left Behind Act has introduced some new angles into school finance equity lawsuits. Scott also shared some initial thoughts about the burgeoning movement toward national curriculum standards.

Justin Bathon highlighted some issues related to a parent’s request to read the Bible in her son’s kindergarten class.

LeaderTalk

Kimberly Moritz wants to know: Why do we do it this way? She answers: Fear of reproach is how we end up closing the doors to our classrooms and offices and doing the same things year after year.

Mark Stock also asked a question: What does school reform look like when the National Education Association agrees with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?

Ryan Bretag said, “In this day and age when content is available anytime, anywhere, and to anyone, classrooms can no longer be tethered to the content-driven, physical spaces defined by 20th Century methodologies.”

Jayson Richardson highlighted some generational differences. Apparently I’m part of the Nike Generation.

Dennis Richards noted that 98% of kindergarteners were classified as geniuses when it came to divergent thinking (which is what you do when you are not forced to conform…).

Dangerously Irrelevant

I gave an update on the CASTLE Summer Book Club and I posted three quotes from Richard Longworth’s absolutely brilliant book, Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism:

• Any job that does not require face-to-face contact with a customer can be outsourced
• They are totally unqualified for any job other than the ones they just lost
• Biosciences will hire no dropouts

I also wrapped up my series of quotes from Michael Port's The Think Big Manifesto:

• We are the biggest obstacle
• We are squandering the gifts of the universe
• Get comfortable with discomfort

Finally, I reinstated the Not So Irrelevant feature of this blog, which I use to highlight various links of interest from around the Web. School administrators are busy. Hopefully I can steer them toward some online resources that will be informative and helpful. This time I’m limiting my selections to just 5 links per day. Last week I posted 25 links:

• Not so irrelevant 015
• Not so irrelevant 016
• Not so irrelevant 017
• Not so irrelevant 018
• Not so irrelevant 019 (I think this one’s the best)

Happy reading!

Biosciences will hire no dropouts

Richard Longworth says…

Men and women who carried lunch pails and spent their days on assembly lines could earn good wages, own their own homes, feed their families, and keep a cottage by the lake. It was a safe, solid way of life, and it didn’t require much book learning. One step up the ladder stood the trades, the jobs in construction and nursing and repair. The junior colleges and vocational schools taught these trades and taught them well. If they didn’t teach much science or math, that was all right, because only students going to universities needed that knowledge. . . . The Midwest has lost the knack to compete in the new economy, and the schools have lost their ability to teach it. (pp. 179–180)

Globalization may be the most egalitarian force in history. . . . If you’re good, you’ve got a chance. If you've got the education and the skills, the door is open. But if you don’t . . . you’re out of luck. . . . If the Midwest’s future contains manufacturing, it will be high-end, high-tech manufacturing, demanding two-year degrees at the least. Biosciences will hire no dropouts. (pp. 172–173)

[Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism]

They are totally unqualified for any job other than the ones they just lost

Richard Longworth says…

State officials know perfectly well that globalization will swallow their traditional industries. But they’re stuck. Workers vote, and a voter who has just lost his job will be an angry voter. . . . Every time a factory dies, its workers go from a private payroll to the public dole; . . . unemployment pay and retraining costs take money away from programs, such as education, that might offer some advantage in the new economy. And so the pressure builds to subsidize the old industries, to do anything to keep them from moving away. . . . The time and money [states] spend trying to keep twentieth-century jobs prevent them from creating twenty-first century jobs. (pp. 35–36)

The dirty little secret of Midwestern manufacturing is that many workers are high school dropouts, uneducated, some virtually illiterate. They could build refrigerators, sure. But they are totally unqualified for any job other than the ones they just lost. (p. 56)

[Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism]

Any job that does not require face-to-face contact with a customer can be outsourced

Richard Longworth says…

Most of [the] earlier outsourcing dealt with manufacturing and factory workers. . . . The newest wave is different. It’s white-collar outsourcing . . . and it can hit anyone whose job isn’t absolutely nailed down. . . . Basically, any job that does not require face-to-face contact with a customer can be outsourced. Defense attorneys who must appear in a Wisconsin court cannot be in India, but real estate lawyers searching titles can. An Indiana X-ray technician has to be in the same room with the patient; the doctors who read the X-rays can be anywhere. Barbers in Columbus, taxi drivers in Chicago, and kindergarten teachers in Des Moines are outsource-proof. Stockbrokers and tax accountants aren’t. All this is happening now. . . . ‘Anything that can be sent over a wire can be outsourced, anything fungible is up for grabs, any tradable service anywhere in the world. Fifty percent of global GDP is services, and a lot of that is tradable.' (pp. 11–12)

[Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism]

Get comfortable with discomfort

Michael Port says…

When we are thinking small, we crave preordained outcomes. We want to know what’s going to happen before we begin. Control is an illusion. The need to know how and where prevents all progress. Outcomes are not the starting point. . . . When we seek to control it, it’s because we fear the unknown, the out of control. What we fear is reality because ultimately it can never be controlled. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 106–107]

Related posts

• Rise up
• The potential of our success makes [others] face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts
• We are the biggest obstacle
• We are squandering the gifts of the universe

We are squandering the gifts of the universe

Michael Port says…

With small thinking, we cannot grow – intellectually, spiritually, creatively, emotionally, financially. And when we cannot grow, society cannot grow. It cannot advance. It cannot develop. Small thinking is an ultimately autodestructive path. . . . The only reward of small thinking will be paid in the common currency of all small thinking – unaccomplished dreams. . . . No growth – not spiritual, emotional, professional, or social – is possible in this kind of environment. We are squandering the gifts of the universe. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 52–53]

Related posts

• Rise up
• The potential of our success makes [others] face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts
• We are the biggest obstacle

We are the biggest obstacle

Michael Port says…

Revolution is about one person at a time experiencing their own personal empowerment against an existing, deficient (small thinking) system. (p. 13)

We are the biggest obstacle that stands in the way of our doing big things in the world. We are our own worst enemies. (p. 22)

[The Think Big Manifesto]

Related posts

• Rise up
• The potential of our success makes [others] face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts 

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of May 25

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

LeaderTalk

James Yap discussed how a highly-acclaimed deaf education program actually treats deafness as a pathology.

Reggie Engebritson celebrated Graduation Day with the seven graduates of her alternative school.

Edjurist

Justin Bathon highlighted his new article on free legal research resources and discussed the intersections of school district student residency requirements and child support payments.

Justin also concluded his series on search, seizure, and school resource officers and asked why there are no education law professors on the Law Profs Blog Network.

Dangerously Irrelevant

I kicked off the second annual CASTLE Summer (Online) Book Club and asked for help identifying blogs and web sites where parents were writing about their local school districts. I also stirred up some controversy by calling two faculty members ‘stupid.’

I tried to wrap my head around some American workforce data and discussed two key questions for organizations with an online presence:

1. Why should I come at all?
2. Why should I come back?

I highlighted the upcoming Constructing Modern Knowledge conference, created a Kindle version of this blog, and reviewed the award-winning book, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy.

We also wrapped Episode 6 of the 4 Guys Talking podcast, which was one of the best we’ve had to date.

Happy reading (and listening)!

Manufacturing jobs just ain't what they used to be

In my never-ending quest to wrap my head around workforce data despite no background or training whatsoever, I’ve been playing around with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) web site. But first a quick look at General Motors (GM)!  [click on all images for larger versions]

General Motors has a shrinkage issue

As many of you know, GM has been in the news lately as it faces possible bankruptcy proceedings. The image below shows the shrinkage of GM’s workforce over a generation.

Combine this image with all of the other news on the U.S. automobile industry and it’s easy to see that automotive jobs in America, at least as they’ve traditionally been configured, often are a loser’s game due to lower costs and, often, higher quality overseas.

Hey, how are we supposed to make a living?

Below are two charts that I made after diving deep into the BLS Industries At A Glance data, particularly the historical trend data. The first chart shows that the number of employees in the professional and business services, financial activities, and education and health services supersectors grew substantially over the past three decades. In contrast, the manufacturing supersector has lost over a third of its employees and those job losses show no signs of slowing down any time soon. Of course the education and skills needed for these growth sectors of the American economy are different and/or higher than those needed for most manufacturing jobs. FYI, the data points are from the month of April for each year.

The second chart shows the average increase in real earnings since 1980, broken out by labor supersector and adjusted for inflation. As you can see, not only are manufacturing jobs disappearing, those that are left actually have seen a decline in inflation-adjusted earnings over the past three decades. In other words, the purchasing power of your average manufacturing employee is less than it was three decades ago. Not so for the other three supersectors in the chart. I’m no workforce expert but this doesn’t seem to make a strong argument for the manufacturing industry here in America until our companies figure out how to effectively navigate overseas competition despite higher wages, corporate health care and other legacy costs, Americans’ expectations regarding standard of living, and other issues.

I’m not completely sure what to make of all of this. Right now I’m trying to locate data and present them in ways that make sense to me because I have a sense that this stuff is pretty important. As I share this out, your thoughts and expertise are welcome!

One last thing

FYI, despite my best efforts with it, Wolfram Alpha was of no help whatsoever with this investigation. Maybe down the road as it gets more sophisticated, increases its store of data, etc.

Related posts

• Immunizing your graduates from economic downturns
• Iowa - 21st century curricula

HELP WANTED - Parents who are blogging about their local schools?

Back in February I noted that parents are using online tools to push back on their local school districts. Embodying the themes expressed in Clay Shirky’s excellent book, Here Comes Everybody, parents and other stakeholders are using blogs, online discussion boards, e-mail listservs, YouTube channels, and other social media tools to organize, advocate, criticize, support, and otherwise express their opinions about their local school systems.

Here are some examples:

• NYC Public School Parents
• GothamSchools
• Parents Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland
• Attack of the Narcisse Clones
• Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE)
• Catalyst Chicago
• Chariho School Parents’ Forum

Also see the parent reviews at GreatSchools (here’s an example from Dallas, Texas) and the New York City school reviews at InsideSchools (here’s an example).

I’m looking for some more examples of parents (or others) blogging about their local school organization. Not an occasional post (as I am wont to do) but rather dedicated communication channels such as the ones above. If you know of any, please share them in the comments area? Thanks!

4 Guys Talking - Episode 6 (Chuck Heinlein)

If you’d like to know what a good statewide 21st century school leadership development program looks like, have we got a podcast for you!

This morning we had Episode 6 of 4 Guys Talking, the ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE. We spent the first 40 minutes talking with Chuck Heinlein, Director of the Leadership Center for 21st Century Schools at the West Virginia Department of Education.

I think this was one of our best podcasts to date. Chuck shared a wealth of information about the statewide principal institutes that he’s running, and we learned a ton about the legislative supports, Department of Education commitments, funding and policy mechanisms, and other supports that are in place in the state. I have the sense that West Virginia really is trying very hard to move its schools (and its school leaders) forward in a thoughtful, progressive, sustainable manner.

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle

You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.

Thanks to those of you who joined us live. I’m not sure when our next episodes will be but I will blog about them when I know. Happy listening!

Update: I deleted the embedded BlogTalkRadio player that used to be in this post. Since it started playing automatically, I thought it was too annoying!

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of May 18

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

EdJurist

Over at CASTLE’s education law blog, Justin Bathon noted that eventually we need to ‘get over’ the visceral emotions associated with the Columbine school shooting and stop overreacting to student behavior. Justin also wrote about the federal stimulus funds imbroglio in South Carolina that has resulted in the governor suing the state legislature.

Occasional guest blogger Scott Bauries shared his thoughts on restraint and seclusion to control the behavior of special education students. He also threw up some initial thoughts about cyberbullying and the First Amendment. 

LeaderTalk

Cyberbullying also was on the mind of LeaderTalk contributor Nancy Flynn. She shared some of her perspectives on the issue as an elementary school principal.

Kevin Riley wrote about ‘spinning heel kicks’ and mapping the Taekwondo ideas of mastery and ability grouping to schools and standardized testing.

Dangerously Irrelevant

Here at Dangerously Irrelevant, I put up what may be one of my favorite posts ever, Are educational leadership faculty seen as ‘leaders’ by the leaders that they serve?

I also posted two lists that have gotten some attention on Twitter:

• Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators
• Top 10 K12 Online 2008 podcasts for busy school administrators

Other posts last week included some of my own thoughts about an elementary school cyberbullying incident, a notification about our upcoming Episode 6 of the 4 Guys Talking podcast and my quest to find out a little bit about my readers. Additionally, I explored the idea of how to get the Twitter feeds of all Iowa educators (and, also, all schools, districts, or universities) in one place.

Happy reading!

4 Guys Talking - May 26 guest, Chuck Heinlein

Chuck Heinlein, Director of the Leadership Center for 21st Century Schools at the West Virginia Department of Education, will be our guest tomorrow on the 4 Guys Talking podcast. Chuck has an incredible job. Over the past few years he has run hundreds of administrators in his state through year-long institutes on 21st century schooling. As far as I can tell, West Virginia is far ahead of other states when it comes to investing in a statewide model for 21st century leadership development.

You can join us and Chuck on May 26, 1pm Central, for the live podcast. Feel free to call in and join the conversation yourself and/or help us brainstorm some questions for Chuck beforehand. The podcast also will be available for download afterward. Thanks!

Top 10 K12 Online 2008 podcasts for busy school administrators

Here are my top 10 2008 K12 Online Conference podcasts for busy principals and superintendents (in no particular order). These are the K12 Online presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!

1. There’s something going on here you need to know about… (Dennis Richards)
2. Current leadership models are inadequate for disruptive innovations (Scott McLeod)
3. The voices of School 2.0: School reform as described by the words and images of the people of the Science Leadership Academy (Chris Lehmann)
4. I like Delicious things: An introduction to tagging and folksonomies (Chris Betcher)
5. Telling the new story: Leverage points for inspiring change orientation (David Warlick)
6. Oh the possibilities (Lisa Parisi)
7. Games in education (Sylvia Martinez)
8. Facilitating technology integration: A synthesis of the research (Jon Becker)
9. “What did you do in school yesterday, today, and three years ago?” (H Songhai)
10. Parental engagement in the 21st century: Leveraging Web 2.0 tools to engage parents in non-traditional ways (Lorna Constantini & Matt Montagne)

Load these onto an iPod, hand it to a busy school administrator, and say, “Here are some presentations that I think you’ll enjoy while you’re exercising or driving around. After you’ve listened to a few, let me know what you think!”

Yesterday

• See my list of the top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators.

See also

• The Moving Forward wiki’s Podcasts page

Related posts

• Creating digitally-interested administrators
• Professional development for the leaders
• Great education podcasts meme

Top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy school administrators

Here are my top 20 TED Talks podcasts for busy principals and superintendents (in no particular order). These are the TED presentations that I think are most likely to interest, educate, and entertain administrators as well as make them think!

1. Kevin Kelly on the next 5,000 days of the web
2. Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom
3. Brewster Kahle builds a free digital library
4. Jonathan Drori on what we think we know
5. Mae Jemison on teaching arts and sciences together
6. Patti Maes demos the Sixth Sense
7. Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration
8. Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
9. David Perry on videogames
10. Stuart Brown says play is more than fun
11. Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves
12. Charles Leadbeater on innovation
13. Michael Merzenich on re-wiring the brain
14. Dave Eggers’ wish: Once upon a school
15. Ray Kurzweil on how technology will transform us
16. Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas
17. Howard Rheingold on collaboration
18. Erin McKean redefines the dictionary
19. Richard Baraniuk on open-source learning
20. Ann Cooper talks school lunches

Load these onto an iPod, hand it to a busy school administrator, and say, “Here are some presentations that I think you’ll enjoy while you’re exercising or driving around. After you’ve listened to a few, let me know what you think!”

Stay tuned

• Come back tomorrow for my list of the top 10 2008 K12 Online Conference podcasts for busy school administrators.

See also

• The Moving Forward wiki’s Podcasts page

Related posts

• Creating digitally-interested administrators
• Professional development for the leaders
• Great education podcasts meme

Are educational leadership faculty seen as 'leaders' by the leaders that they serve?

Here’s a recent Twitter conversation that I had, followed by some additional thoughts…

Okay, Russ, I’ll bite. How should it be?

Well, of course, in an ideal world educational leadership faculty should be seen as "leaders of leaders." If we’re preparing educators for formal leadership positions such as principal, superintendent, or special education director, we should be seen as credible authorities and thought-leaders. And we educational leadership faculty are sometimes seen as "leaders," I believe, in specialized arenas like research and (maybe) policy circles. 

I'm not sure, however, that educational leadership faculty often are seen as "leaders" by administrators in the field. Sure, we're usually seen as good people who often provide a decent (or at least not horrible) credentialing experience. But that's not the same as being looked to for leadership. 

I think this situation occurs because educational leadership faculty typically are not deeply engaged with schools and/or the people who lead them. Other job demands and institutional reward structures both work against tenure-track faculty spending a lot of time in the field. To be honest, many higher education faculty also aren't that interested in being too involved with K-12 practitioners. A great number of us are pretty introverted (as Sir Ken Robinson notes, we faculty 'live in our heads'), a trait which is okay in academe but typically isn't associated with great success in K-12 school administration. 

If success in academia is a four-legged stool - research, teaching, service/outreach, and grants/external funding - service/outreach is definitely the short leg of the stool. When we do define "service" in academe, it's primarily seen as disciplinary service such as serving on editorial or advisory boards, as journal editors, as officers in academic organizations, as proposal reviewers for conferences, and so on. The idea of service as "active engagement with and assistance of K-12 educational practitioners" is not very high on most faculty members' agendas. Often we see our teaching and credentialing (and an occasional meeting of a statewide committee or task force) as fulfilling that role of service to the field. When educational leadership faculty ARE involved with schools (i.e., we actually leave the university and go inside school buildings), it's often simply for a research project that may or may not have much tangible benefit to the participating school organization. We also like to have our 'clinical faculty' (i.e., non-tenure-track and thus, at many universities, "lesser" faculty) be the ones that primarily go out and work with schools, not us tenure-track folks.

We can point to isolated examples where what I've said here is inapplicable, and I'm sure that some of my academic peers across the country would take great exception to this post, but I believe that I've accurately described the general trend for most educational leadership faculty at most universities (particularly our most prestigious research universities), whether we want to admit it or not.

As those of you who regularly read or interact with me know, I'm a bit of an anomaly within my academic peer group. I see university education faculty as being in a service profession, one which should be serving the needs of K-12 (or higher education) practitioners. That's why I struggle with our definition of "service" as internally-focused service to ourselves rather than externally-focused service to others. That's why I struggle with academic publication hierarchies that value an article in a "prestigious" academic journal that no practitioner ever reads over an article in a still-selective practitioner journal that's read by tens of thousands of school administrators. That's why I struggle with a system that, for myself, can't (or won't) figure out how to value things like

1. trying to serve as a thought leader that hopefully can mobilize an entire state's (and maybe down the road an entire country's) K-12 leadership community to move their schools into the digital, global era; 
2. providing professional development and technical assistance to tens of thousands of administrators and teachers on issues that are really important; or 
3. blogging, podcasting, and providing other online resources that reach hundreds of thousands of educators all over the world.

Will my "roll up my sleeves and get into schools / write in places where others can find me / actually try to be helpful" path be successful in the long run in academe? Will my current university figure out how to place a value on the things that I do? Should other educational leadership faculty view writing and/or service/outreach more like I do? Only time will answer these questions. In the meantime, however, don't hold your breath waiting for much help or thought leadership or, in fact, any kind of "leadership" for K-12 administrators from educational leadership faculty. The system that currently exists places value on other activities and it's not changing any time soon.

CASTLE Round-Up - Week of May 11

This is a quick round-up of what happened on the CASTLE blogs last week…

LeaderTalk

At LeaderTalk, Barbara Barreda proposed that we “join our teachers in the ritual of closing down the school year by taking stock of our office and jettisoning the bottom 20%... the things that are good ideas but not great or critical.”

When we’re drowning in social media, Angela Maiers reminds us to just BREATHE.

Inbox Zero for Social Networking: Just BREATHE

View more presentations from angelamaiers.

Chris Hitch asked how we can find ways to motivate our staff in non-monetary ways during these difficult budgetary times and offered a few suggestions of his own.

EdJurist

Over at EdJurist, CASTLE’s education law blog, Justin Bathon said that we can learn a few things from NASCAR about randomized drug testing of teachers.

Justin also noted that

We absolutely need clarity from the courts on whether school resource officers are more like school employees or more like police. This having it both ways stuff (to the detriment of the students in all cases) has got to stop.

Finally, Justin posted Episode 4 of EdJurist TV, which focused on interesting student discipline cases from last year.

Dangerously Irrelevant

Here at Dangerously Irrelevant, my post, It’s not ‘the tests.’ It’s us., generated quite a bit of interesting commentary.

I posted a new video from Stephen Heppell and another of Seth Godin at TED. I also pointed to an interesting graphic from Tech&Learning regarding what students want in e-textbooks, highlighted AASA’s upcoming Seattle Summit, and showed the name badge ribbons that I’m bringing to NECC. I gave updates on my quest to identify model 21st century schools, the number of recipes on BlogTweetCook.org, and the lack of effective communication in my local school district.

Oh, yeah, Episode 5 of 4 Guys Talking (with Lane Mills) is now available.

Happy reading!

It's not 'the tests.' It's us.

I often hear educators say...

We could be teaching differently if it weren't for ‘the tests.’

Or…

We could do a better job of meeting our students’ needs if it weren't for ‘the tests.’

I emphatically dispute these assertions. We must take ownership of our own culpability.

Our prevalent instructional model that emphasizes low-level, decontextualized, factual recall was dominant long before ‘the tests.’ Our challenges of providing higher-order thinking experiences, opportunities for authentic collaboration, and real-world connectedness existed long before the No Child Left Behind Act. Our inability to effectively facilitate empowered technology usage, true cultural/global awareness, and other necessary skills for a digital, global, information age is a byproduct of long-held, deeply-rooted cultural and pedagogical norms, not recently-acquired beliefs and behaviors.

Is anyone willing to argue that achievement gaps were smaller before evil NCLB came along and messed us all up? Does anyone think that we were doing a fine job of meeting the needs of underserved populations before ‘the tests?’ Have we all forgotten that school has been boring for generations?

It's not ‘the tests.’ It's our unwillingness and/or inability to do something different, something better.

It's not ‘the tests.’ It's us.

 

UPDATE: There are some phenomenal comments below. I hope you'll take a few moments to read them. Be sure to also read Greg Thompson's reaction to this post.

"What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate" - Follow-up

Those of you who read me regularly may recall my April 24 post that highlighted some parent complaints about the new elementary school schedule that was proposed by my school district’s elementary principals. That post focused on the leadership issue of stakeholder communication…

Well, over 2 weeks later, the principals’ formal response is out (see below). As I expected they might, they give a number of good explanations for the scheduling changes. Although the memo is dated April 30, today is the day it was sent home by our school.

The communication issue is still very much present, though. At its heart, this is a conversation between three groups – school administrators, teachers, and parents/community members – and it’s being waged via paper letters and flyers, with responses several days or weeks apart. As long as it proceeds in this manner, how can this possibly be a successful, respectful conversation?

And, yes, even more trees gave their lives to the cause...

Upcoming event: AASA's Seattle Summit

I was delighted to see the announcement from the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) that it is hosting a summit in July on technology leadership issues. AASA is the national organization for school superintendents. Despite the desperate need for more tech-, 21st-century-skills–, and/or future-savvy school administrators, we don’t see near enough learning opportunities in this area from the big three national associations (AASA, NAESP, and NASSP). Maybe down the road AASA will do another one of these and I’ll get an invite to participate (hint, hint)!

The three-day institute is called the Seattle Summit. If any of you go, let me know how it went for you! Anyone want to go and live blog it? That would be fun!

Video - Seth Godin talks about 'tribes' at TED

Seth Godin’s latest talk at TED is now available. In his presentation, he talks about leadership, change, group action, and other ideas from his newest book, Tribes. Here is perhaps my favorite line from this talk:

If you’re not upsetting anyone, you’re not changing the status quo.

This is well worth any leader’s or change agent’s time to watch. Only 17 minutes. Happy viewing! 

4 Guys Talking - Episode 5 (Lane Mills)

This morning we had Episode 5 of 4 Guys Talking, the new ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE. We spent almost the entire time talking about university educational leadership preparation programs.

Our first 40 minutes was spent with Dr. Lane Mills, Associate Professor at East Carolina University (ECU) and board member for the journal,Innovate. Among other things, Lane talked about being the ‘lone wolf’ faculty member when it came to trying to prepare his program’s graduates (future school administrators) for the demands of the digital, global age. Lane essentially said that

Making change in higher education is like pushing a rope.

We continued to talk about the difficulty of getting our faculty peers on board ideologically and, even when they are, also getting them the training and knowledge that they need but currently lack. There’s little support for faculty even when they do want to move in this direction.

After Lane left us, we continued to talk about the struggles that educational leadership programs face as they work to prepare appropriately-empowered graduates. One issue that we started to discuss - and probably should spend some more time on in a later podcast – is the desirability of having certain technology and/or leadership expectations for admission of our incoming students (who are typically teachers or principals) and/or explicitly-stated desired outcomes for our graduates regarding technology leadership.

Jen Hegna challenged us right at the end, stating:

What can k-12 schools do while higher ed is trying to figure [out] their leadership programs? It is hard for us to wait...we need change now!

She’s got us dead to rights, I’m afraid. Other than for her to keep plugging away on her end, I don’t have any great answers right now for her concern. It’s going to take a while for those of us in academe to get our act together (if ever we will).

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle

You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.

Thanks to those of you who joined us live. Our next show will be on May 26, 1pm to 2pm Central. We’ll be talking with Dr. Chuck Heinlein, Director of the West Virginia Institute for 21st Century Leadership, which is sponsored by the West Virginia Department of Education.

[I'm still reworking CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel, which will include all previous and podcasts (including 4 Guys Talking). I'll post about it when it's ready (probably not until later this summer).]

Happy listening!

The potential of our success makes [others] face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts

Michael Port says…

We will be ridiculed for declaring ourselves to be big thinkers. To declare anything is to take a chance, to put ourselves on the line, to risk failure. . . . 

When we take risks, we scare other people (and most of all ourselves), because those others see the glimmer of possibilities that they are not even reaching for, because the potential of our success makes them face their own universe, so constricted by their small thoughts.

We will be put down for our efforts. Others will revel in our failures along the way. In the German language, there's even a word for it: schadenfreude. To feel pleasure at someone else's misfortune. Small, small thinking.

We may lose faith in ourselves at points along the way. Worse, we will be intentionally thwarted by small thinking people who fear big thinking because it threatens their comfortable power base.

Together we will find our warrior core, our inner strength, the root of big thinking, and nothing and no one can thwart us. [The Think Big Manifesto, pp. 36-37]

[see yesterday's post, Rise Up]

Rise up

Michael Port says…

The time has come. We cannot wait anymore. For years, we have hidden behind our own small thoughts or let ourselves be held back by other small thinking people who don’t believe in us. Worse still, we have been rejected as marginal, unrealistic, dreamers, idealists, maybe even delusional. Family, friends, colleagues, and others (not to mention our own selves) have tried to negate us, eliminate us, and silence us. We will not stand for it anymore. We say – bring it on. Our personal revolution from small thinking to big thinking is now. We will make public our aim to think big about our goals, our intentions, and, yes, our dreams.

There’s more. We will collaborate, cooperate, and join forces with other big thinkers to bring about the larger revolution our society needs if it is to survive.

You want to think big. I want to think big. Together, we will think even bigger. [The Think Big Manifesto, p. 34]

Video - To meet the demands of a new age

Here’s a 2–minute video about 21st century schooling and curricula that was created by one of our Educational Administration Master’s students, Steven Hopper, here at Iowa State University. I can take no credit for this – it’s all his – but I sure think it came out nicely!

I think this is a new arena for Steven, so I’m sure he’d appreciate any comments, suggestions, or other feedback you have for him. Happy viewing! 

4 Guys Talking - May 11 guest, Dr. Lane Mills

Dr. Lane Mills, Associate Professor at East Carolina University (ECU) and board member for the journal, Innovate, will be our next guest on the 4 Guys Talking podcast. Lane's working hard to integrate digital technologies into the Educational Leadership program at ECU. He also does a great deal of technology-facilitated data-driven decision-making work with school districts.

You can join Lane and us on May 11, 9am Central, for the live podcast. Feel free to call in and join the conversation yourself and/or help us brainstorm some questions for Lane beforehand. The podcast also will be available for download afterward. Thanks!

"What we've got here is (a) failure to communicate"

The elementary principals here are collectively rearranging their schools’ schedules to create a unified literacy block every morning and greater opportunity for teachers to have common planning time. In order to do this, Art and Physical Education time will take a hit, as will some elementary teachers’ ability to focus on one particular subject area (i.e., just math) rather than having to teach all of the subjects. I think that the new schedules also will allow for a greater possibility of doing flexibile ability grouping within subject areas.

Many parents and teachers are unhappy about the changes. I’ve heard from several of them and this was under my windshield wiper last night when I left our school’s Science Night:

There are both pros and cons to the changes. My kids’ elementary school has a phenomenal art teacher and we’re not too keen on our kids seeing her less often. And, of course, regular physical activity is important too, particularly given the growing problem of childhood obesity. On the other hand, I’ve seen firsthand in many schools the benefits of having common planning periods, a greater emphasis on unified literacy instruction, flexible ability grouping, and so on. In a community like ours, where the family demographics are such that most districts would die to have the standardized test results and college attendance rates that we do, there also is a strong element of ‘the current system is working fine so why change it?’

The interesting issue for me is the communication problem that’s highlighted here. The plan was presented a week or two ago and the uproar is now starting to reach critical levels. If the principals had done a better job of communicating their intentions and involving teachers and parents in the planning, could this emotional upheaval have been avoided? Without admittedly knowing any of the particulars, I’m guessing that there probably was a way to avoid some of this.

On another note, paper flyers on windshields? Um, the Internet, anyone? Maybe even e-mail? Another tree gives its life to the cause…

[FYI, the title quote is from Cool Hand Luke.]

My April SAI Report article

This year I started writing a column in the SAI Report, the monthly PDF newsletter put out by the School Administrators of Iowa for its members. With SAI’s permission, I’ve decided to occasionally share my articles on this blog so that you can see what I’m writing to the principals and superintendents here in Iowa. Below is my April article. Let me know what you think and/or if you have any suggestions for me for future articles!

RESOURCE ROUNDUP, APRIL 2009

Hi, everyone. This month I’m going to highlight several resources that should be of interest to technology-interested principals and superintendents. That means all of you since we now live in a digital, global era!

The Horizon Report, 2009 K-12 Edition

Be sure to check out the 2009 K-12 Horizon Report (snipurl.com/2009k12horizonreport). This first-ever report describes six emerging technologies that are “likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within [K-12] education around the globe.” The authors note that collaborative environments and online communication tools are expected to have major impacts on K-12 classrooms in the next year or so. Online services that are profiled include Google Docs, Ning, Moodle, Skype, Edmodo, VoiceThread, Twitter, Zoey’s Room, and more. Impactful technologies with time horizons slightly further out - i.e., in the next two to five years - include mobile phones, cloud computing, smart objects, and the personal web. The report includes descriptions of each emerging technology along with accompanying URLs of helpful resources and examples of classroom use. This is a must-read for any administrator interested in better technology integration within his or her school organization.

Google Docs for Educators

Speaking of Google Docs, Google recently released a video highlighting how educators are using its online office software suite in productive ways. The video is available at the Google Docs for Educators page (snipurl.com/googledocs4educators), which also contains additional resources, tips, and suggestions for P-12 teachers and administrators. Some school districts are using Google Apps for Education (snipurl.com/googleapps4education) - which includes Google Docs as well as e-mail, calendar, instant messaging, and wiki services - to save a great deal of money on server maintenance, software licensing, and other costs.

The Iowa series

I recently concluded a series of guest blog posts for The Des Moines Register that highlighted five essential levers that I believe are necessary to move Iowa schools forward and help our graduates survive and thrive in this new digital, global age in which we now live. These represent some of my best and most recent thinking on these topics:

• snipurl.com/dmr01a  (21st century curricula)
• snipurl.com/dmr02a  (a robust system of online learning)
• snipurl.com/dmr03  (a computer in every hand)
• snipurl.com/dmr04  (invest in leadership)
• snipurl.com/dmr05  (better information)

The netbook effect

Some of you are considering netbooks as possibilities for 1:1 laptop initiatives in your schools. Read Wired’s new article, The Netbook Effect (snipurl.com/netbookeffect), to understand why netbooks are selling like hotcakes.

SAI web site

You may have noticed some changes to the SAI web site! CASTLE has been working with SAI to update the site, make it more interactive, etc. For example, Dan Smith currently is hosting a book discussion on The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner. Matt Carver also recently posted about Iowa school districts’ cell phone policies. Both conversations are available in the Member Forum (the link is on the right side of the SAI web site). If you see Tracy Harms, give her a hearty thanks for all of her hard work. Look for additional tools, discussions, and resources in the months to come!

Dangerously Irrelevant

If you are enjoying this column, I would encourage you to check out my blog, dangerouslyirrelevant.org, where I write about technology leadership issues on a regular basis.

Invest in yourselves

Finally, I’ll make yet another plea for you to invest in yourselves. If P-12 school organizations are to ever catch up to the demands of a digital, creative, information economy, we must have technology knowledgeable and  savvy administrators. Please use some of those precious professional development monies to which your school district may soon have access to further your own understanding and skill development.

If you’d like to dialogue further about these issues or think that CASTLE and SAI might be able to help with your planning, purchasing, and/or staff development decisions, please stay in touch! mcleod@iastate.edu

4 Guys Talking - Episode 4 (Jeff Mao)

Yesterday was Episode 4 of 4 Guys Talking, the new ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE. We spent the entire time talking about 1:1 laptop programs. Our first 50 minutes was spent with Jeff Mao, Learning Technology Policy Director for the State of Maine. Among other things, Jeff talked about funding models, professional development for teachers and administrators, pedagogical frameworks, challenges faced by the state over the past few years, and, perhaps surprisingly, the relative lack of emphasis on standardized test scores as measurable outcomes for the initiative. He also shared his strong feelings about laptops v. netbooks for 1:1 programs. After Jeff left us, we spent the last 10 minutes debriefing, sharing thoughts, and raising further questions.

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle

You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.

Thanks to those of you who joined us live yesterday, either by calling in or listening over the Web. Future dates/times are as follows (all times Central):

• May 11, 9am to 10am
• May 26, 1pm to 2pm

[Yes, I'm still reworking CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel, which will include all previous and podcasts (including 4 Guys Talking). I'll post about it when it's ready (probably not until summer).]

Happy listening!

Photo credit: An Apple in the dark 2

Incumbents v. revolutionaries

Incumbents very seldom invent the future.

– Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, in Dinosaur at the Gate

Equity or idiocy?

Yesterday Ben Grey highlighted an issue that often arises when educators think about technology initiatives:

If a public school teacher writes a grant for technology, but the district can’t sustain the program in other buildings or potentially refresh the equipment once it reaches end of life, should the grant be granted? Is it better to deny the students in the classroom where the grant would be in effect so as to ensure equity across the district, or is it better to afford students an opportunity to reach higher, even if it means others won’t have that experience? Would allowing the grant to go forward specifically advantage one group of students over another, and thus present ethical issues for a public entity?

The person I was talking with was adamant that we should not allow classrooms to have that which other classes in the district can’t.

Is this all-or-none mindset equity or idiocy? Head over to Ben’s blog and chime in on the conversation.

[hat tip to Kelly Hines for pointing me to Ben’s post]

Paul Potts, Susan Boyle, and the problem of undiscovered talent in schools

I’ve probably watched this video clip of Paul Potts a dozen times and I still choke up when I see it [click on picture to see video]:

Now Britain has Susan Boyle:

There’s a lot of undiscovered potential out there. As schools and societies, we often fail to create the conditions in which talent can be nurtured, recognized, and utilized. I hope that one of the lasting impacts of this Internet age will be that people’s skills and talents get noticed and used more effectively. Sure, there still will be a lot of junk that will get in the way of this happening. But the potential for ordinary citizens to express their talents and reach others is greater than it ever has been before.

Do you have a story of undiscovered talent in your local school organization? I bet you do…

4 Guys Talking - Jeff Mao (Maine 1:1 laptop initiative) joins us on Monday!

I’m pleased to announce that Jeff Mao, Learning Technology Policy Director for the State of Maine, will be our first-ever official guest at 4 Guys Talking. Jeff will be joining us on Monday, April 20, at 2:00pm Central to share the latest on Maine’s statewide 1:1 laptop initiative, including its recent push to expand the program to include all students in grades 7 through 12.

We have started brainstorming some questions for Jeff on our wiki page. Feel free to add yours! You also may wish to first listen to Jeff’s conversation with the EdTechTalk crew back in June 2007. Hope you’ll join us on Monday!

Photo credit: An Apple in the dark 2

4 Guys Talking - Episode 3

This is a long overdue post that Episode 3 of 4 Guys Talking, the new ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE, is now available. As usual, our conversation ranged a bit but our focus was on reinventing schools. Justin Bathon said that we may have been a little negative. You’ll have to listen to see if you concur.

FYI, you’ll see that we had some hosting glitches at the beginning. If you start at 5:45 into the podcast, you’ll skip all of our confusion!

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle

You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.

Thanks to those of you who joined us live, either by calling in or listening over the Web. Future dates/times are as follows (all times Central):

• April 20, 2pm to 3pm
• May 11, 9am to 10am
• May 26, 1pm to 2pm

My hopes to rework CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel (which will include all previous and podcasts such as 4 Guys Talking), are on hold until the end of my semester. I'll post about it when it's ready.

Happy listening!

Slide - Focus on the critical few

[Download this file: ppt ppt pptx]

What she says v. what they hear

Some brilliance from Sue King over at LeaderTalk:

I have said, "We must be explicit about what we want students to know, understand and be able to do."
What some heard was, "You are not doing a good job."

I have said, "We will be more effective [if] we collaborate and work together to figure out how to best meet the needs of our students."
What some heard was, "You are not doing a good job."

I have said, "The responsibilities of public education have changed; we can learn together how to be successful in this new environment."
What some heard was, "You are not doing a good job."

I have said, "I believe in the ability of teachers to reach and teach ALL children."
What some heard was, "You are not doing a good job."

Educators’ reflexive defensiveness is a fact of life in most school organizations and is a challenge for leaders who are trying to move their schools in new directions. What do you see in your school or district?

Immunizing your graduates from economic downturns

[cross-posted at LeaderTalk]

As we all know, we are in the midst of a massive economic downturn. Every month is accompanied by reports of additional, large-scale layoffs. People are losing their jobs in significant numbers. And yet, despite claims that job losses are being felt throughout all areas of the economy, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data clearly show that the impacts of this recession are being felt more heavily by some rather than others.

For example, employees with a 4-year college degree or higher are losing their jobs at a much lower rate than other workers [click on image for larger version]:

Similarly, jobs in more ‘professional’ employment sectors are being lost at a much lower rate than those that traditionally have required fewer skills and/or education:

 

And certain industries are feeling the pain of unemployment much more than others (see more detail if you’re interested):

The numbers here in Iowa parallel what is happening across the nation. For example, although our state is weathering the recession better than many, the latest Iowa Workforce Development report shows that 20,000 of the 22,400 non-agricultural jobs lost over the past year are in manufacturing.

The labor statistics over the past year mirror longer-term trends in the American workforce. As the charts below show, the U.S. is now a country in which 75% of our workforce is employed in what Dr. Richard Florida calls ‘service class’ or ‘creative class’ professions. Lower-skill and lower-wage jobs that fall outside these two categories, such as those in manufacturing, are more likely to be lost both in the short and long term.

Creative-class jobs, which now make up at least a third of the American workforce and are the only segment of the economy that is growing long-term, require different skill sets such as complex communication, critical thinking, and collaborative problem-solving. These are skills for which schools typically have not prepared most of their graduates.

So what do all of these charts tell us? Well, there are no absolute guarantees that your school system’s graduates won’t lose their jobs. But it’s fairly clear that the best way to immunize your graduates from the potential of job loss is to give them the skill sets that they’ll need to 1) acquire an advanced education, and 2) obtain jobs in professional sectors that are long-term growth areas for the American economy (and thus are less vulnerable to short- or long-term downturns). This raises an obvious question, of course: How’s your school system doing at this?

4 Guys Talking - Episode 3 is today

FYI, Episode 3 of 4 Guys Talking is today at noon Central. Follow the link to the live Internet stream, which also includes the call-in number if you want to give us a ring!

The President is calling

The President is calling:

I'm calling on our nation's governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don't simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.

President Barack Obama, March 10, 2009

Alia iacta est. How will we answer the call?

4 Guys Talking - Episode 2

Yesterday was Episode 2 of 4 Guys Talking, the new ‘talk radio’ podcast series from CASTLE. Like last time, our conversation ranged widely. Among other things, we discussed whether or not university educational administration programs should bear some blame for the poor leadership that exists in many schools, the fact that most school district technology leaders have had little to no leadership training, the unfortunate and continuing marginalization of technology to its own ‘silo’ within school organizations, and efforts within our respective states to train school administrators to be better technology leaders.

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle

You also can subscribe to the 4 Guys Talking feed using iTunes or a RSS reader.

Thanks to those of you who joined us live yesterday, either by calling in or listening over the Web. Future dates/times are as follows (all times Central):

• April 1, 12pm to 1pm
• April 20, 2pm to 3pm
• May 11, 9am to 10am
• May 26, 1pm to 2pm

I'm still reworking CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel, which will include all previous and podcasts (including 4 Guys Talking). I'll post about it when it's ready.

Happy listening!

4 Guys Talking - Episode 2 is today

FYI, Episode 2 of 4 Guys Talking is today at 2pm Central. Follow the link to the live Internet stream, which also includes the call-in number if you want to give us a ring!

The Iowa series - Wrap-up

I've had a lot of fun guest blogging over at The Des Moines Register this week. For those of you who would like to have a single link that you can forward to others, you can use this web address:

http://snipurl.com/iowaseries

Here are links to each of the five posts here at Dangerously Irrelevant:

• Iowa - 21st century curricula
• Iowa - A robust system of online learning
• Iowa - A computer in every hand
• Iowa - Invest in leadership
• Iowa - Better information

Happy reading!

Iowa - Better information

[This is Post 5 for my guest blogging stint at The Des Moines Register.]

Archimedes said “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.” This week I am blogging about 5 key levers that I think are necessary to move Iowa schools forward and help our graduates survive and thrive in this new digital, global age in which we now live. Earlier I discussed the need for 21st century curricula, a robust system of online learning, providing a computer for every student, and investing in leadership. Today’s post concerns the need for better information.

Although the Iowa Department of Education does not collect school district technology plans as many other states do, it does have other mechanisms for collecting some information about technology in K-12 schools. Much of that is reported out in the annual Iowa Condition of Education report. For example, the most recent report tells us that back in 1997–1998 Iowa school districts used to spend nearly $100 per pupil on computer software and hardware. By 2006–2007, that figure had dropped to an average of only $77. Adjusted for inflation, that figure is only $61 ($1.00 in 1998 had the same buying power as $1.27 in 2007).

In other words, our world is becoming increasingly technological but our expenditures on technology in Iowa schools have decreased substantially. Iowa public schools spent $37.3 million on technology last year. It would take a 27% increase – another $9.9 million – to get us back to the spending rates of a decade ago. Adjusted for the reduced buying power of the 2007 dollar, those figures are 48% and $17.8 million respectively.

The Iowa Condition of Education also contains other useful information, such as the state average number of pupils per computer (supposedly at 3.2) and the percentage of high schools (87%), middle schools (81%), and elementary schools (71%) that reportedly have wireless networks. The Iowa Department of Education has all of this information in its database by school and district. But as useful as these data are, there is a lot of information that the Department doesn’t collect. As a result, there are a number of questions that have no useful answers.

Here are some questions that we should be asking in Iowa:

• What percentage of Iowa schools and districts have a technology plan? For those that do, what do those plans cover?
• What percentage of Iowa schools and districts have technology teams that advise the organization on technology-related concerns? Who’s on those teams?
• What are schools purchasing with their hardware and software money? What proportion of expenditures goes to teacher-centric technologies versus student-centric technologies? What proportion goes to software that provides powerful learning opportunities for students versus software that simply focuses on drill-and-kill remediation?
• How new are the computers in Iowa schools? What percentage of Iowa hardware and software is more than 2 years old?
• How many Iowa school districts have a student information system? a data warehouse system? electronic gradebook software? electronic student assessment systems? financial, human resources, food service, special education, or other management systems?
• On average, how much time per week do students get to use digital technologies as part of their classroom learning? What proportion of that time is spent using office productivity software, doing basic Internet research, engaging in online social media environments, or utilizing other technologies?
• How many districts have a technology coordinator? Is that person also doing other jobs?
• What is the average number of technology support personnel per teacher? per student? per building or district?
• What is the average number of technology integrationists per teacher? per building or district?
• What percentage of Iowa classrooms (not buildings) have wireless access?
• What percentage of Iowa classrooms have LCD screens or projectors large enough to display a computer screen image that the entire class can see easily? speakers so that the entire class can hear audio or video easily?
• What percentage of Iowa teachers have a webcam?
• What percentage of Iowa students have ever taken an online class? For those that have, what are they taking? How many wish that they had better access to online learning opportunities? What about the same set of questions for teachers?
• What percentage of Iowa students are involved in 1:1 laptop programs?
• What percentage of Iowa schools have the Internet bandwidth and other supports to effectively implement a 1:1 laptop program?
• How do Iowa students think and feel about technology integration in their classrooms? How about teachers, administrators, parents, or school board members?
• On average, how much time per year do Iowa teachers spend in technology-related professional development activities? How do they spend that time?
• What are the technology-related training needs of Iowa teachers and administrators? the technology support needs?
• What does Internet filtering look like in Iowa schools?
• What percentage of Iowa students’ families have Internet access at home? For those that do, is it dial-up or broadband?
• What percentage of Iowa students have computers at home? cell phones? digital cameras? portable music players? video game consoles? other devices? What percentage of teachers or administrators?
• How often do students use the Internet at home and for what do they use it? How about teachers or administrators?
• and so on…

These are all questions for which I’m pretty sure we don’t have much data. Yet the answers to every one of these would be highly informative to how we think about K-12 technology policy, funding, and implementation. So we have a disconnect. And because of that disconnect, we are making purchasing, staffing, funding, and other decisions without the necessary data to inform ourselves. 

Who would collect this information? Well, the Iowa Department of Education could take on more of this. Or perhaps the Iowa State Education Association, the School Administrators of Iowa, and/or the Iowa Association of School Boards. Or even a university research center like CASTLE. But the will and the funding for this has to come from somewhere.

So, like everything else, there is a cost involved. But the bigger cost is that we’re navigating blindly because we don’t have the critical information that we need to adequately and appropriately make instructional, operational, and policy decisions. Some money and effort expended now on gathering better information could save a lot of money and effort later on…

Iowa - Invest in leadership

[This is post 4 for my guest blogging stint at The Des Moines Register.]

Archimedes said “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.” This week I am blogging about 5 key levers that I think are necessary to move Iowa schools forward and help our graduates survive and thrive in this new digital, global age in which we now live. Earlier I discussed the need for 21st century curricula, a robust system of online learning, and providing a computer for every student. Today’s post concerns the need to invest in leadership.

Leadership is absolutely critical to the success of any organization. Whether it be a school, corporation, government, faith institution, non-profit agency, or local community group, every organization lives and dies by its leadership. Organizations with effective, visionary leaders thrive. Organizations with lackluster, ineffective leaders muddle along or decline.

Adapting our K-12 school organizations to the workforce and citizenship demands of a digital, global age is extremely difficult, complex work. We must have leaders in place who can facilitate this transition. Here’s the problem:

That’s right. The people in charge of leading Iowa’s school organizations into the digital, global era don’t know very much about either the digital or the global aspects of the world in which we’re now living. They didn’t grow up in this kind of world, they weren’t prepared for it by their university licensure programs, and, for the most part, they are not receiving adequate training or professional development for it from their school districts, area educational agencies, professional associations, or the Iowa Department of Education. As a result, they’re not active technology users, they’re not immersed in electronic learning environments, and they’re not cognizant of the radical shifts that are occuring in the American workforce.

So we have a critical problem. Iowa principals and superintendents – the folks who are in formal leadership positions in K-12 schools – are the ones who have the responsibility for creating a vision and community buy-in. They’re the ones who have the power to reallocate budgets and other resources. They’re the ones who have the ability to reassign and retrain personnel. They’re the ones who have the authority to realign the various aspects of the organization to meet the demands of a rapidly changing environment. But because most of them don’t understand what it means to prepare kids for this new technology-suffused, globally-interconnected world, the end result is preservation of the status quo or, at best, minor tweaking of our current system of schooling.

It’s important to emphasize that it’s not the leaders’ fault that this is the current situation. There’s no blame to assign here. We just need to recognize that our leaders need a better system of ongoing training and a different kind of preparation in their licensing programs. Unfortunately, we’re lacking in this area as well. In the world of K-12 educational technology, virtually all of the money and attention from the Iowa and federal governments, foundations, corporations, and other entities has gone to teachers and students. Admirable and necessary as this is, we must set aside some of that attention and training money to enable the leadership that will be necessary to initiate and sustain the changes that we need in our school system. 

We pour large sums of money into teacher training, student programs, equipment, and other infrastructure. These are all good. However, we continue to see few tangible, sustainable benefits of technological and curricular reform initiatives in most school organizations. Why? Because even our most innovative, technology-using educators continue to run smack into the brick wall of their administrators' lack of knowledge and/or training. Superintendents and principals are making decisions based on ignorance or fear of the unknown. They don’t know what it means to effectively facilitate rich, deep, technology-enabled learning experiences for students. In this kind of unsupportive administrative environment, it is illogical to expect that major changes will occur in our teachers’ classrooms.

The preference of most Iowa legislators, school board members, and funding entities is to get monies directly to students. If that’s not feasible, then allocating monies to teachers is the next most desirable option. Over time, these preferences have led to our current situation in which we are systematically underinvesting in our leadership. Until we recognize that long-term, systemic change never occurs without good leadership – and invest accordingly – we never are going to see the changes that we say we want to occur.

Iowa - A computer in every hand

[This is Post 3 for my guest blogging stint at The Des Moines Register.]

Archimedes said “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.” This week I am blogging about 5 key levers that I think are necessary to move Iowa schools forward and help our graduates survive and thrive in this new digital, global age in which we now live. Yesterday I discussed online learning opportunties for students. Today’s post concerns providing a computer for every student.

It is hard to believe that the personal computer is nearly three decades old. Our computing devices have come a long way in that time and they now permeate nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives. At the individual level, this movement has been driven by mobile computers and phones, wireless access, and the rise of the Internet. Every generation of computers seems to be smaller, cheaper, faster, and more powerful than the one before. Every new device or online service allows us to do things more efficiently, more effectively, or that we never could do before. And of course the pace of change is quite brisk.

As a result, it’s extremely difficult to find a well-paying job in America these days that doesn’t involve significant use of digital technologies. Unlike other sectors of our society, however, our schools still view the use of computers as a marginal add-on, as something that’s optional rather than essential to the everyday core of teaching and learning. Our schools still pretend that it’s an analog paper world rather than a networked digital world.

This has got to stop. We have to stop believing that we can adequately prepare graduates for a technology-suffused world by immersing them in paper-suffused learning environments. We have to look critically at student-computer ratios in schools – which mask the reality that most computers belong to teachers or are in labs – and ask a different question instead: On average, how much time per week do students get to use digital technologies as part of their classroom learning? The answer to this question is dismally low in almost every Iowa classroom.

There are a number of reasons for the lack of technology-facilitated learning opportunities in our K-12 schools. One is funding, of course. I recently did some back-of-the-envelope calculations for Iowa’s Institute for Tomorrow’s Workforce. At $300/year, the costs each year to provide a laptop to the 480,000 students in Iowa would be:

213,000 K-5 students = $63.9 million
114,000 6–8 students = $34.2 million
153,000 9–12 students = $45.9 million

These numbers look daunting, particularly given difficult economic times. But it is possible to do this by sharing the cost between state monies and school districts’ general funds, levies, and referenda. Other potential ways to reduce costs include, but are not limited to:

• utilizing federal or grant monies,
• leasing instead of buying,
• purchasing netbooks instead of laptops,
• allowing students to bring in their own laptops,
• making use of the mobile computers that most students bring to school every day (i.e., their cell phones), and/or
• only purchasing laptops for economically-disadvantaged students.

In the end, we have to balance the costs of doing this versus the costs of NOT doing this.

In addition to funding, numerous other challenges exist as well. One of the biggest is the current predisposition of schools to invest in teacher-centric technologies like televisions, DVD/VCR players, projectors, electronic whiteboards, and document cameras. They’re important and useful but they’re also primarily used as yet another way for teachers to push out information to students. In contrast, laptops, netbooks, digital cameras, small high-definition camcorders, digital voice recorders, webcams, digital scientific probes or sensors, and other devices are primarily used by students to facilitate their own academic learning. If we want Iowa students to gain the technology skills they will need to be productive citizens and workers, schools should be making as many investments in these latter, student-centric devices as possible. There also are a number of free or low-cost online software and tools that students and teachers can use in creative and productive ways.

Another large barrier to students’ technology usage is teachers’ inability to effectively implement digital tools into their instruction. One of the dirty secrets of K-12 educational technology is that many of the computing devices that already have been purchased are rarely used. This may occur because of teachers’ lack of training; most educators need a lot more help in this area. Or it may occur because of a lack of adequate technology support, which results in teachers inability to rely on the technology actually working when they do decide to use it. Or it may occur because of teachers’ outright refusal to integrate technology because of lack of interest or comfort.

Other barriers include the often-draconian Internet filtering systems that are in place in most schools, the increased pressure on schools’ Internet bandwidth capacity from additional computing devices, and the lack of adequate wireless and/or electrical capacity in many of Iowa’s school buildings.

The state of Maine provides laptops to 36,000 students and 11,000 educators (at a cost of just under $300/head, which is the basis of my calculations above). The New South Wales province in Australia has announced that it will be purchasing 197,000 laptops for its secondary students. A number of schools and districts across the country (and a few in Iowa) are piloting or implementing 1:1 laptop programs for students. It is these graduates, who have had the opportunity to regularly utilize in productive ways the same technologies that the adult world uses, who will be best prepared for a digital society.

Chris Lehmann, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, notes that technology in schools should be like oxygen: ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible. This is how technology is in adult workplaces. Can you imagine how unproductive you would be in your job if you had to schedule a time next Thursday for 45 minutes in order to use the computer (as teachers now have to do for students to use the lab(s) in their schools)?

There will be a day when we look back and realize how foolish it was that we waited so long to get a computing device into every student’s hands 24–7. Until that day, however - until we find the collective will to enable Iowa students to productively utilize in their schools the technologies that are transforming our society - they will continue to be disadvantaged compared to their more fortunate counterparts in other states or countries.

Recommended reading

• Rethinking Computers in the Classroom
• Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger
• Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky
• Wikinomics, Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams

Recommended viewing 

Iowa - A robust system of online learning

[This is Post 2 for my guest blogging stint at The Des Moines Register.]

Archimedes said “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.” This week I am blogging about 5 key levers that I think are necessary to move Iowa schools forward and help our graduates survive and thrive in this new digital, global age in which we now live. Yesterday I discussed 21st century curricula. Today’s post concerns online learning opportunities for students.

When most people think about online learning, they think about adults taking online university classes. Or they might think about the online training that occurs in many workplaces. But online learning opportunities occur in the K-12 sector as well and are increasingly popular with students and their families.

The Sloan Consortium estimates that at least 1 million K-12 public school students took an online course last year. This represents approximately 2% of the national K-12 public school student population and is a 22–fold increase since 2000. About 20 states have statewide virtual high schools that deliver online courses to students across the state. Others, like Iowa, have state-led programs that help deliver some online courses to students.

Florida appears to be the model for the rest of the country. The Florida Virtual School offers almost 100 online courses and is expected to serve more than 80,000 students this year. Its enrolllment is growing at a pace of 50% per year. North Carolina, Utah, and Alabama also have very robust statewide virtual schools.

In addition to creating statewide virtual schools, states are enacting a number of other policies to facilitate online learning. For example, both Michigan and Alabama now have state laws requiring that students have an online learning experience before they graduate. Florida recently passed a law requiring every school district to provide online courses (either itself or by contracting with others) for its K-8 students.

The reasons are numerous for the popularity of online courses with schools, students, and parents. For many school districts, online courses are the only way to provide high-level classes such as Advanced Placement, foreign language, advanced science or math, and other courses. Other districts are finding that online coursework can be an excellent option for at-risk students or credit recovery; for homebound, incarcerated, or home-schooled students; or for meeting the needs of students who simply may not be successful in a more traditional classroom environment. Meta-analyses of existing research show that student achievement in face-to-face and online courses is approximately equivalent. Students and parents value the flexibility, accessibility, and convenience of online coursework. Many online courses also allow students to proceed at their own pace; collaborate with students from other schools or countries; and/or incorporate digital technologies into their learning.

Online learning opportunities for K-12 students are exploding across America. The United States Department of Education found that four years ago over a third of school districts already had students taking online courses. Unfortunately, here in Iowa we are NOT keeping pace. The most recent data from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) show that only a few hundred of the 480,000 K-12 students in Iowa are enrolled in online courses. Entities such as Iowa Learning Online, the Iowa Online AP Academy, and Kirkwood Community College’s High School Distance Learning Program all are delivering courses to students. The Des Moines Public Schools also are exploring some online learning options. However, even if online enrollments in Iowa soon will number in the low thousands, the overall availability of online learning opportunities for Iowa students still is extremely low.

A robust online learning infrastructure for students makes a lot of sense for the state of Iowa (and I’m glad there’s a bill in the Iowa House to consider it). If we’re honest with ourselves, we will recognize that most of our school districts will NEVER be able to provide the curricular diversity that most of our graduates need to be effective digital, global workers and citizens. If we’re truly honest, we also will recognize that the Iowa Communications Network (ICN) is not a viable future option. The ICN is a closed, aging network and the course offerings (and monies) there, like everything else in the world, must move to the Web. Whether it’s a statewide virtual school or some other model, we must significantly increase the number of online courses available to Iowa students if we are to provide them access to the high-quality learning opportunities envisioned in the Iowa Core Curriculum. 

Recommended reading

• Learning Virtually: Expanding Opportunities
• iNACOL’s resources page
• University of Florida Virtual School Clearinghouse

Recommended viewing 

Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. He also is Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE). He blogs regularly at www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org.

Iowa - 21st century curricula

[This is Post 1 for my guest blogging stint at The Des Moines Register.]

Archimedes said “Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world.” This week I will be blogging about 5 key levers that I think are necessary to move Iowa schools forward and help our graduates survive and thrive in this new digital, global age in which we now live. Today I am going to emphasize the work that is being done by the Iowa Department of Education and others regarding 21st century curricula.

Those of you who regularly follow Linda Fandel’s two blogs here at The Des Moines Register know that last year Iowa became the seventh state to join the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, an initiative designed to “position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education by building collaborative partnerships among education, business, community and government leaders.” These so-called 21st century skills are those needed by Iowa graduates to be competitive in a global information economy:

Why are these skills so important? Because the rise of digital information and communication technologies such as e-mail, instant messaging, videoconferencing, and the Internet have virtually eliminated the workplace barriers of geography and time. It is now about as easy to work with people halfway across the globe as it is with folks halfway across town. As a result, information, money, and ideas criss-cross the globe at dizzying speeds and work moves to the location of lowest cost or greatest expertise. This puts an extraordinary amount of pressure on the Western wage premium: why pay an American worker such a high salary when someone in another country will do the same work for less?

So we have company after company, task force after task force, and commission after commission telling us that the skills listed above are important because they’re the ones that enable American workers and companies to differentiate themselves from others across the globe. They’re the skills that justify higher American wages and benefits. They’re the skills that drive American creativity and innovation. Economists have shown quite clearly that the only growth in the American workforce is occurring in “creative class” professions that involve critical thinking, complex communication, collaborative problem-solving, and other more-abstract skills:

If you turn that second line chart into a stacked bar chart, it looks like this:

If we look at just the two ends of this last chart, we see the fundamental dilemma. Our K-12 schools, which were created for an era when 3/4 of American workers were involved in agricultural or manual labor jobs, are now expected to function in an environment in which about 3/4 of our workers are now in more cognitively complex service or creative professions:

But we hear from American corporations that they’re having great difficulty finding workers who possess the skills needed to do these jobs, which is why they’re either hiring people from other countries or taking jobs overseas.

If Americans wish to retain their economic preeminence, our schools have to change. The rest of the world is catching up to us and creative, innovative, problem-solving (which requires deep conceptual, rather than shallow procedural, understanding) is American students’ weakest area on international assessments. If Iowa workers are to be globally competitive, they will need schools to help them acquire a different set of skills than they have needed in the past.

Is the Iowa education system up to the challenge? Only time will tell. But a critical step to making this transition is the creation of curricula that emphasize student acquisition of 21st century skills rather than regurgitation of discrete facts and low-level procedural knowledge. This will be an extremely difficult change for Iowa schools to make. We all have mental models, primarily informed by our own school experiences, of what school should look and be like. We cannot hang on to those models and expect our graduates to be successful in a vastly different economic climate. We cannot simply sprinkle 21st century skills like fairy dust on top of what we’re already doing. Instead, we must fundamentally realign the curricula and instruction that occurs within our schools in order to produce the workers and citizens that we need.

The Iowa Core Curriculum, particularly the aspects related to 21st century skills, is intended to get us where we need to go. Iowa citizens need to educate themselves about the Core and start asking tough questions about vision, development, implementation, funding, training, and support of their legislators, local school board members, and the Department of Education. Inaction is not an option, nor is tweaking the status quo, as both are losing strategies in a rapidly-changing digital, global economy.

Recommended reading

• The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills publications

Recommended viewing 

Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and coordinator of the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. He also is Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE). He blogs regularly at www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org.

4 Guys Talking - Episode 1

Thursday was the inaugural episode of 4 Guys Talking, a new podcast series from CASTLE. The podcast consists of me, Jon Becker, David Quinn, and Jayson Richardson talking about a variety of education (K-12 and higher ed), technology, and/or leadership issues. We're all Educational Leadership professors who care about things like digital technologies, 21st century skills, and the like. Unfortunately, we're an extremely small minority in academia...

Thursday's conversation ranged widely. Among other things, we discussed whether undergraduates are truly the 'digital natives' that many say they are, universities' implementation of open source course management systems, how to facilitate K-12 teachers' buy-in toward technological initiatives, and who's to blame for the bad leadership that exists in many schools (a topic we'll likely return to in our next episode).

You can download the podcast or listen to a Web-streamed version here:

• www.blogtalkradio.com/uceacastle 

We do the podcast live on BlogTalkRadio, which essentially allows you to host (for free) an Internet version of live talk radio, so you can call in and participate if you wish. I think we can handle two or three callers at once besides the four of us (thanks to Jared and Lance who joined us for Episode 1!). Future dates/times are as follows (all times Central):

• March 9, 2pm to 3pm
• April 1, 12pm to 1pm 
• April 20, 2pm to 3pm 
• May 11, 9am to 10am 
• May 26, 1pm to 2pm 

FYI, I'm reworking CASTLE Conversations, the old CASTLE podcast channel. It will include all previous and podcasts (including 4 Guys Talking) so you'll be able to subscribe via RSS or iTunes. I'll post about it when it's ready.

Happy listening!

Video - My session with the Heartland AEA 11 superintendents

For your viewing pleasure this weekend, here’s my session with the Heartland AEA 11 (Iowa) superintendents. The video’s just over an hour long: about 25 minutes of my presentation followed by discussion (and a copy of Did You Know? 2.0). The video was filmed and edited by Dr. Gordon Dahlby, Director of Curriculum and Technology for the West Des Moines (IA) Community Schools (thanks, Gordon!). My presentation materials and other resources are available at the web page I made for the group.