Staying a step ahead of evolution

Lest the title of this post cause the reader to get sidetracked concerning issues of science vs. religion, I assure you these thoughts have nothing to do with either.  These thoughts were prompted by a tweet from someone (whom I cannot remember or locate at the moment) which said something to the effect of we don't know how to plan for innovation, selling televisions, and this article about the abolishment of cursive writing in the state of Indiana.

Planning for innovation - some companies do it well.  Google is probably the flagship organization in this area.  There are others and you can read about them in The Future of Management by Gary Hamel.  It's worth the read if this post stirs you in any way.

Selling televisions - I work part time for a major electronic retailer in the home theater department. I was helping a customer pick out a television the other day when she said, "I want to buy something that will keep up with all the technology and advancements for the next ten years." To which I responded, "That's impossible. Technology and innovation do not work that way." I then explained using concrete examples of what has happened just in the last eighteen months in the home theater industry.

Abolishing cursive - This is one I've almost come full circle on. I'm currently sitting at about 270 degrees. For you trig people that would be three-halfs pi, but I digress. We currently home school both our children. My wife and I spent a lot of time debating whether we should teach cursive to our children. In the interest of marital bliss, I gave her the deciding vote and she voted yes. No biggie. I kept my thoughts to myself about how no one uses it anymore; it's a relic left over from the days of reducing ink smears when writing with a goose feather; in fifteen years nothing will be written by hand, it will only appear in the air as you type on your holographic keyboard, etc.

The article quotes Andee Anderson of the Indiana University Northwest Urban Teacher Education Program as saying teachers haven’t had the time to teach cursive writing for some time because it’s not a top priority. As a result students’ handwriting is atrocious. Man, I can concur with that last one. I teach in North Carolina and I could have sworn that my students were writing in Sanskrit or Hindi this past year. My humanities teammate instituted the Handwriting Rescue program for these students. Part of the motivation was also because some research had shown that because students had not learned the skills of forming letters properly that seemingly unrelated areas of their brains were not properly developed and therefore they were deficient in other areas like critical thinking, problem solving, etc. I was sold because I was witnessing the latter skill deficiencies.

Such interconnectedness fit nicely into what I would tell my students on a frequent basis. We know now that the brain is fairly plastic. During the preschool and adolescent years, neural pathways get created and pruned depending on how the brain itself is used. Research has shown (sorry, didn't have time to look it up) that students in China think differently than students in the US partly because they use a pictographic handwriting system. It creates different pathways in their brains and therefore potentially different skill sets. And let's not forget this iconic article Is Google Making Us Stupid?.

I promise, this is nearing a conclusion. From a pedagogical and curriculum development perspective, how do we factor all this in? "Research-based" is the buzz word. Marzano is the point man here. He has gone as far as to say that use of such methods will cause an increase in student achievement. Justin Baeder has written an excellent critique of those claims here. Let's assume that the claims are true. Living by such methods only makes us guilty of getting what we always got because of doing what we've always done. If our teaching methods and by extension our assessment methods are based in the past, how are we planning for innovation? How are we allowing for the brain to develop new skills? Has the quest for the "science" of teaching really become a religion of devotion to a particular philosophy?

In other words, how do we teach the students of today for the world of tomorrow?

Spending a year offline - part 1

This past school year has been very interesting for me.  I spent most of it offline.  I don't mean just absent from Facebook and Twitter, the latter having been my preferred place of residence.  I mean almost completely offline.  I blogged maybe twice during that time.  I only participated in two or three #edchats.  I rarely even checked my personal email.  I think the bulk of my online activity was Googling for map directions or Christmas gift ideas.

What happened?  The short version is this:

1. I had to take a part time job to make ends meet.  I made the decision to spend my little free time with my family instead of on a computer because I knew I would never get off otherwise.
2. My access to technology at school dramatically changed.  

• I went from having five desktops in my classroom to one, and that one worked REALLY slowly.  
• The laptop carts were in constant use.  This was in theory a good thing for all the students.
• My own personal technology died on me - my LCD projector, my netbook, and my homemade IWB.  All purchased with my own money.  If you want to know why I didn't repair it, see #1.

So the past ten months provided an opportunity to gain a new perspective on things.  First, the immediate consequences.  I felt really disconnected.  I am amazed at how strongly I felt about the relationships with my online acquaintances.  Besides all the nuggets of wisdom I used to glean everyday, I enjoyed the social interaction.  I missed the convos that would happen during #edchat or when other hot topics would pop up.  I missed trying to keep up with all the feeds in my Google reader and then sharing all that I had learned.  I missed our own local edcamp and the opportunity for F2F interactions as well.

Second, it totally changed the way I taught.  When my personal equipment failed, gone was the opportunity to stop whatever we were doing as a class and search for an answer or connect with another class for input.  I had to come up with new ways to make sure that I was creating learning opportunities that challenged all my students on all levels of Blooms and did so in meaningful ways, not just for the sake of work completion.  I found myself slipping more and more into not only out of vogue techniques, but less effective ones as well.  It was hard and I felt bad for my students many days.

I don't know if anyone cares about Part 1, much less any future installments I might write about. But I am an extremely introspective individual (some have called me a "frowny faced introvert"), so more will come.  I did learn a lot as a result of this year and some of it is worth sharing.  Thanks for helping me weed through it.

Access for Everyone

It's Sunday night and eyes all around the world are focused on the Super Bowl.  Quite a few members of my PLN are working steadily on sending out links and resources via Twitter with one eye on the game and providing updates on their favorite commercials.  I'm no different, except now I find myself preparing the pre-game show for Tuesday night's #edchat.  I regret that class will keep me from participating Tuesday night, but I want to express some of my thoughts now anyway.


One of the topics in this week's #edchat poll is How can we guarantee equitable access and use of technology to ensure tech literacy and to support meaningful learning for all students?  In my opinion this issue itself should drive the need for classroom instruction embedded with technology more than the workforce's need for 21st Century workers.  Why would I say such a thing?  I'm glad you asked.  If you do not embed technology in your instruction, many of your students will NEVER, I repeat, NEVER, get exposure to, much less develop skills with, the technology.


Now for a disclaimer.  I realize that I may have initially misinterpreted the question.  My first reaction was to read this question in terms of economic access in the home setting, i.e. outside of school.  Shelly Blake-Plock  (aka R. Richard Wojewodzki) has begun quite an interesting conversation about this over at TeachPaperless.  That is certainly an issue worth debating, but that's not my task for this post.  Upon further reflection, I think the intent of the question relates more to equitable access WITHIN the school, not outside of it.  That also is an issue in this day of limited resources.


Regardless of how one interprets the question, I think the answer lies in the notion of embedded instruction.  Yes, I'm using that term again.  Most of the people who will read this post will agree that the use of technology in the classroom should be transparent, or unseen, because it is a natural part of what happens there.  Technology is not just a game day in the lab or special art project on the laptops or our once-a-month-do-something with the iPods.  It is used as an appropriate tool for the task at hand.  So, how do we make that happen?


First, appropriation of funds have to change.  Our county took a 90% budget cut this school year in our technology funding because of the state government's own economic woes.  That's screwed up thinking.  Technology should not be a line item.  It should be part of instructional and curricular materials.  As a side note, there is rumor we will delay updating and changing the standard course of study because we cannot afford to buy new textbooks.  Another example of misguided thinking - textbooks (and their publi$her$) should not drive curriculum changes.  

Aaron Eyler has written an excellent post about how we could rework our budgets to begin to bring more technology into the schools.  I don't think his proposal is all that crazy.  Here are my ideas. This is a pic of a mini laptop cart that was put together by our tech facilitator.  Total cost:  about $2700.  You might could do it cheaper - our district quote sheet is lame.  Get one for every class.  Quit buying new textbooks every time the standard course of study changes.  Find a good solid text with the essentials in it and purchase a classroom set.


Will every class need the same amount of technology?  It should need some, even the PE teachers. My friend David Hines uses a wiki with his weight training class.  At the risk of sounding elitist or trying to make the rich richer, outfit those who already use the technology first.  Tell the others their cart is coming and in the meantime get them trained and get them using it.  At a local high school the principal gave an LCD projector to every teacher who took the Intel Teaching Essentials class.  Amazingly, he had almost 100% participation.


In terms of training, provide REAL professional development.  Don't bring in someone with a cookie cutter approach that demos all the Gee Whiz features of their product.  Have real live actual teachers show how things can be embedded (there's that word again).  Have math teacher share with math teachers, science teachers with science teachers, etc.  Provide a demo at every faculty meeting so teachers can see examples from other content areas and cross pollination can occur.


I go back to the need.  One-third of my students do not even own a computer at home.  Roughly ten percent were unable to process simple tasks like sign on to their school provided email address, change their passwords, etc. at the beginning of the year.  If I (and I mean I- not many others are providing that opportunity) do not provide access to the technology, these students will never touch a computer, or an iPod, or whatever gizmo we use.  Whether we like it or not, schools have become the guardian of civilization.  We have access to the students.  Let's give them access to the tools.

A Week of Faves

Tonight I sorted through about five days worth of links I had tagged as favorites on Twitter.  Some I retweeted out immediately.  Others, those listed below, I wanted to send out but pose my own take or question for further reflection, inviting discussion on those issues.  So, without further ado . . .

• The Reflective Teacher: a Taxonomy - These are great ways to reflect upon our practices. How can we ensure that we incorporate such reflection in our practices, PLC's, etc.?
• How to Put a Laptop in the Hands of EveryStudent - Are any of us willing to sacrifice to make this a reality?  How forceful should administrative policy/direction be to make this happen?
• We Have to Model Failure - How many of us really think failure is a good thing?  How many of us are willing to admit failure? How many of us are ready to let a student demonstrate they know more than we?
• Making Teaching a Profession - Some will be offended or insulted by this article.  Once you get over that, reflect on how you implement some of the recommendations even though you are already out and working.  I like this suggestion: "the problem he has seen at dozens of programs was that there was 'no connection between the clinical experience and what went on in the university.' Ideally, he said, students 'would teach in the morning, spend the afternoon learning theory connected to what went on that morning, and then preparing for the next day.' ”

• A 21st Century Drill/Warmup -  An awesome exercise.  A great springboard to help us create other similar practices with our students and utilize all the tools out to their fullest.

I liked several others enough to bookmark them on Delicious.  Check out the one's I saved today .

Share, Share, Share

Motivated by Kelly Hines (whom you should follow) and her post on her goals for the new year, I've been thinking about my own. I already had goals, but it's always good to write them down. It's going to be a different type of year for me. Even though this will be my eighth year teaching, I feel like it's my rookie year. Twenty years ago I began teaching high school math. After fifteen years away from the classroom, I came back to my first love last fall. That in itself was an adjustment. This summer my principal asked me to get certified in science and teach 6th grade! And more changes will come next year for me.

I've been blessed to land a position in a school with a progressive minded principal who is willing to let his teachers take risks. I never have to worry about trying to convince him why we should try to implement something new or different that will benefit the students. It's great having lots of technology options. When I left teaching the first time, cutting edge technology was the graphing calculator. But it's not about the technology - just read here and here. It's about how you use the technology. Both are part of my goals and here they are.

1) Learn from Others

2) Provide Plenty of Opportunities for my students, colleagues, and myself to Explore, Inquire, and Create

3) Implement Technology with Good Pedagogy

4) Share, Share, Share

Honestly, when I look at my goals, I really only see two - Share and Implement. I'm excited about the sharing part but it's hard. I came up with what I believe are some cool activities to do this year. It would be so easy to keep them to myself and then say after the fact, "Look at the cool lesson I developed." But, if I'm doing it for the good of my students, shouldn't all students in the school benefit? Shouldn't I want to help my colleagues instead of sitting back and pointing out how they never do stuff like this? So, I shared these ideas with the whole faculty. Now they can all modify my activities to fit their situations. All students will be better off.

I've learned a lot about sharing this year. The other math teacher on my hallway last year was a huge help. She shared her experience, wisdom, and resources with me. My kids were so lucky I had her as a teammate. I began my PLN on Twitter and literally hundreds of people have shared their experience, wisdom, and resources with me. My students will continue to benefit. I look forward to continuing to share back and forth with my PLN.

Sharing is the only way to make positive change. Some people really want to change but have no idea where to start. Remember what it was like to be a first year teacher and you had all those questions? There might be a twenty year veteran who feels the same way about implementing technology in an effective way. Soon your generosity will have others coming to you, asking for help. In the end, students benefit all the way around. And that's what it's all about.

Must reads

Here are two articles that anyone who wants to make a difference in students lives should read.

The first one is about making sure methodology doesn't get overshadowed by technology.

The second addresses the faulty assumptions we make when talking about school reform.

As you reflect on these articles, how will they inform or change what you do in the classroom?