A great idea...

I have heard several presenters from Johnson & Wales University, where they include (at least in some of their programs that I heard about) a performance transcript in addition to an academic transcript. This transcript records the skills the students have developed (in the culinary program it includes sautee, broiln and similar skills).

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Same issues different setting

On Thursday (4/28) I attended an excellent session at the NEERO conference focusing on technology and teaching. I was struck by the similarities between the technology issues "they" deal with in higher ed and we deal with in middle school education.

Educators dealing with how to "integrate" technology so that their teaching is innovative rather than an add-on, the need for professional development yet recognizing the lack of it can be an excuse for educators to avoid using modern tools, the important--but frequently unheard-- voice of technologists.

Fortunately (or maybe not, but at least we can know we are not alone), they appear to be struggling with the answers to those issues to the same level we are.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Without connection...

...what else is there?

- Irv Seidman at NEERO 2011
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Irv Seidman

I am lucky enough to be at the New England Education Research Organization's conference. Irv Seidman, a scholar from UMass, who has written on phenomenological interviewing in research gave the keynote. I am struck by the connections between his method (which I used as a grad student years ago) and what middle school educators know:

Subjective understanding (can't get to this by observation) is essential-- The meaning students make of the experience matters!

Transitive nature of human experience-- We must step back and reflect on what we experience.

Lived experience-- When we a reflect we step back recreate the details of our experiences.

Meaning in context-- You cannot know the meaning of an experience without knowing the context.

Through this method of researching, we are honoring the individual and their perspective. Middle school educators honor the individuals we teach as well.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Right to be forgotten?

As I was scrolling through Google Reader today, I found a story posted on MIT's Technology Review site.

Apparently there is a line in the film The Social Network, "The Internet is written in ink" (as opposed to pencil). This captures the idea that many middle school students learn the hard way-- what is posted online cannot be taken down. (I am reminded of the PSA in which a girl posts her picture on the school bulletin board and she takes it down but another replaces it, and every time someone takes the photo down,a new one replaces it.)

According to David Zak, http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/26700/?p1=A5, the Europe, there has been floated a proposal called the "right to be forgotten." If passed, the law would require users to opt in to data collection by the web sites they frequent and they would have the right to ask information be taken down, and they would be allowed to sue to force compliance.

Free Speech!?!?!

Education Week featured a reported today about a case in which a high school student was disciplined at school for comments she posted (from home) on her blog (not connected to school). In the details we see how the digital landscape is making the work of managing schools far more complicated. Interestingly, this report suggests that the Supreme Court has yet to take p the issue of students' free speech related to school issues while not at school. This seems like an issue that will be before the Court soon.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/school_law/2011/04/court_backs_discipline_of_stud.html

Simple is good... Animal pictures

How about a web site with pictures of animals?... all usable under creative commons license.

Simple. Good!

http://animalphotos.info/a/

Summer Course-- NELMS & Technology!

This summer (August 1,2,3), West Rutland School (in Vermont) is hosting a series of three one-credit courses sponsored by the New England League of Middle Schools. (The topics focus on educational technology and are appropriate for any and all teachers.)

The cost for each one credit course is $400, $280 if you want to attend for re-certification credit.

Details are here...
https://sites.google.com/a/rcsu.org/dr-ackerman-2010-2011/summer-courses

-- Dr. Gary L. Ackerman, PhD
Information Technology & Physics Teacher
West Rutland School
gary.ackerman@rcsu.org
http://westrutlandschool.org
(802) 438-2288 ext. 240 (classroom)

Prediction of the Future...

A student showed me this very intriguing video today... Arthur C. Clarke speaking in 1964...

Civil War

As many of you know, the United States recently recognized the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the the Civil War. For the next four years, we will be observing the actions of Americans from an earlier century and reflecting on the meaning of those events for our lives in the 21st century.

Education Week published an article recently suggesting that this is an unusual opportunity for educators to use primary sources available via the World Wide Web to reconnect with this important topic in United States history.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/04/15/28civilwar_ep.h30.html

A pet peeve...

I have an hypothesis. People who just “play” on their computers assume that anyone else who is using a computer is just playing. (Seems like this is something related to an idea in Psychology 1 is college... maybe projection or something like that...)

The effect is obvious to computer users who are working... intently looking at the screen and processing what is there. Someone who only messes about on their computer, will walk in and begin talking about anything that happens to be on hos or her mind. Those who use computers for serious work, on the other hand, will observe someone working and stand back patiently... perhaps even going away and returning a few moments later.

If I had a graduate student, I would suggest developing and validating a test... to predict one’s computer use based on their interactions with other computer users.

(I will name the units after an administrator who shall remain nameless... until I define the units!)

Visuwords

Just a quick tip for a Friday... Visuwords is an online graphic dictionary... enter a word and see a map in seconds... great for vocabulary building.

Is It Down???

I am not a techie anymore, so I don't find as many tools to help manage "stuff" as I used to, buit this one crossed my inbox today...

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

Have you ever found a web site that wasn't working, and you didn't know if it is you or the site? Put the URL in the box, and find out if it is the site that is down or if it you! Very helpful in troubleshooting.

Writing with DIgital Tools...

Usually, I am not a huge fan of EdWeek (the editorial bias seems too conservative, back-to-the-basics, and supportive of testing over real learning for my pedagogical sensibilities), but a colleague just sent me a link to this story about using technology to teach writing in the 21st century, and it sue seems to make sense to me.

http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2011/04/04/02digital.h04.html?cmp=ENL-TU-NEWS1

The World is Getting Scary (More Scary)

A story appeared on the web yesterday that iPhones record their position over time... basically, a file records the position of the phone using the GPS functionality that is built-in. I can hear the responses... everything from "who cares?" to "this is the end of the world as we know it."

For me, this points out a reality of the digital world that everyone must be prepared to accept (yup, you must accept it and come up with a strategy to deal with it  because it is here and it is not going back): there is all kinds of data collected about you and you are not aware of it.

Sure, this is a threat to your privacy, but it has been going on for decades, and it takes stories like this to bring it to consciousness. For educators, this brings up one of the important lessons we need to teach children: be aware of what you are making public and be aware that information about you is being collected all of the time.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/apple-iphone-secretly-tracking-users-privacy-security-researcher/articleshow/8045255.cms

Social Media...

There was an interesting story on NPR this morning... perhaps the people too young to vote will be the most active in the coming elections than their parents.

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/20/135553017/new-media-could-make-or-break-presidential-race

No Internet!?!?

It is amazing the extent to which we have come to depend on the Internet for everything we do. (Some would say the Internet has become transparent.)

Our connection at school failed today. As I walked in several folks asked me about it and I had to remind them that I am no longer responsible to support, they needed to email the central office... Opps call the central office. "No," I responded, "I don't know the tech guy's extension, I always email him."

So I walked into my computer room and went to check my email... Duh... No connection... OK, let's get some music going and come up with a plan... Nope, I took the radio out and depend on Pandora now for classroom music... OK, I will read that article I found yesterday... All I have to do is get it from the online database and print it... Argh...

"Hey," I thought, "this would be a good blog post. Good thing I have my phone with me."

BYOD is sounding better all the time... I'm going to read a book until students arrive!


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Ubuntu

I am a big fan of Linux, especially the Ubuntu distribution. For those not familiar with this-- Linux is a free operating system, like Windows, that has been created by a global community of programmers. Ubuntu is a version that comes with thousands of applications.

For schools with tight budgets, Ubuntu can provide all of the software and connectivity needed, and all for free! Also, Linux is widely recognized as being less susceptible to viruses and other malware, and it is considered by many to be more robust than Windows, crashing and freezing less frequently.

Ubuntu is updated twice each year... version 11.4 (the April 2011 release which updates the 10.10 release which came out in October 2010... see the pattern?) is in beta release now which means techies (like me) are testing it. Once it appears stable, it will be released in a form that can be installed in homes and schools and users can assume it will function as it is supposed to.

End of the PC?

I still subscribe to PC World, but I have noticed the issues becoming more and more slender. Could this be the result of the “death” of print media? Maybe.

I think it is the result of the decreasing importance of desktop computers. In the pages of the most recent issues of PC World, I notice a focus on cloud computing and on mobile computing. Recently, in this blog I pointed to the recent survey result indicating interest (strong interest) among students and parents in BYOD (bring you own device) computing in schools.

Sure seems to me, there are multiple threads of evidence suggesting that educators must rethink the devices we provide and the role technology plays in our schools.

Generation M^2

Last week, a presenter at the AC mentioned the Kaiser Family Foundation had completed its third study of media use among young people (it was released in January... I was left wondering how I had missed it... information overload is the story I am going with). The previous studies were released in 1999 and 2005-- the 2005 report is well-known for introducing the term Generation M as a label for young people in the 21st century, and that term embodies the voracious appetite this generation has for media-- TV, music, computers, print, movies, etc.

There seems no surprises in the most recent data. Young people are heavy users of media (very heavy users of media). The slide I captured off one of the presentations posted of the KFF web site seems the most striking trend. Young people are using half again as much media as they were as the 20th century ended.

I am not sure we educators can do anything to reverse this trend. I am sure that our schools are not organized for brains that are used to this level of media access. I am sure, however, that if anyone knows how to build such schools, it is middle level educators-- as long as we are allowed to create in the manner our praxis  guides, not in the manner prescribed by the "fill-'em-up-and-test-'em folks."

Where Good Ideas Come From...

Steven Johnson is one of my favorite writers... he has several books in which he considers media and technology and the effects of each on humans (both individuals and collectively).

Driving home from the Annual Conference last weekend, I was struck by the various presenters who mentioned the need to be innovative. Surely, middle school educators have traditionally been among the most innovative of the K-12 educators, but political forces have been driving us away from innovation in the last decade or so.

As a technologist, I recognize innovation as something young people expect... I also see the Internet as a creation that both connects us and that overwhelms us.

All of this comes together in this brief video in which Johnson talks about the importance of socially-constructed knowledge in innovative and creative thinking.

New BodyBrowser Features!

I recently updated my laptop, and so to test that I had all of the features working, I went to Google's BodyBrowser. If you haven't seen it yet, and especially if you are a science or health or PE teacher, check it out! Think GoogleEarth, but for the human body. Since it was released in December, new features have appeared, including the ability to add pins and notes to a BodyBrowser model, and once it has been individualized, users can obtain a link to that specific model.

Amazing. No, not amazing anymore. We should expect the ability to create and share online-- that is what the cloud is all about. Amazing that there are still educators who look at this and think "yeah, nice, but not really useful to me."

Dedra Stafford's Keynote

On the Saturday, April 9th, at the Breakfast of Champions (a new addition to the NELMS Annual Conference since I last attended-- and a wonderful way to meet other attendees) Dedra Stafford gave her keynote entitled "Pep Assemblies, Red Pens, and School Lunches- Is This What It Is Really About?"

The theme running throughout her presentation was that being a positive and enthusiastic educator is difficult today--very difficult-- and that our success in the endeavor (both our individual success and our collective success in small groups and large is to take care of ourselves and find ways to reduce the stress of 21st century education. She suggested:


1) Be Positive-- Even on a rotten day, find something for which to be grateful and find ways to adopt a positive outlook. After 21 days, the positive attitude will be habit, and you and your students will enjoy that habit of your character.


2) Let It Go-- There will always be someone who will take an action or say something that is hurtful or uninformed that will dissuade you from the positive and important work you do. Develop thick skin and don't hold on to those bad experiences. 


3) Balance Baby Balance-- Learn to do what you need to do to keep healthy (physically and mentally!), and realize that a small sustained success is something that can be the foundation for future success; short term large success that are not sustained are the foundation of future failures.

A Chris Toy session

I attended Chris Toy's session called "Bring Your Cell Phone, and Leave It On."

He showed a few examples of how cell phones can be useful in classrooms (especially as cameras) and sent participants around to take some pictures that would connect to our content areas. At the end of the session, responses to Poll Everywhere survey suggested most participants were convinced cell phones have a role in the 21st century classroom.

Rick Wormeli's Keynote

In the keynote to open the events on Friday, April 8, Rick Wormelli suggested teaching in 4 Dimensions:


1) Expertise: Teachers must develop this in content and teaching and be confident in using it.


2) Creativity: The questions are kids ask because of our teaching are more important that those the answer in response to it.


3) Failure: Schools have to learn that what is important is how we *recover* from failure; labeling a student a failure and moving on is not a supportable position.


4) Collaboration: We have to recognize the social construction of knowledge and allow/ encourage students (and ourselves to work together.)

AC Update: I just realized how much Rick Wormeli looks like Steve Martin!

Poetry Month!

One of the great benefits of having connected schools is that educators can give students the opportunity to see and hear poets reading their own work. We get to hear the inflections and the emotion that is intended by the poet and that gives poetry its meaning, but that can be so easily lost on the printed page.

The folks at PBS have a good collection of videos of poets reading... oh yeah, Garrison Keillor narrates!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/

Testing. Just making sure my BlackBerry is connected to the blog so that I can post from it as soon as I join the lucky folks in Providence.

Eric Whitacre's Project...

The media (several Internet sites, National Public Radio, etc.) have reported on composer Eric Whitacre's virtual choir projects. (Basically, he uploads video of himself conducting with some piano accompaniment to YouTube. He then invites singers to perform their own performance and to upload the video to YouTube.  The videos are then compiled into a single video of the virtual choir performing the piece. Amazing stuff.



I must conclude educators should pay attention to this for several reasons:

1) Yeah, we know YouTube has lots of junk on it, but it also has lots of amazing stuff on it... we can't have one without the other. If we want artists to be able to create such works with this medium, then have to accept the "gutter humor" that will accompany it.

2) Watch the video and pay attention to the reactions of participants at about 11:30. The connection these participants describe is the same connection that our students feel to their online communities. You may not  understand it, you may not feel it, but your students who belong do.

3) When YouTube first arrived, I doubt anyone predicted that it would be used to connect 2,500 humans in creating such a piece. If we limit ourselves to the uses of technology that we can envision and predict, then we are limiting (severely) ourselves, our students, and the contributions we can all make to humanity.

What is our responsibility?

Today, a middle school student asked me about my first computer. I remember it well... an Apple IIc that had 128k of memory... (I got the upgrade from 64k so that I could use a color monitor in the future!)... it booted from 5.25 inch floppy disks. AppleWorks was my word processor throughout college and into my teaching career. Oh yeah, I paid $2000 for it!

To show my students what the machine looked like, I did a Google image search and the results included a story about a brand new in the box Apple IIc that was purchased in 2008. The story was the machine was purchased in 1998 and had never been opened. I bought my Apple IIc in 1986, so the dates don't quite match, but that raised the question to me of our responsibility to preserve old technology.

I do not want to suggest that every device ever made is worth keeping, but there must be some machines that have social and technological significance that is worth preserving. How do we decide which ones?How do we provide for their preservation? Should we maintain them as operating devices or is it enough to just look at the screens and keyboards?

BYOD... Bring Your Own Device

The Speak UP 2010 results are beginning to be released. Surprise! There is interest in BYOD (I have called it BYOT previously). The results show that students want schools to help them use whatever devices laptops, smartphones, etc.) they bring to school and also that many parents are willing to purchase devices for BYOD initiatives!

Makes me question the wisdom of putting more resources into one-to-one initiatives in which everyone gets an identical device.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_do_kids_say_is_the_biggest_obstacle_to_techno.php

http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/speakup_congress.html

I'm Puzzled... No... I See A New Need

We live in a world of mounds of information. I've seen the statistic that each person in the US consumes the equivalent of all the information stored on every hard drive in the state of Minnesota each year. I (am I am sure you) have access to a full-text database making thousands of journals available at a few mouse clicks.

Then I started reading research papers turned in by students. Well, I started reading those in which the students had listed their references. (Now, mind you this was a nine-week project undertaken in collaboration with an English teacher.) Most of the references came from web sites.

Now, I expect this is no surprise to anyone... in reality it was no surprise to me. It does support the conclusion that has been reached by many, however, that we are in information overload in the 20th century. I resolve, however, to:

1) Give my students direct instruction in how to use our full text databases. Including an overview of the information landscape (i.e. when is it OK to use the web and when do we use edited resources). I am going to do this by helping students find the references listed on Wikipedia pages using our full-text database.

2) Help my students create annotated bibliographies. This will give them chances to find interesting articles, read authentic sources, and practice referencing.

3) Point my students to resources I want them to read. This will give them practice navigating the full-text database.

Something Funny (but Poignant) Performance for All Fools' Day

Makes and interesting point: