BlackBerries... iPhones...

In the car last night I heard for the first time of the outages that have affected the BlackBerry network in recent days... I carry a BlackBerry, and have had no problems. My son who is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his new iPhone on Friday suggested that the BlackBerry issues are a conspiracy by Apple to get folks to switch!

I am wondering if my son in right! I was impressed with the video demonstrations of the new iPhone and I am thinking I may join the iPhone crowd!

Storybird

So, I have become a serious fan of Storybird... after my students (5th graders) created some stories, we invited younger students to read them, and we had several score students caring about their writing and taking care to read.

Some of my 5th graders even admitted that it really is important to use punctuation and to spell right if other are going to read their work. Not all of them are convinced and not all of them have the ability to makes sure to add those details to their writing, but we are making some progress!

Chromebooks...

It appears that my school is beginning to look at purchasing Chromebooks... basically that is Google's device that is all about "the cloud." They have partnered with various manufacturers to produce these devices that connect users to the web and little else.

As a fan of GoogleDocs, I like the idea... but I am not convinced that we are looking at them for the right reason. The process is good, but not great compared to other low end notebooks... yeah Docs is great, but there is more to computing than Docs... and what about tablets... seems to me that a KindleFire may be just as good...

NELMS bullying conference

NELSM has recently announced a conference focusing on bullying (the standard joke about preventing it not getting better at it is deleted from this spot). We know that bullying is a problem that increases as students progress through grades 6-8-- at least that's what the data says for cyberbullying-- and we know that adults do have a role in reducing the instances of bullying and in helping young people develop strategies for reducing it, so add this to your calendar:

Middle Level IS the Place for the Prevention of Bullying

A day-long event confronting bullying in schools.

Doug Wilhelm & Elizabeth Vachon

SERESC Conference Center, Bedford, NH

December 2, 2011, 8:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.

YouTube and space station!!

Today, I noticed the YouTube icon was different (Google is famous for that), and so I clicked on it to find out why they would have a space helmet as part of the icon. I expected to learn that today was the anniversary of a famous space launch, but instead, I discovered that YouTube is sponsoring a competition to have a young person's experiment flown into space, conducted on the space station, and the experiment streamed back to Earth!

What a cool idea and a great opportunity for young people to think about experimental design. As the contest is open only to those 14-18, most middle school students cannot submit, but this seems a good opportunity to think about what experiments we need to do, how to do them, and it seems we might want our students to pay attention to what happens:

http://www.youtube.com/spacelab?feature=inp-yo-space

The more things change... the more they stay the same...

I have been watching the recent discussions related to NCLB with some mild interest. I have been hopeful that learning and preparing young people for an unimagined future would become the focus of our schools, but it appears that there is interest in continuing to make schools political institutions and to make the political disputes over schools even more heated and more dubious:


Details Emerge on Senate ESEA Discussions

Educational software

An article from the New York Times News Service has shown up in several newspapers recently... the general conclusion of the authors is that educational software-- specifically Carnegie Learning's Cognitive Tutors-- is not effective. Visitors to the Carnegie webs site can see research that the software is effective, and the authors cite other research that it is not effective.

It sure seems to me that this discord points to the simple conclusion that technology alone is not going to solve any education problems... also that no single approach or model or curriculum or reform alone is going to solve any education problem.

Thinking about Jobs & innovation...

With the news of Steve Jobs' death, I hear commentators discussing innovation and the role of innovators as leaders. I hear speculations about the future of Apple, and question about the future of Apple as an innovative company.

In education, also, we see that the culture of a school is a deeply influential aspect of the school that follows from the leader-- innovative leaders cultivate an innovative culture that can outlast the leader, but only if another innovator assumes the lead after one leaves.

Apple seems an interesting case study for educators... perhaps we should listen to these commentators and pay attention to what it means to be innovative and how innovators approach their work.

A $60 tablet?

News on the computer geek blogs in the last fews day has announced that a company in India is marketing a tablet computer (like an iPad) for $60-- it was supposed to ship for $35!

It sure seems to me that the recent meetings I have attended in which we were sitting around trying to figure out how we are going to find donations or grants so that we can upgrade our students to "good Windows computers"seems misguided... in the time we spend at those meetings, we can all throw in a few bucks (or have a bake sale!) and get devices that can get our students connecting, communicating, and creating!

BYOD

EdWeek has "reprinted"a story about the efforts/ struggles in Massachusetts to address the "digital divide." Whereas some schools are moving fast-forward with efforts to provide devices to each student, leaders in other cities are concerned about equitable access.

In my own school in rural Vermont, we are concerned with how we get devices in front of each student also. Increasingly, I am convinced educators have a responsibility to reflect the emerging technology reality: many people have far better devices than we can provide them. By leveraging the capacity in students' pocket, we can use school resources to provide similar devices for those disadvantaged students and we can begin to make progress using technology to access, manipulate, create, and share information.

Questions about online learning....

An article on EdWeek raises questions about student performance when they attend online high schools. Now, I am no huge fan of using test to judge student performance, but if we use those as a measure to compare groups of students who have different education experiences, then I think we may have found an appropriate use of those data.

The issue from my perspective is in the quality of the implementation... the same things that are true of in-person schools is true of online schools. Poor curriculum and weak instruction results in inadequate learning.

Safe surfing

The news is in (well, not really news)... colleges and employers check FaceBook before hiring!

We need to start spreading the word to our students that what they say and do online is a permanent record of who they are and what they do... and bad choices when they are young can limit their choices later.

Renewed basics for teachers?

A colleague arrived at my door recently with one digital device in each hand: an iPad in one and a Bluetooth keyboard in the other.

In the box with the keyboard, there was a USB cable... I am not sure what the purpose of the cable was, but she wanted help... she could find where the cable plugged into the keyboard, but not into the iPad.

After a big sigh, I explained to her that Bluetooth is a wireless protocol... no need to plug anything in... I also explained that an iPad is not a laptop like those that have become familiar over the last few decades.

I also was cleaning up some old files recently and found a 3GB movie file that I helped a colleague rescue a year and a half ago... she had been told that the netbooks we received with a grant would be great multimedia computers. She had then used the machine to create a 45-minute video and the 3rd party video editing software that was added as part of the grant that paid for the machines only allowed her to export as an .avi file.  Surprise, surprise, the video caused the netbook to freeze, and we worked several hours to save the video so it could be available at the open house.


I get the desire to have new and flashy toys, but we need to become aware of the capacity of devices before we buy them and attempt to use them.

Put this on parents' radar!!

It seems there is a new app that is gaining popularity... Blendr is a "location-based app." (Interpretation-- it  allows users to see the location of other users... up that is the physical location of the user.)

As you may have guessed, there is concern over predators using this to find victims... and there is some evidence that it has been used in this manner.

Seems to me we educators have a role in publicizing this so that parents and others know this capability is available.

Another story appeared on The Guardian's web site a few weeks ago.

Robots... interesting ideas about technology

Middle school students are intrigued by robots and other futuristic and fantastic devices and plots and characters. In the past, I have had students consider ethics form the perspective of  Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics. It has been some time since I have had the opportunity to consider those ideas with students, and then today, I found on the BBC's site an article that considers the potential of robots in today's world plus reference to Asimov's laws and a modern variation.

This is on my "to read with students list."

Studio schools... looks like a great idea

Education as we know it is a recent invention, largely the creation of society to deal with the need to prepare people to live and work in a print-dominated world. Print is no longer dominant, and education is changing. Middle school educators have know that for some time and have worked to preserve the best of apprenticeship models, authentic learning, and instruction that build on social interaction. Sure looks like the rest of the world is coming back to our way of thinking:

For Vermonters... and those close by...

The 2011 Tech Jam is coming late in October... check it out.. a great chance for our students to explore their future.

http://techjamvt.com/

My students' Storybirds

Today, I will be posting students' Storybirds to my school web site.... follow this link to take a look:

https://sites.google.com/a/westrutlandschool.org/dr-ackerman-2011-2012/5th-grade/read-our-story-birds

Maybe we should read terms of service and privacy policies carefully...  some one just posted this to a listserv for Vermont school IT people... it come form a "free math games" site for teachers:


Your personal data will be collected, processed, stored and used by us, and passed to and processed by our subsidiary and/or affiliated companies and other data processors acting under contract with us to provide and promote the Mangahigh Service, to process payments you make to us, to provide customer support, and for other purposes referred to in this Privacy Policy the User Agreement and the Parent Agreement. It is possible that some of the computer systems and companies that process your data on our behalf may be based in countries outside the European Union (“EU”). Countries outside the EU may not have as well developed data protection laws to protect your information as those inside the EU, but we will contractually require that personal data which is processed on our behalf is treated in compliance with EU laws and this Privacy Policy.

Cyberbullying... MTV Survey

My local newspaper carried a story this morning about a survey studying teens (14-24 year old) and their experiences with cyberbullying and sexting. What seems unusual is the survey was commissioned by MTV and Associated Press.

The results suggest the trends are really unchanged... it appears as if about a third of students are involved in some way in an on-going basis. More than that have had experience with these types of interactions, fewer are involved on a regular basis... fewer than a third are involved with sexting involving images.

This all suggests to me we (as educators and parents) need to continue to be proactive in building young people's understanding of how to interact with each other in an appropriate manner (using technology and not). That we the trend that the results show of more students intervening to stop their peers form engaging in this type of behavior can continue.

But can I say, that bullying is a problem among adults as well... I have observed in recent days situations in which adults were interacting with children (and with younger adults) in absolutely inappropriate ways.   These types of interactions have led a colleague to observe, "sometime bullies become teachers."

BYOT coming to work

An article on the New York Times web site recently described how businesses are beginning to allow employees to bring their own IT devices into the workplace. Interesting how IT departments once placed emphasis on controlling everything, but that they are trusting employees to makes decisions about the devices they need to do their work.

I wonder if educators are ever going to adopt such practices?

Value of ed tech?

ESchoolNews has an article (linked to others on New York Times, and other media) wondering if educational technology is "worth it."

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that educators are about 15 years behind our students, and I don't see us doing anything to catch up. Teachers send students to the library to borrow VHS tapes that were produced 20 years ago. The tapes were discarded two years ago when we installed a media server that has thousands of hours of video available on the local area network. THat is a terrific system, but come to find out, someone had decided to "hold off" on renewing the license for that server, so now the videos are inaccessible.

What frustrates me the most is that this is not "rocket science," there are plenty of skilled and competent people around who can help educators and leaders attend to the details of transforming our practices so that they are relevant for students, but we refuse to admit we need help and to accept it.

Storybird... continued

So, my students came on this morning (5th graders) and for 45 minutes they have been writing... stories... dialog... characters... not much plot yet.

A colleague came in and could not leave as students wanted her to read their stories. When it was time to leave, there was groaning. Kids engaged in academic work is a good thing (when it is meaningful).

NCLB in the news

There has been lots of chatter about NCLB in recent weeks... waivers... accountability... my school is getting ready for "knee-cap" testing, and last year we got our first check, so we are particularly interested.

I continue to be puzzled by educators' and educational researchers' silence on this matter. We are spending billions of dollars and subjecting learners to dubious experiences in the name of "accountability," but there is little evidence that performance on these tests is actually associated with meaningful performance on authentic and innovative problem solving.

Storybird again...

I signed my students up with students accounts on Storybird over the last few days, and out Friday activity (while some students finished up projects) was to play around and explore the artwork as they are going o start writing stories next week.

One young man (who struggles with school) announced, "I con't wait until I get to start writing my story next week."

YES!-- small victories are good victories... if one student is engaged for one day, then I can keep going to try to engage him one more day.

Microsoft!?!?

This week at our annual fall open house, a few parents stopped in and expressed surprise when I told them that I had no Microsoft product in my computer room. (I have 14 Linux desktops, and 10 Macintosh computers.)

Recently, we were interviewing candidates for a district technology coordinator position... one indicated that one of his first priorities would be to get all of my computers "up to date with Windows 7." He indicated he had never heard of Ubuntu (the flavor of Linux I use).

I am increasingly convinced that a diverse computing environment is necessary for schools... if we only introduce students to Microsoft because that s what the business world uses, then we have become a job preparation program for local business, and while that is a role of education, it is not the only role. ALso, what I read leads me to the conclusion that an employee who has the ability to adapt to new and different computing environments will be better employees than those who are skilled at using Office.

A good and simple idea

Today's information technology is social... we (and our students) use computers and networks to connect to others-- we connect to individuals and we join communities.

A recent article on EdWeek's  site reminds teachers that this media can be used for academic purposes, including virtual book clubs.

I have been working with a student recently who has been including her poetry that is on one of the young poet's spaces and embedding it in school pages.

Simple ideas for connecting kids with others in meaningful ways.

"Best Practices"

I have seen many connections between education, medicine and agriculture in the last few years. Basically, these all share a foundation in biology, but each is regulated by political decision-makers. Much of my thinking has focused on how educational decision makers in many instances make decisions for political reasons, and how those are often contrasry to to the biology that is the foundation of education.

An illustrative example: we know that fit individuals have healthy brains and that the opportunity to be up and active helps cognitive function. based on that biology, we would hope to have students, especially struggling students as active as possible. Rather than encouraging those students to be active, however, we institute academic standards for student-athletes. As a result, an academically weak student may be further disadvantaged because he or she cannot"make the grade," and the student falls further behind because athletics is taken away.

There has also been something steadily bothering me about "best practices," in recent years. Now I get it, I want educators to do what they should (according to the biology of human learning), and much that we have done in recent decades is not. Still, however, an expert who defines best practices, and the administrator (or other leader) who buys into that experts' definition is limiting what is expected and what is done.

I have a PhD. I have been thinking about kids and computers and what and how they learn for a couple of decades. When a principal comes to me with a "best practice," I scrutinize it. I look at it from all sides and challenge both the practice and the advocate to prove it is worthy, and I am likely to take the practice and tweek it to the experiences I know my students have and to try it out before concluding it is "best" or not.

Today, I heard a story on Fresh Air (the NPR program) in which Harvard University Medical School professors were drawing similar conclusions about the best practice recommendations in medicine.
http://www.npr.org/2011/09/21/140438982/becoming-mindful-of-medical-decision-making

StoryBird

I know I have posted this in the past, but StoryBird is a cool web site: Log on and you can create books... and you can share books to collaborate with others. Once they are finished, you can download them (for a fee, and you can buy printed copies).

My fifth grade students are going to be writing books with Halloween themes!

More Images

Teachers are always in search of safe places to find images... sites we can send students and be reasonably sure they will not encounter unsavory images. MorgueFile.com is one of those sites that I have been using lately. Uploaders share their work under creative the morgueFile license which is similar to Creative Commons licensing.

Google Image Search!

We all know that Google allows users to search for images-- search "soccer" and you get pictures of Hope Solo, Manchester United, and World Cup matches. Now, Google allows users to search by using an image. Upload an image from your computer or enter a URL of a picture on the web and Google will find pictures that look the same. I have a picture of me on my web site. I entered the URL of the image, and google found several other places where I had used the image as a profile picture and several images of other people wearing white shirts-- including one fellow who resembles me in many ways. Pretty cool, but also sort of creepy!

Digital books-- can't do this with a bound book

I live with books. Always have, always will.

But I think this short video shows how books are even better now...

Must-Have Tech Certification!?!?

I get lots of "IT management" stuff arriving in my inbox... I am still on mail lists from my days as the computer and network manager. Today, there arrived a list of 10 "must-have" certifications, and the list included project management, Microsoft Certified Engineer, Cisco Certified Engineer, and others.

New to me, however, was the Certified Ethical Hacker. This is someone who can be hired to attempt to hack into your network... he or she will employ the methods of unethical hackers and attempt to break into your system and then let you know the weaknesses in your system. Sure seems like the kind of person you want to be sure gets paid when the invoice arrives!

21st Century Skills...

Christopher Doyle commented on 21st Century Skills on EdWeek recently....

Catch phrases like "21st Century Skills" become so broadly defined they are meaningless, and more meaningless as educators apply the labels to their irrelevant practices in hopes they can give the illusion of being cutting edge. Certainly, we all hope to teach our content well, but that necessitates each of us to understand how the 21st Century Skills (and the condition leading to them and defining them) affect what it means to be a historian (or scientist, or mathematician, or artist... or any other noun).

Understanding those influences is an essential aspect of being an educator today.

I want my Angry Birds- games in the classroom

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of games and simulations for educational purposes. The reasoning is sound:

• Young people "like" games-- their brains are adapted to them and it is a part of their everyday life to which we can connect our lessons if we are clever and open to the potential.
• Games and simulations allow us to quickly experiment with otherwise unavailable "stuff-- while I don't want future scientists trained exclusively on simulations, I do think we can help them see patterns and connections immediately and thus be well-prepared to see similar patterns in the slow-moving laboratory.

I have had several conversations (arguments is more accurate) with teachers about the appropriateness of arcade-style games. I have always contended that those games are not the one described in the literature as  being appropriate for classrooms and as benefiting people's cognitive skills. 

Then, along comes an article in which Angry Birds can be used to teach physics. Maybe I never saw the connection because, while I sometimes teach physics, I do not play Angry Birds!

This does still make the point I have argued with principals and that seems well-supported by the literature: Games are appropriate for classrooms, but how they are used and what aspects of the games we study matters deeply. The lazy educator will "assign" students to play angry birds and mistakenly call it "game-based learning." The rest of us will look at the game, come to deeper understanding of it and physics with students and accurately call it "game-based learning."

Lure of the Labyrinth

A colleague asked me to review this game recently...

Basically, Lure of the Labyrinth is a Flash-based game in which players solve pre-Algebra problems in a game environment. Surely to engage some students not otherwise engaged in learning math. As with all such tools, however, it is not a panacea. I can see this as a more interesting alternative to other options in a "math lab" setting or as an option for middle schoolers (both students and teachers) looking for an exploratory activity. (I remember as a first-year teacher working very hard to be sure my exploratory offerings were engaging-- this game would have bee a welcome relief for a few days worth of meaningful, but easy, activity.)

Edward Tenner... unintended consequences of technology

Edward Tenner is one of my favorite historians of science and technology (I know, I need to get a life... a favorite historian of science and technology... really?)... anyways Tenner has written about the unintended consequences of technology.

One of the favorite examples he gives in this talk is the decision to make sure each ship had sufficient lifeboats for all passengers at the sinking of the Titanic, and the subsequent sinking of a ship made unstable because of the additional lifeboats placed on board. And more people died in the second sinking than on the Titanic.

Look at the graph at 11 minutes... our capacity is outpacing our ability to foresee the potential of our technologies.

Politics of education

So last week, President Obama called for billions to support education... keep teachers employed and rebuild schools. (EdWeek's article on it is here.) That sure seems a good idea to me, although I am apprehensive about the future of the bill in the politically divisive environment that we have seen in recent years. Like many, I am loosing faith in the individuals who we have elected, it seems they are more interested in scoring points with their political base and making the other party look bad so they can be elected rather than actually fixing the problems we face.

The problem is exacerbated with education as ours is a social system, but it is a system that is based on the biology of the human brain and how it learns. Unfortunately, the human brain does not construct knowledge in a manner that is easy to measure objectively. I am afraid that any funds available from the American Jobs Act will be attached to the requirement that improved test scores result.

PicLits-- encourage writing!

The librarian with whom I work sends me sites on a regular basis... she is always excited when she finds something new to me (which is becoming more frequent-- something both she an I are enjoying!).

Today. she sent PicLits my way.  Simple, elegant, and interesting:

Choose a picture, and drag-and-drop words into it, or free style to add your own text.

(I was messing about with it, and found "Opps, a glitch on our website" when trying to set up and account...)

Not sure how I ever missed this...

What a great video:

Is the world ending? Google Docs is down!?!?!?

Check out the screen shot from http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

5:41 PM eastern on Sept. 7, 2011-- Google Docs is down!?!?!?

I guess I will go to the soccer match at the local state college with my kids!

James Gleick & The Information

In case you missed it, On Point (the NPR program) rebroadcast the March 2011 interview with James Glieck in which he talked about his recent book The Information: A History, a Thoery, a Flood. If that book never got to the top of your summer reading list (I am fortunate it made it to my "I've Read It" shelf on Shelfari), then take some time and listen to this interview:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/03/18/james-gleick

Full-speed ahead...

A recent report on eSchoolNews points to several schools that have begun initiatives to adopt iPads and similar devices as replacements for textbooks. This makes me wonder about those teachers who have asked me about training recently.

"I really need to learn PowerPoint," was one comment. Another asked me, "what was that math software you installed?" and I needed several minutes to figure out she was asking about Geometer's SketchPad that I installed on some laptops in 2005, and still has yet to be used in the math classes.

Sigh... how can this be?

Lat week, I was at a meeting along with several principals, and we were talking about technology in schools... vision, connections, networks, curriculum, the whole range of issues realted to computers in schools today.

As we were about to adjourn, one principal indicated that her school was about the same place they were eight years ago. Their network was a little more reliable, but not much. (Now it fails every other day, a few years ago, it failed everyday.) There are a few teachers who use technology some, but it is still "special" when students use computers for their school work.

As I reflected on this over the weekend, I have come ot the conclusion that collectively, our industry is in need of new frameworks for making our schools truly technology-rich:

1) We need to define baseline technology and install that in a robust manner so that failures of our systems are rare. These systems need to be basic- Internet access, access to cloud computing, and printing.

2) We need to accept students' willingness to bring their own technology in and use it for school, so our classroom places need to e supplemented with virtual spaces that are available over Mac, PC, Linux, and mobile operating systems.

3) We need to accept that our learners are different and  for us to be relevant, we need to update our practices... no more excuses, no more "proceeding slowly."

4) We need leadership (individuals and groups) who accept a new vision for curriculum and instruction  in their schools and actually follow through on implementing that vision.

You Must Read This!

Larry Cuban wrote about the UNICEF report The Children Left Behind on his blog recently.

In brief, the report looks at the disparity between "the middle" and "the poor," in industrialized countries and draws the conclusion that government policies can make the difference in helping disadvantaged children in in material well-being, educational well-being, and health well-being. Cuban concludes that the refusal of the educational establishment (and the ancillary media, business interests, pundits, etc.) to recognize that and to question the educational policies that lead to No Child Left Behind to apply the free market to education are misguided at best.

Go read Cuban... seriously.
http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/international-rankings-that-reformers-ignore-the-children-left-behind/

Tool to Know: Aviary

The second promisisng tool of the year has crossed my desktop...

Aviary is a web-based tool for paint, vector drawings, and audio.

I set up a teacher account to free and I can now set up students account, and create and share projects among them.

Starting school: What's the culture?

I observed a teacher once who decided she was going to start the year with " a good positive culture," and so she spent two days reviewing a long list of classroom rules-- this was in the pre-cell phone days, but I am sure, she would have included "put your cell phone in the box on your way in" had she foretold the invention of the devices.

My son came home yesterday with a similar story of of a teacher who was setting the culture of her classroom by reviewing a list of rules. Just as my son's teacher got the the rule about no cell phones, hers rang. Yup, she lost her credibility in an instance and will be taking several months to regain it.

I also decided to start with year with a good positive culture, and I want my class (5th graders is the group I have in mind just now) to be a group that ponders and solves (or attempts to solve) challenging problems. We started class by contemplating things that can be measured and things that can't be measured... as that is our first challenge-- measuring the immeasurable.

Sure, I knew the kids from last year, so much of that work was unnecessary, but I am approaching all of my students as competent and we are just going to work and study and learn about ourselves as we go. That's the culture I want to promote, so that's the culture we are leaping into from the first day.

RoboMind.net

One of the great things about being back in school is that friends start sending me links to sites... here is the first one that really looks interesting:

http://robomind.net/en/index.html

A sign of the times?

My Facebook friends are starting to post requests for help... anyone who knows the trails and has an ATV who can get supplies (especially medicine) in to the towns in Vermont that are stranded can really help some folks who need it.

Interestingly, when the storm hit and my state started washing away and it became clear that some areas were in trouble, I tuned my AM radio to the local station (first time I had done that since 2007 when a spring wind storm hit my area pretty hard) and listened to first hand reports being called in by cell phone and heard updates from the local police.

Communication in the 21st century... choose the appropriate tool!

The more things change...

At our opening meeting of all of the faculty and staff in our district (which was fewer than expected as many faculty were stranded by roads washed away in floods--we figured the teacher who lived in a town that was inaccessible and had to travel through at least two other towns that were inaccessible to get to work was not going to be there!) we talked about students.

Reasonable enough-- but with new administrators I was hoping we might get to talk about authentic learning. The talk quickly turned to "how do we assess our students?" I held my breath as the principal leading the discussion said, "we know we want to use multiple methods of measuring students' success..." and then the PowerPoint slide switched, and she said, "let's look at this test data for example."

"Arg!" I understand our current political climate. But I am increasingly frustrated with leaders (no make that administrators) who talk the talk of authenticity in schools, but then "measure success" with a test score and who define themselves and judge their teachers with how well their students perform on a test.

A little later, we were having a discussion at our table, and I summarized a book chapter I had read over the summer which indicated that there is no evidence in the learning sciences to support the claim that a test is an accurate measure of human knowledge... the message was not well-received by several at my table as it immediately challenged all they "know" about education.

21st Century Skill Portfolios

So, last night I work up and could not get back to sleep... a common occurrence and a chance to do some thinking about kids and computers and teaching.

This year, I will be teaching 5th grade in a poorly planned initiative... basically they needed another teacher to share the kids, the school received netbooks as part of a one-to-one initiative (another poorly managed project), and the idea was "Ackerman will show them ho to use the netbooks." (That's the extent of the planning as it appeared in the school board minutes.)

To me this seems a great opportunity to try something new as no one has any expectations-- that is an environment in which I can shine!

So here is my idea... I am going to have students create electronic portfolios organized around the 21st Century Skills. But as I thought about it, I realized that I cannot simply have my students jump through the hoops through which the Partnerships for 21st Century Skills folks want them to jump. My students need to look at those skills, internalize them and then decide first if they are worth knowing and then second decide how they have demonstrated the skills.

You can't be my teacher....

One of the more entertaining (and biting) videos in the "motivate teachers to teach digital natives" genre:

Kinda creepy... very interesting

What happens to your FaceBook page after you die?

That is the question that Adam Ostrow has us ponder in this TED Talk. As a technologist working in a school, it is part of my job to help educators and students keep a "cutting edge" view of the technology issues we face and the ethical and moral dimensions of the technology we have created am embraced.

I do not expect you will find this question in any "technology standards" or any other curriculum standards, but it is far more relevant and interesting (and important) to our future than any standards I have read in recent years.

Help me understand this...

So, we returned to school on Friday and had a day with our new principal to do some "where are we?" and "where do we want to go?" brainstorming... a very appropriate and necessary activity.

One of the complaints we heard... it appeared as the third most pressing need in our school... is the need for more and more efficient technology. This supports our school board's goal of becoming a "21st century school" and a long-established line of rhetoric by leaders in our school.

Another problem that educators complained about was students' use of cell phones (we have a large number of students with handhelds) and many teachers were suggesting that we begin enforcing a more-strict no cell phone policy.

Maybe it is just me, but I see this as a huge inconsistency. Our kids arrive at school with technology in their pockets and demonstrate a willingness to use it, yet we want to keep that technology in their pockets and complain we don't have enough technology.

Sorry folks, but you can't have it both ways!

Better listening

Hear is an excellent TED Talk to share with students... less than eight minutes... pay particular attention to the filters that are presented early on and to the acronym RASA near the end.

IT Skills...

I get lots of email from vendors of IT products... they try to give advice, but it is obviously just a venue to get you to look at their ads... I can live with that... I ignore most and take the rest with a grain of salt.

Today, one of the items in my in-box announced "the top eight IT skills," so I opened it. Here are the top four:

• Communication
• Collaboration
• Vision/ Innovation
• Project Management

Makes me think I am spot on with the skills I hope my students develop in my courses... makes me think any test anyone can devise for my students will not measure what they need for their future.

Avoiding the Tragedy of the Computer Commons

My school provides a unique benefit for teachers: We are paid (a penitence) to prepare our classrooms for the upcoming school year-- basically I set up my classroom before the school year begins and they give me enough money to buy enough gasoline to get to my son's soccer games over the fall, I used to be able to buy pizza a couple of night over soccer season also, but not with $3.63 per gallon gas!

As I have been in the school working, several of my colleagues have asked about the state of the computers in our school-- I used to be responsible for managing everything, then I worked only with teachers and system support came from our central office, now I teach full time. We have come to the conclusion that-- at least in our building-- there is a tragedy of the commons alive and well.

In most schools, schools are a shared resource-- include in this the cameras projectors and similar peripherals. They are also a limited resource. In this situation, there is a tendency for some to "grab" theirs before anyone else gets it. I see teachers sign up for computer rooms and never use it. I see teachers "borrow" cameras and never return them. I see teachers borrow mobile laptop labs and then keep a couple for use in their classrooms. I have seen teachers take power supplies from mobile laptop labs so they can have one at home and one at school, in case they forget it.

I understand the pressures to use technology-- it makes sense, there is pressure to use it from parents and administrators. I understand the tragedy of the commons-- a teacher who knows she is going to need cameras again next month for her big project for open house wants so ensure she has what she needs and returning the cameras means they might get broken or stolen before she needs them. I get that all.

I also observer, however, that students rarely display such attacks on the commons. Well, students who are working on relevant and  meaningful projects don't students who are treated with respect don't.

This summer I read a book about the evolutionary strategies for social interaction. One of the most successful strategies (one in which a person can gain the most) is called tit-for-tat. There are several variations on theme strategy, but at it most simple:

Be helpful/ generous/ giving in your first interaction with everyone. Then each time they interact with you again, do back to them hat they last did.

So, if one of your colleague is being uncooperative this fall... think back to the last time you interacted with them... perhaps the uncooperative nature of your colleagues in sharing laptops is because you already have all of the cameras hidden in your closet!

Exciting new project from NELMS

NELMS plans to celebrate a decade of the Maine Learning with Technology Initiative (MLTI)-- their one-to-one initiative in middle schools-- with a book that has the working title Technology in Middle Schools: Lessons from Maine and the Rest of New England.

We are seeking nominations of educators who have done outstanding work with computers and middle schools who are willing to contribute chapters. While readers of NELMS.21 will find updates posted here, the author guidelines will appear on the NELMS web site soon and if you are interested in writing (or know someone else who is) feel free to contact me using the details in my profile.

Looking at ourselves

It has been several years since I had an advisory, and I miss it.

If I did have an advisory, I think we would watch this:

Back to school reminder: SpeakUp 2011

As you head back to school, take a few minutes to remember what was reported in Project Tomorrow's SpeakUp survey in 2011... the statistic that stick with me is that two-thirds of parents are willing to buy a handheld for their children to bring to school and use for their work.

When I was reviewing the report, I was also reminded of the three E's of education:

• Enabling students to reach their potential through increased access to educational resources and experts that extend learning beyond the capacities or limitations of their school or community.
• Engaging students in rich, compelling learning experiences that develop deeper knowledge and skill development especially the problem-solving, creativity and critical thinking skills so highly desired for our world today.
• Empowering students to take responsibility for their own educational destinies and to explore knowledge with an unfettered curiosity, thus creating a new generation of life long learners.

Back to school reminder: Shared Spaces

I am obviously a fan of Google's products... let's not get into the politics of their plan for world domination :)!

It seems anyone without a Google account is at a real disadvantage today. For example, I had heard rumors that GE's Imagination Cubed (a virtual whiteboard) had gone offline, but had not had a chance to actually check it out. Sure enough, as I was getting ready for the fall, I followed the link to find it gone.

That sure makes me glad Google has Sharde Spaces still up and running. (Ya gotta wonder how long it will be around after Google Labs is shut down!) For now...

http://sharedspaces.googlelabs.com/

Back to school reminder: BodyBrowser

Here is another reminder of a tool to use hen you get back to school later this month...

Google's BodyBrowser is a 3D human body that can be rotated around, labeled, and stripped of bones, muscles, organs, nerves, so that only those systems of interest are displayed.

BodyBrowser may require some work to get functioning... it requires updated web browsers (Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox work best) and perhaps some tweaking of settings for your video card. Also, I have the best luck with Macintosh computers, although I have used Windows to use the site as well. It is worth getting the tech support people in your school to help out, however.

Social media-- Not really middle school, but interesting

Only a Game, a public radio program from WBUR in Boston, is broadcast on Saturday morning in Vermont. Last Saturday, there was a story on that program that demonstrates the changing times.

http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2011/08/13/tweet-this-social-media-and-recruiting

Apparently, college coaches are using social media to recruit student-athletes to their programs. That is not really a middle school topic, but it is an interesting sign of the times. I suppose it is not surprising, however. Kids are on social media and if you want to contact them, you have to meet them where they live. My younger son is getting ready for his senior year as a goal keeper on his soccer team at school, and he has been using FaceBook all summer to remind teammates of scheduled training.

Appsbar

Several times in the last year, I have tried to learn to program apps for iPad/ iPod/ iPhone, but each time my attention gets diverted before I can really get a handle on it. I have no excuse anymore, as a website called appsbar provides those with accounts access (free-- just use your email account to validate) to a wizard that takes you step by step through creating an app for Apple's line or for Android, and then allows users to publish them on the appropriate store.

Flubaroo

As I have been preparing to return to school, I have discovered a few new tools that are on my "must use and share" list. As a user of Google Docs, I have been waiting for a skilled script writer to add quiz grading functionality to spreadsheets... it is here.

http://www.flubaroo.com/

Is a script that can be added to spreadsheets and allows grades to be calculated and reported.

Five Trends to Start the Year...

Our school hired a new principal for this year, and she asked me to have some "tech stuff" to share for the first day of school. I decided to prepare a site that focuses on five trends that are influencing educators and ICT... the site is here:

https://sites.google.com/site/icttrendsineducation/

I will gladly share it so that anyone who wants a copy to modify for their own purposes can.

All Tech Considered--Girls & Social Media

On August 8, NPR's All Things Considered featured a story about the new edition of Odd Girl Out, the 2002 book about bullying among girls. This new edition has been updated for digital media. In the interview, Rachael Simmons makes the pint that social media and cell phones are deeply (very deeply) embedded in girls' conceptions of themselves. She makes the point that one reason for this is that girls have not yet developed good communication skills.

Simmons has several bits of advice for parents, the one I most appreciate, and that I think educators should  adopt is a cell phone parking area in the home (classroom). This is a public place where all cell phones (yup, parents' and teachers' phones too!) during meals (tests) and other cell-phone free activities.

(By the way, if you go to buy the book on one of the online retailers, make sure to get the 2011 edition!)

Sign of the times...

On the EdWeek Digital Education Blog, I read about a law that says educators can't use social networks to contact students... OK, seems reasonable... but wait... my son has been my student and he is my FaceBook friend... and the law says I can't contact former students.. wait, what?... really?

So... here is a situation... I have maintained contact with a former student... as he graduated form high school, then college... his parents invite me to their house when he is in town so we can catch up, and I occasionally contacts him via FaceBook to seek his advice (he works as a computer programmer). Now I am breaking the law when I do that (well at least in Missouri).

I understand the need to protect people, but really... doesn't this seem a little too far. 

South Korea

While browsing EdWeek today, I was intrigued by this article which indicates the South Korea government intends to supply students with tablets so they can access virtual textbooks.

I can hear my colleagues response now, "But they only use computers for dumb stuff." (And they are surely accurate in this assessment... if I had a nickel for each game, "sneezing panda" video on YouTube, and attempts to post "<3  this" or "LOL" on FaceBook have I observed in school, I could retire.)

Unfortunately, many teachers accept that observation as a reason that they should not use computers with students. I counter, if e don't give students something other than "dumb stuff" to do with their computers, then we can only blame ourselves for the predominance of  dumb stuff.

August: Tools to Know

August is here. A word that brings mixed feelings to educators. Before this month is out, we will be back in school. As the days of freedom to read and write what I want when I want (and the option of clearing my head by going to the garden for a few minutes disappears) dwindle to a precious few, I am reintroducing myself to a few tools... looking for changes, looking for new connections. I will post these tools here as I rediscover them...

If you haven't uses WolframAlpha yet, please take a few minutes and revisit it... a search engine for computable data, and it is amazing the data that is kept. The quick tour is here.

Khan Academy has been gaining some attention as it makes thousands of video available--basically show-and-tell speaker and "chalkboard" for solving math and science problems. Everything from addition to calculus.

Rediscovering John Perry Barlow...

Something made me think of John Perry Barlow's A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace that he wrote in 1996 as a response to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which was the first attempt pf the US government to regulate (some say censor) what what said by whom on the Internet.

It had been probably six or eight years since I last read it... it is still timely... as much now as it was then. I think I am going to have my middle school students read it this year.

https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

Cyborg Anthropology

In this short TED Talk, Amber Case describes some of the important trends in cyborg anthropology... she makes excellent points with which we should all be familiar:

• technology extends us
• information technology extends our cognitive abilities
• we have amazing connections that increase our humanness
• we do need time to reflect

Baseball in the Digital Age-- The World is Changing

My sons and I went to Fenway Park on Sunday--saw a Sox victory, Terry Francona's 1001th win as a manager and Tim Wakefield's 2000th strikeout as a Red Sox pitcher. Lets' look a little deeper:

1) We purchased tickets from a season ticket holder who had placed them on a web site that caters to that market.

2) We downloaded and printed our own tickets which were scanned so that we could enter the stadium.

3) Waiting for the subway, my son started downloading the app for MBTA.

4) I paid for gas and subway "tokens" by putting my credit card in the gas pump and the Charlie Card vending machine.

5) Fans in the really expensive seats just below us (we had Pavilion Box seats) were placing orders for concessions with wait staff using digitized pads, and paying with credit cards that were scanned on those pads.

6) I saw many fans (including myself) taking pictures with their phones, updating their status on FaceBook, sending email, and otherwise sharing the experience with others.

The experience of handing your ticket to an usher and having a torn stub handed back appears to be gone... the experience of passing food from vendor in the aisle to those further down the row and then money and change back and forth seems to be leaving (at least in some seats)... the experience on knowing just how much the trip costs by the disappearing collection of bills in your pocket appears to be gone as well.

Need Evidence the World is Changing?

I dare anyone to watch this and then build an argument for keeping math education "same as it ever was... same as it ever as... same as it ever was..."

ISBN & DOI-- a primer

I was excited about Zotero (see yesterday's post and previous posts) and had the chance to show it to a colleague. He asked a great question, and I realized I probably needed to introduce educators to these tools as they are very useful in the web-centric world in which Google dominates.

ISBN's are International Standard Book Numbers-- these 13-digit numbers identify every book that is published (a few years ago the standard switched from 10 digits to 13 digits, thus many books have two ISBN's).

DOI's are Digital Object Identifiers-- these much longer than 13-digit "numbers" (letters are also allowed in doi's--sometimes the acronym is capitalized, sometimes not) are assigned by publishers to articles that are published in periodicals, and because most periodicals are accessed via online databases, these facilitate searching.

When you find an ISBN or a DOI, you can enter it in a search box (you can Google it) and the details of the resources are immediately available--and ISBN's and doi's can be entered into Zotero to be automatically added to your bibliography.

Try it... 

copy and paste this bold text: 10.1080/01972240600567170 into Google and you will find details of this article:
Deuze, M. (2006). Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture. The Information Society, 22(2), 63-75.


copy and paste this bold text: 9780385533065 into Google and you will find details of this book:
Christian, B. (2011). The most human human : what talking with computers teaches us about what it means to be alive (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday.

Zotero -- Really gotta use it!

Previously, I suggested Zotero is an excellent tool for managing and sharing bibliographic records. As I made the suggestion just after I learned about the site, I was commenting only on what I thought the potential was; recently, I have been trying to polish up a writing project and so have a growing bibliography... when it is done, I expect around 100 sources.

I have been managing the bibliography with Zotero. When writing, I have my word processor with the reference section open in a file and I have Firefox with the Zotero plug in installed. I add references to Zotero with the ISBN or DOI and wait a few second for the information to be loaded into Zotero, then drag the icon for the source from Firefox onto the task bar and into the reference file, and move the drop text cursor to the correct spot in the list and drop it.

I do notice about 20% of the entries have some error... maybe listing only one of several authors is the most common error I have noticed. Most of the sources I am using for my project are also being added to a group I started... check it out:

http://www.zotero.org/groups/21st_century_schools

The Internet

For those who have been paying attention, this summer has been full of stories about information technologies and the ethics of those devices. Personally, I hope these stories stay in the news and western societies continue the collective conversation about how to conduct ourselves in the digital world. I hope we ("the people") also continue to be heard and those who acted in an unethical manner (and their bosses and the owners of the companies for which they worked) are held accountable both economically and criminally.

As educators, we all have a responsibility to engage our students in discussions about the world in which they live and to encourage them to think about what companies and governments are doing and how those actions affect us. To that end, the speaker in a recently posted TED Talk proposes we "take the Internet back." It is on my "to share ith students" list for the fall:

Interesting View of the Internet

An RSA Animate video that challenges some of the assumptions that are common about technology and its social influences is available on YouTube:

Some TED wisdom...

I have not visited TED yet this summer... today, I happened to stop by and found a couple of interesting talks... and they are short!

The Information

This summer, I finished James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. This is a book that needs to become on of the "must reads" for the second decade of the 21st century; despite the 426 pages of text.

The subtitle does explain the content and organization of the book perfectly. First, several chapters dedicated to the arrival of writing (and its effects on society) and the history of books and computers and networks. These chapters deserve careful reading and reflection by those who hope to be educated in our knowledge age. Second, several chapters detailing the work of the information theorists in the mid-20th century and ho people like Claude Shannon and Alan Turing (and their many colleagues and collaborators) tamed and framed information so that that computer revolution could occur. Finally, a brief treatment of the changed information landscape.

Educators should take some time to become familiar with the history and the flood of information and to come to understand the implications for their work and the questions that arise. These are the issues that will determine the direction our professional takes in the coming years. Educators should be familiar with the theory of information because it tells us the concepts upon which our professional is built, but I am think getting caught up in those details may interfere with what we do in the classroom.