New computer arrived today!

Our holiday gift to the family was to begin updating our computer resources... this will be a several-month process.

The first item as a Mac Mini to replace a 7-year-old PC that is shared by everyone in the family. We bought it from a vendor who bundled with it some RAM. I was amazed at the design of the Mini and how easy it as to open and install the RAM-- by far the easiest machine I have ever opened. As soon as the monitor arrives (tracking information says its is out for delivery), it will be booted up and ready to go.

Next on the list is ordering an iPad for my wife and I (the kids already have them). I expect my younger son will accept a MacAir as his high school graduation gift in the spring, and then I will complete the upgrades with another MacAir soon afterwards.

The paradox of progress...

I understand "continuous improvement."

I write, and so I know the meaning of a "work in progress."

Unfortunately, I think the concept of progress has been captured by individuals who use smoke and mirrors and talk and talk and talk, but never do anything. Recently, I have been hearing and seeing and reading about school in which "we are making progress." Closer examination, however, reveals that leaders in those schools are holding meetings and talking about change, but students and parents and teachers are seeing nothing.

I am not a fan of "checklists" of things that have been accomplished (I tend to adhere to Einstein's adage "what you can count doesn't matter and what matters can't be counted"), but at some point, progress or claims of progress must be examined against reality. My friend who is a musician rehearses all the time, but at some point, he must get on the stage and perform, and his audience judges his performance. When we accept "we are working on it" as evidence, we have begun to accept stagnation.

Neuroscience and teaching

Cognitive scientists have been busy in recent decades and they have elucidated the workings of the brain. Some of those discoveries are surprising and somewhat disconcerting to educators as they challenge much of what we have thought for generations and how we have designed curriculum and instruction for those generations. Wendi Pillars has a piece on Education Week's Teacher Leaders Network currently that points to several ideas that we need to recognize and accommodate:

#1. Teachers are, in essence, brain changers.

#2. The one whose neural pathways are changing is the one doing the learning.

#3. Critical thinking is more important than ever—which means we expect different results from learning.

I would add a few more points:

Learning is a social endeavor-- what we know and how we know it is deeply connected to who is around and how we interact with them when we learn it. You have experienced this. Two brains are indeed better than one as you brainstorm and knowledge emerges from the group that would have been impossible alone. Evolutionary social biologists have concluded that the human brain evolved for social interaction. Playing well with others matters and your brian is designed to play well with others.

Humans learn from and through their technology-- what we build influences what had how we think to an amazing degree. The adage "necessity is the mother of invention" is in many ways backwards. Once we invent something it becomes necessary. Consider the algorithm we were all taught for adding (stack the digits according to place, sum and "carry" as necessary) is necessary only because we have invented systems of accounting in which large numbers must be accurately recorded. 

Computing like it's 1999!

So, there is something wrong with our network at school today... probably a virus or bot that is hogging the bandwidth is what the tech folks say... I have spent half the day downloading a 21 MB install... I have watched a few lines of web pages load and then the content loads in a series of cascades down the page... makes me think it is 1999.

Authenticity in education...

I have been trying (with dubious success) to convince "leaders" in education that we must adopt more authentic projects than are allowed by those who are too narrowly focused on tests scores. My students have been creating apps for mobile devices recently, and their culminating project was to create an app for a business. We have a grant-funded position in the building this year to work on career-readiness and to help our students find internships and other alternative paths to graduation, so she contacted some businesses and got their approval for our students to create and publish apps for them.

One of our students received a phone call from the owner of one of the businesses yesterday to say that his company (a towing company) had actually gotten a client from the app! Someone whose car slid off an icy road found the app and had their car pulled out of the ditch because of it.

"That's cool," I said to the student. "Yeah it is," was his response-- and he had a gleaming smile!

Hop To It Towin

Discover more Android apps

Eduction is changing!

Market Place, the program I heard on Vermont Public Radio, had an interesting story about the role of technology in education. It focused on the opportunity to individualize education with online video, especially. This story reinforces what is to me going to be the primary function of schools in the future (and this is different from our current function in education).

The work of "instructing" students is going to be done by others-- probably on video-- who are better than instructing than we are. Their instruction will be available anytime and anyplace. (In the past few years that I have been teaching physics I experienced this as my students and I watched Walter Lewin's lectures on YouTube.)

The work of teaching will include setting the context for that instruction and helping learners to apply the lessons in that instruction to authentic and relevant problems. (My physics students and I spent much time in class designing experiments and demonstrations of the physics in Lewin's lectures.)

The difficultly for educators right now is the transition... many entered education because the enjoyed and excelled in "schools as instructional places," and they were prepared to work in those settings. Unfortunately, those setting will be preserved and experienced as museum exhibits in the coming years.

eBooks

A colleague sent me this link... this is a terrific list of sites from which to download ebooks.

Common Core deserving a closer look?

I always get nervous when "the new standards" are coming. This is an event that has happened several times over my career and it is always the sign that nothing is going to happen for a few years: We hold off on making any decisions about what to do or how to proceed on school improvement because we need to see what the new standards say... we also assume that the new standards have the answers that we have been waiting for.

The Common Core is the next best thing as far as standards are concerned... and it appears that we need to be skeptical.

Of course, I am not the best person to ask about this... I figure I know as much about technology and the role of technology in society as anyone who is making curriculum decisions. When my students and I look at the curriculum standards for computers and we find that my students are creating authentic projects  in which they demonstrate performance at grade levels higher than they are enrolled (and the kids are engaged and enthusiastic while doing it), then I figure I am safe in ignoring the standards and doing what I know is best for my students.

Bad humor in the 21st century

FaceBook is an interesting way to share news. In the last several years, I have been informed of several situations by FaceBook--- the deaths of individuals of local worth, accidents, births, you get the idea. In general, the news that comes around is reliable. But then...

Last night, I watched the pre-game show before Monday Night Football as my kids and I look forward to the bit they always do looking at funny events from the weekend (C'mon Man.) I then went to my home office to work on my book that is due to the publisher in a few weeks, when my wife came down and said, "someone on FaceBook just said there was a terrorist attack at the football game."

We rushed to turn the TV back on only to find that a transformer had malfunctioned (and that makes an impressive display in the night sky if you have never seen it) and there was a power outage at the stadium. I guess the lesson is that everyone having the capacity to "report and disseminate" information is wonderful, as long as the information is accurate.

Vygotsky and education

Last spring, I finally purchased a copy of Vygotsky and Education, the 1990 collection edited by Luis Moll. It sat on my "to read" pile for six months... I finally started it over the weekend, and I am kicking myself for not reading it years ago!

The chapters are divided into three parts. The first deals with the social and historical aspects of his life-- very appropriate for the scholar who focused his work in education to the role of social interaction in learning. The second part deals with the educational implication for Vygotsky's ideas. The third with instructional applications.

Although the first few chapters are interesting, the first that should be required for all educators is chapter seven, "Teaching mind in society: Teaching, schooling, and literate discourse" by Rowland Gallimore and Roland Tharp.  They remind us what the zone of proximal development is and argue that teaching should be the work of improving performance. Improved performance is observed at the interface between everyday experience and scholarly learning; the recitation that we find typically in classrooms (and that is promoted in today's test-focused system) is not the performance we need to improve.

Much of the book is available on Google books, including most of the chapter that I say is first on the "must read."

Today's libraries

On occasion, I go to the library at the local state college... they have a pretty good education department, and so their stacks have plenty of good resources...

I have noticed that students are beginning to use the library as a research and collaboration space in a way that was unacceptable when I was a student. Students gather to work and write... and talk.

I suppose we can consider it a sign of the times and a 21st century reality. I miss quiet libraries and I still find them whenever I can, but I recognize that much of the work I used to do in the library, I can now do at home. When I visit the local college library, I have a list of books I want to read and I know the call numbers and I know if they are available or not.

Favorite words apps for Chrome

My students and I are taking some time off our usual projects-- actually those who need a chance to fix projects and resubmit them have some "catch-up" days this short week.

We are playing some word games using Chrome Apps... here are our favorites:

Word2 (that is word squared)

10-Letter-Words

Word Joust

YouTube

On the outside chance someone has not heard about this yet, YouTube is making its tools customizable for educators...

http://www.youtube.com/teachers

Is designed to help teachers make and share playlists of relevant videos.

http://www.youtube.com/schools

Is deigned to help schools control who sees content they create and how teachers and students see YouTube content.

Some fun stuff...

Here are a couple of interesting sites that folks have been taking about and using in my school recently.. not sure they are terribly useful for all middle school kids, but I can see several interesting uses...

http://illustmaker.abi-station.com/index_en.shtml

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

Concrete poetry

A colleague showed me this site recently... not fancy, just easy, useful, and fun!-- Hey that makes a tool that we are likely to use and to continue to use!

  Concrete Poetry-- take a picture, add words... make poetry

PowerPoint wastes money? wait!?!?! what!?!?

TED is an amazing resource... YouTube for thinkers is what I like to call it. Every now and then, there is a TED Talk that makes some amazing points. John Bohannon's modest proposal demonstrates the value of the arts while questioning PowerPoint... if you get bored by the first few minutes of talk about science and atoms that are at absolute zero (which is anything but boring) you can skip ahead until about 6 minutes when he talks about the $250 million per year cost of PowerPoint and the illusions that accompany it... think about his assessments and use those as a lens the next time someone starts up PowerPoint in a faculty meeting.

After watching this, I am thinking John Bohannon needs to be hired as a consultant for middle school reform-- you know to get middle school back into middle school!

Rethinking 21st Century skills...

For the last several generations, the skills needed for "success" have been rather stable and well-known... reading, writing, arithmetic... Daniel Pink calls them linear skills. Basically, score well on the SAT and you are pretty well assured of being a success in business or organizational leadership. Get through high school by being able to follow direction, get to where you need to be on time and complete the assigned academic task, and you will be able to find a job working in one of those businesses or organizations.

(At least that worked for my family-- my father was a truck driver in a Teamster shop, my mother became a bank officer with some education beyond high school. My brother went to college and became a grocery store manager, I became a teacher.)

The times really are changing, however, and that model is begin challenged on many fronts. I cannot be sure my sons (a junior in college and a high school senior) will be able to rely on such a path through life. I read and hear lots about 21st century skill, but the people who seem to have the best advice are those who are arguing that a whole new set of habits of mind are necessary for the innovative and creative thinker and leaders that society needs in the coming decades.

Daniel Pink and his Whole New Mind is one such person...

Steven Hall and Wisdom is another...

This article in EdWeek points to some ideas I had not seen from Howard Gardner that creativity, discipline, synthesis, respect and ethics are ways of knowing appears to be another... along with some other emerging research.

#homework

In my school, we are revisiting a discussion we had a couple of years ago... using cell phones. Two years ago, some colleagues and I experimented with academic uses of cell phones:

We had students "taking notes" o a field trip by posting to a blog-- before they left we had associated with their phones with a blog on blogger and they uploaded photos and reflections...

We had students uploading "notes" during a video (Jesse Schell taking about games)...

The results were interesting... but now the issue has appeared again because it seems students were sending answers to each other during a test... my response now is what it was then:

If students can pass your class by performing simply on tests in which the answers can be passed back and forth, then you are probably not having them perform useful tasks. Chris Toy, the educators from Maine who speaks so well about technology issues, describes a simple solution... sometimes class is a place-your-cell-phone-on-the-desk-where-anyone-can-see-it day. Other times class is a make-sure-your-have-your-cell-phone-cuz-we-are-gonna-use-it day... (actually that is my interpretation of his message and that is the way I have translated it for my students).

Now I am starting to read how students are adding hash tags to their tweets so they can get and give homework help! Cool!

iPads and textbooks...

There has been some conversations on a listserve to which I subscribe recently in which IT folks in schools are talking about the "problem" of lost/stolen/dropped/ or otherwise damaged iPads and laptops... the general consensus is that youngsters are far more responsible users than adults are! My observations seem to confirm that... and the responsibility extends beyond just physical use... yes I observe students listening to music while they work, but students genuinely want to become more skilled users of computers. When they are assigned a task, they work on it. When I observe adults with computers and they are assigned a task, they a checking email, shopping, booking plane tickets, doing just about everything except what their task is.

Protect IP-- Internet law

This has been on my radar for some time, and I thought others were aware as well... in conversations with others folks recently, I know now that some folks who should be aware are not, so...

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Storytelling through history...

In this recently posted TED Talk, Joe Sabia tells an entertaining history of storytelling... and the technologies humans have adopted and replaced as storytelling tools. His interesting conclusion is that the stories remain and that we become more human as we use storytelling tools.

Little Alchemy -- Chrome App

Every time I turn around, my students are finding for me another interesting Chrome App-- yesterday students who had finished a project were playing Little Alchemy. This is a game in which players mix elements to make new elements.

21st century media

On of the great things about being alive in the 21st century is that we have the chance to see and share amazing images from around the world with ease.

This is especially true with particular events and transitions... for example "the moment" was a project a few years ago in which people shared their photos of the moment when President Obama was inaugurated... her is another example... a 2011 year in review...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2011-defining-moments/2011/12/08/gIQAa8xwfO_gallery.html


While these are not new, when I was a student, we were limited to watching these on television or seeing them one viewer at a time in magazines... I like today's choices much better.

BioDigital Human-- Chrome app

In my on-going rants about my favorite Chrome Apps, I have to mention BioDiogital Human... a 3D body that you can rotate, navigate, and share. Currently, there are a few animations that can be used to watch (for example) a golf swing. Users can change the gender of the model and select the body systems to be displayed. This really makes me miss teaching science.

5 tips for next year...

Nora Carr on eSchoolNews has suggested five tips for using technology in the coming year...

1) Use quick response codes... like this one for the NELMS web site:

2) Free up social media... you mean allow teachers to access FaceBook? (When I get home I will post a link tot he NELMS Group on FaceBook... I can't do it from school!)

3) Understand to adapt to the Millenials.

4) Try something new... and may I add that the recent suggestion (by a principal who fancies herself innovative and creative) that teachers commit to using technology in their classes once a month is a great way to move yourself forward to say 2002... the new cannot be something new to you but old to others... find a cutting edge technology an use it.

5) Adapt.

21st century information-- Chrome apps

I grew up as a scientist... from the time I entered middle school (which they called junior high school), I was curious about the world to an extraordinary degree and I was enthralled by the tools and the ideas used by biologists and physical scientists to understand the world... and I still am.

Given this history, I actually like the periodic table (despite the fact that chemistry is my least favorite science... give my biology first, physics second, and if you can mix in some Earth science even better... chemistry not so much). It organized some very complicated ideas about the world around us and gives meaning to seemingly disconnected facts. As a teacher of the sciences, I get how the periodic table makes little sense when first introduced to it.

One of the great advances in humanity that we have had the pleasure of observing is the change from cumbersome and sources to highly mobile and easy to use sources... as an example, I point to the several periodic tables available via Chrome App and also via cell phone and every other mobile device...

Her is one that is an excellent example:
http://www.ebhasin.com/apps/apps-source/Advanced%20Periodic%20Table/src/index.html

Save money this season

More great advice from the folks at Common Sense Media... they have six pieces of advice for the holidays... things like go the the library!

This is a great list to share with middle school families...

... and if you are planning to spend money... they have advice on appropriate apps for iPhones and Androids...

Emerging web

As I have been exploring Chrome recently, I have stumbled (several times) upon Google's 20 Things I Learned About Browsers & the Web. THis book explains some of the changes in web computing that accompanied the arrival of html5 and other recent developments in Internet computing. 

For a few years, I have been taking with educators about the changes in the Internet-- we once talked about how the web was going to be "the infinite library," but the dynamic nature of information and the interaction available via today's web sites extends communication and information far beyond the encyclopedic predictions of the past. Take some time and read through the book... it will help you understand why things are different than they were when you first learned about computers.

Chrome apps for math

Readers of the blog will know that I am exploring Google Chrome with my students and finding apps that  will fit perfectly into middle school classrooms...

A couple of math apps have caught my eye:

NELMS AC registration info

NELMS has one of the most enthusiastic conferences I have every attended... a decade ago, I was quoted as saying that NELMS had better workshops that national conferences I had attended, and that is still true.

The registration information for the annual conference is now available, and I will be posting regular reminders to send in your registration info. Of course the best part of the NELMS conference is that is is in Providence, RI... a great small New England city... last weekend, I happened to be in Providence and went to lunch with my wife and kids at one of my favorite Providence restaurants... I am starting to count down the days.

Open source society-- world is changing

Joichi Ito, the director of MIT's Media Lab, wrote and essay that appeared on the New York Times site yesterday. He begins with the observation that "The Internet isn't really a technology" and continues to explain how the global network is changing the rules for participating in culture. Through these networks small groups of people can create and test ideas that change how everyone does everything (Google and FaceBook were both started in and run from dorm rooms before "going viral").

I suppose this is what Marshall McLuhan meant when he observed "the medium is the message."

In an Open-Source Society, Innovating by the Seat of Our Pants

Education a commoodity?

Jonathan Keiler wrote When Test Scores Become a Commodity recently and he seems spot-on.

We have become so obsessed with test scores in the last decade that we seem to confuse them with education... (by the way, I am still looking for valid research that indicates those who score well on these test are more educated for the 21st century). We also find ourselves in the situation where we cheat in order to gather higher test scores (that is what Keile describes). We cannot be surprised that educators are not acting like investment bankers... and I am wondering if we want to gamble with our children's future the way they did with our economy.

Beware the precautionary principle!

Educators have a long history of seeking to do what it best for their students... we study and study, and meet and meet, and make sure everyone's voice is heard, and then review our decisions and then implement them slowly. This is all done under the auspices of the precautionary principle.... proceed with precaution until you are certain that your choice is a good one.

That seemed a sound principle to guide planning when we worked in a world of stability... for centuries, we lived and worked in a print-dominated world so we could be relatively sure that as long as students were learning to read and write (and do math without calculators) they were learning skills that would prepare them for the world.

In the 21st century, however, that principle no longer applies. A leader who chooses to follow the precautionary principle is choosing to become stagnant and irrelevant.

An old middle school mentor of mine (he was old then and now I am old, so "old" apples in several senses of the term) suggested "ready, fire, aim" as an approach to being a proactive and energetic middle school teacher. Come up with an idea, implement it and then decide if it works or no and tweak it to make it better.

Today, I follow that advice always... I look around and find something that seems interesting and "cutting-edge" and I try it with students. They appreciate the chance to work with something that causes some trouble and they appreciate that I ask (and follow) their advice on what works and what doesn't.

I sure don't miss the days of planning, planning, planning and never acting!

Another sign of the times-- overusing school networks!

CNN Money reported that the New York City schools are not allowing iPads and similar devices on to their network. Apparently, "the system" cannot handle the amount of network traffic that has accompanied the arrival of the mobile devices that have been added to the network recently.

This seems more evidence that educators have been very concerned with the problem of making sure everyone had a computer... and we completely missed the trend that everyone was getting mobile devices and now we are faced with the problem of everyone having devices and not knowing what to do!

This really makes me think that the principal whose meeting I observed last week who said, "we need to get our teachers to commit to doing one lesson per month with computers" is completely out of touch with reality and has little business running (or trying to run) a school in the 21st century.

The times are changing...

Over the weekend, my family and I were in Providence, RI and we always stop at The Apple Store whenever we get the chance... interestingly it was the busiest store in Providence Place when we were there!

My son bought a new keyboard for his Mac, and he paid for it via his phone (actually he picked up a keyboard that had the barcode sticker missing, so he had to take it to the counter). Basically, he scanned the code and his account was charged... the receipt was emailed to him. (Complete story-- the person who checked him out used the same system he had tried to use, but had to key in a few more numbers as the sticker was missing.)

On the drive home, we were brainstorming how this technology might be useful in the future... perhaps a grocery carriage that scans whatever you place in it, and that sounds an alarm when junk food is placed in it... or one that helps you stick to your budget... or perhaps that accepts you shopping list (via email) and then displays the brands with the lowest prices...

The potential seems interesting... but at the same time dangerous. We have decided to buy a good iMac to replace the family computer that is is the living room, and we are going to save the cash for it rather than using credit or savings. It was tempting, very temping, to simply scan it with my son's phone and walk out with it!

Chrome Apps-- more favorites

Mahjong games...

Students enjoy playing games... even if they seem silly to adults, kids love them. Chrome makes available a couple of variations on Mahjong... one in which players use the tiles to spell words (the wild letters blocks are much-needed at times).

Math Mahjong is a variation that finds players practicing math and earning more points for more complex problems.