From the Principal's Desk

Rites of Spring

Springtime may be when a young man's fancy turns to love, but in our current educational era, it's also when most educators' attention turns to standardized testing.  You know, that thing which for some incomprehensible reason seems to have become the be-all and end-all of accountability in public education.

We've just finished up our district's week of FCAT testing, and I'm struck once again by the folly of the idea that this is what education should be about.  Our campus had students who were stressed out beyond belief; students who Christmas-tree'd their answers because they, as 9th graders, "don't have to pass the test"; and, of course, many (most) who took the test seriously, did their best, and (I hope) without extreme anxiety.

As a society, we seem to place so much value on the results of a test that has no meaning or value to students, particularly when compared to so many other educational experiences in their school life. How much validity can such results really have?

In recent months, our students have given presentations to students at other schools and to professionals from outside education; they've created some amazing products and designs; they've conducted interviews for a communications class; they've designed children's and comic books in a foreign language and in some cases have shared those with toddlers in our on-campus childcare facility; they've learned about geography, data collection, and more from their teacher who spent a week at a live volcano; they've used critical and creative thinking, along with mathematical and technological skill, background research knowledge, and communication ability, to develop and then present plans for child care playgrounds, spas and salons, and amusement park rides.  Students don't "Christmas tree" such assessments; and, although they take them seriously and work hard to do well, they don't typically do so with all-encompassing angst.  I've seen some impressive stuff.

And in the eyes of the state department of education - and, therefore, in the eyes of much of the general public - none of it matters in judging the quality of their learning, or the quality of our school.  If it can't be measured on that one test, then it carries no weight in determining our school's "grade", or a student's "level".

Of course, I want our students' skills in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics to show continuous improvement.  But I want more than that, and I want an accountability system that wants more than that, as well.  Standardized test scores do mean something - but they shouldn't mean everything.

Is Technology Too Expensive?

Like many school districts, our district is experiencing budget difficulties right now. These problems are leading to all kinds of suggestions for how to live within our means, including cuts in staffing, services, and more. One of the drumbeats from some in the community is to cut back on technology – we spend too much on technology, they say.

While I understand that budget problems call for wise examination of district expenditures, I have to wonder if the call from the public to cut back on technology is truly the result of wise examination.  

Money is tight, so here are a few ideas: Let’s stop buying pencils. Get rid of paper. Eliminate textbooks.

What?! Schools without pencils, or paper, or textbooks?! Can’t do that – they’re important tools. But here’s the thing: computers – especially computers with internet access – are the most important tool of the 21^st century. Of course, placing a computer in front of every student doesn’t automatically lead to increased student achievement – but neither do pencils, paper, or textbooks. It depends on what we have students do with those tools. And you tell me – what’s a more powerful tool, a pencil, a piece of paper, a textbook… or a computer, which can do all that those tools can do, and more? You really want to save money and increase achievement in schools? Here’s an idea: stop buying textbooks, and start buying computers.

Do we really want our students on the losing end of the digital divide? Do we really want to be limiting student computer access in the US, while the One Laptop Per Child program is putting computers into the hands of kids in Afghanistan, Haiti, Cambodia, Uruguay, Mongolia, and more?

In Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, he describes ten “flatteners” – those developments that have led to our globalized world. Those are:

1. 11/9/89 – The New Age of Creativity: When the Walls Came Down and the Windows Went Up (the fall of the Berlin Wall and communism, and the development of the PC)

2. 8/9/95 – The New Age of Connectivity: When the Web Went Around and Netscape Went Public

3. Work Flow Software

4. Uploading – Harnessing the Power of Communities (via open-source software, blogging, wikipedia and more)

5. Outsourcing – Y2K

6. Offshoring – Running with Gazelles, Eating with Lions

7. Supply-Chaining – Eating Sushi in Arkansas

8. Insourcing - What the Guys in Funny Brown Shorts are Really Doing

9. In-forming – Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search

10. The Steroids – Digital, Mobile, Personal, and Virtual Tools

Nope, no computer influence in those flatteners, eh?

Lest there’s any doubt, Mr. Friedman says this:

“The convergence of the ten flatteners had created a whole new platform. It is a global, Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration… Going forward, this platform is going to be at the center of everything. Wealth and power will increasingly accrue to those countries, companies, individuals, universities, and groups who get three basic things right: the infrastructure to connect with this flat-world platform, the education to get more of their people innovating on, working off of, and tapping into this platform, and, finally, the governance to get the best out of this platform and cushion its worst side effects.”

(Friedman, The World is Flat, p. 205)

One of the things I find most strange about the call for less technology in our local schools is that this call comes often on the local newspaper’s website – people post to the paper’s blog about the schools having too much technology. Uhh, do any of these computer-using blog posters even recognize the irony in that?

On my campus – as, I suspect, on many campuses – the thing that gets people most upset is when the air conditioning is broken. The second biggest problem? When the servers go down.

Every board member has a networked computer right in front of them at the dais. Every district staffer has a networked computer on their desk. Teachers and administrators all have computers, and email accounts, and internet access, and networked folders. Their use has become vital in the "business" of running our schools - why would we think their use is not vital in the classrooms?  What kind of uproar – and rightfully so, I’d like to be clear - would there be if every one of those computers was taken away? Or even if we just took away 3 of every 4, so there were 4 staff members sharing every computer?  And yet, four computers in a classroom is “enough”? One-to-one laptop computing is “excessive”?

I know that some believe that Marc Prensky’s concepts of Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants are used too much, and letting people call themselves digital immigrants becomes an excuse for teachers to allow themselves to be technologically illiterate – but I have to think that it's digital immigrants suggesting that it’s wise to minimize computer access in schools.

The power of computers in the classroom is only beginning to be explored in most districts – most are just beginning to dip their toes into the water. Even at my school, with its strong technology focus, I think that most of our classrooms range from being ankle deep to waist-high in meaningful embedding of computers to transform teaching and learning, when we ought to be swimming in it.

That’s part of what makes it so easy to call for their reduction – because people don’t yet see their immense value in the classroom. But that’s what happens whenever a tool is introduced – it takes a while for the innovators to master the tool’s use and incorporate it meaningfully, and it takes even longer for those who come behind the innovators to accept, embrace, and learn its value. 

Thomas Friedman has something to say, too, about technology in schools:

“Give me a kid with a passion to learn and a curiosity to discover and I will take him or her over a less passionate kid with a high IQ every day of the week…Some kids are just born that way, but for the many who are not, the best way to make kids love learning is either to instill in them a sense of curiosity, by great teaching, or stimulate their own innate curiosity by making available to them all the technologies of the flat-world platform so they can educate themselves in an enormously rich way…So schools had better make sure they are embedding these tools and concepts of collaboration into the education process.”

(Friedman, The World is Flat, pp. 304 and 315)

One of the worst things we could do is to pull back from this powerful tool, rather than help our teachers to embed its use. Computers are ubiquitous in every industry, in most homes, in most lives, in just about everything. Everything, that is, except in education. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, education is the least technology-intensive enterprise among 55 U.S. industry sectors (Digital Economy 2003). That’s something to correct, not something to be proud of.  If you think technology is expensive, try technology ignorance.  THAT will really cost ya.

I’ve worked myself all into a tizzy. Time to go lie down…

An Amazing Year

February 12, 2008,  is my one-year anniversary... of blogging, that is.

Yep, one year ago, I took the bait dangled by our media specialist, Dr. Marie Coleman, and joined in on the Principal Blogging Project, sponsored by Dr. Scott McLeod.  And in so many ways, I'm a different educator now than I was a year ago.

I've posted 60 times, a bit more than once a week (although it's been uneven posting, reflecting the ups and downs of my workload and energy levels).  That's 60 times I've been able to share an event or thought, or process my thinking through some reflective writing, as a professional.

I've received 116 comments on my posts - that's 116 times I've benefited from the thinking, ideas, questions, or just plain support of colleagues from around the world, and from right in my own backyard.

My own blogging begun one year ago has led me down a path of a whole bunch of new firsts in the last year:

* My first RSS feed-reading, begun almost a year ago
* My first wiki, seven months ago
* My first entry into Twitter, five months ago
* My first online conference, four months ago
* My first collaborative GoogleDoc, four months ago
* My first learning from a podcast, four months ago
* My first Jing screen-capture, four months ago
* My first Skype call, four months ago
* My first Animoto video, three months ago
* My first social bookmarking, three months ago
* My first Flickr, three months ago
* My first sign-up for a YouTube account, three months ago
* My first use of Ustream, three months ago
* My first Facebook friend, one month ago
* My first feeble attempt at creating a Second Life avatar, three weeks ago
* My first pony... okay, so I've never had a pony... just wanted to see if you've stuck with me.

I've been able to experience first-hand how much your learning opportunities expand, both in quality and quantity, when you use read/write technologies. And while there are days when the weight of everything on my plate distracts me from what's really important, at my core my beliefs about the education we owe our students, the way we should define achievement and accomplishment, and the means by which we should nurture student growth, have changed forever. 

Long ago, at a conference I attended about a different subject, the presenter said of her subject, "Once you see it, you can't NOT see it."

I'm a newcomer to these tools, and I've got so much to learn, but that doesn't matter.  I've SEEN it. I'll never NOT see it, again.  And I hope I can help a few others see, as well, how powerful these tools can be in driving meaningful student learning.

Happy Anniversary to me.  Time to go eat some cake....

Cooperative Learning

Here's a quick-and-simple post, as I'm hoping to see YOUR thoughts on this issue.

One of the questions I was asked to respond to in this week's discussion forum for my UF doctoral cohort class on Supervision and Professional Development was,

"Should cooperative learning replace individualized learning? If so, why and how?"

I know what I wrote... what do you think?

 

College bound, life bound, or both?

This article in Change Magazine, from the Carnegie Foundation, provides the statistics that are behind *most* of the main reasons for the existence of the high school and tech center where I'm lucky enough to be principal.  The key points?

First, regarding the existence of our technical center and the requirement of our high school students to participate in a full certificate program, dually enrolled, at that center:

"There is little doubt that the last five or six decades have seen growth in the educational requirements of jobs...Nevertheless, compelling evidence does not
exist that there will be a rapid rise in the general demand for college
graduates and a damaging shortfall in their supply sufficient to cause
the United States to falter in the world economy...When professional jobs and long-tenure,
high-paying jobs are included as a percentage of all jobs in some
future period, the high-paying jobs requiring advanced education are
overstated as a proportion of the total employment opportunities
actually available...But looking at the projected increase in the number of jobs in the 10 fastest-growing occupations, 61 percent of those new jobs will not require college and 39 percent will."

My translation?  While you need more education than you used to for a quality job, that does not mean a college degree.  So, get some career-specific training.

Second, regarding those who define themselves (or are defined by their families, teachers, or counselors) as "college bound" and who therefore only focus on "college prep":

"According to BLS data, 29 percent of current
jobs actually required a degree in 2004. But the U.S. Department of
Education's National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), which began
with eighth-graders in 1988, reports that 40 percent of its sample
attained a two- or four-year degree or higher. That may explain why
people with college degrees are taking jobs formerly filled by those
who had only high-school diplomas or less...we should not just accept—and repeat—the now-conventional wisdom that
there is an accelerating economic demand for workers with college
degrees and that our standing in the global economy is threatened if we
do not meet it."

My translation?  Your goal is to go to college?  Great!  But if you want to be competitive in the job market, you need to focus on practical skills, as well.

And third, relating to our high school's requirement that all students *also* take a set of high-level, core academic courses that most term "college prep":

"...Coupled with that question is the need for
citizens to have an equal opportunity to attend and complete college,
such access being key to the nation's major problem of income
inequality among racial and ethnic groups. ...Given both the financial and non-financial
benefits of college, this inequitable access to a better life goes
against the ideal of meritocracy that is so central to American
ideology...The societal benefits of a better-educated
population are also significant and deep, from a healthier population
to one that is better able to carry out its civic responsibilities."

My translation?  You may decide not to go to college, and we think that's perfectly viable, as long as you've prepared yourself with the skills necessary.  However, we, as a school and as educators, are NOT going to make that decision FOR YOU, by deciding you are "not college bound" and placing you in an educational track of courses that may keep you from that.  We are not going to allow you to "accidentally" make that choice for yourself by allowing you to opt out of rigorous courses. We are not going to sell short your
opportunity to live that healthier or more civic life by letting you off the
hook, to choose not to challenge yourself. We will require you to take this path of courses while you are with us, even if it makes it harder for you and harder for us, so that when you leave us you can pursue whatever dream you have developed for yourself.

The first concept frustrates me, that so many, especially so many in education, just don't get it.

The second concept makes me sad, that we send so many kids through the college realm, having taught them to "do school" (in the words of Dr. Willard Daggett) without having taught them much else... and they don't even know that until they're underemployed and wondering what happened.

The third concept is the one that gets me most riled up.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  Who the heck are we, to put kids into boxes, and insist that they stay there?

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Technorati Tags: high school reform, workforce education, career education, ICLE, rigor and relevance

Are You Relevant?

I went to the NBC News website this evening because, thanks to a tweet from @bcrosby, I wanted to check out this video:

It grabbed my attention because, among other things, it ties in to a quotation I came across recently (my apologies to whomever it was in my blogosphere/twitterverse I heard this from, for not crediting you!):

"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less" - Gen. Eric Shinseki

What a perfect "capture" of something I've thought about quite a bit lately.  I've heard administrators and teachers alike lament so many developments in the world of educational choice:  charters, private schools, magnets or other public school choices, online options, and more.  We can't "control" what courses they choose.  We can't "control" where/how they enroll.  We can't "control" their desire for technology-based options.

Bottom line?  We can lament all we want, but it doesn't change a thing.  Education has moved, more and more, into the hands of its consumers, for whom one monolithic approach to education is no longer their only option.  Options have always been there, but now they're being accelerated by technology.  The genie cannot be put back in the bottle.

(Side note: I'm one of those consumers, too.  I'm in a doctoral program that is offered by a school several hundred miles from my home... I chose it specifically because, among other things, it is online, making it the only possible type of doctoral program my life could remotely accommodate right now.)

The good news is, we don't need to be scared by that... as long as we're providing an education that our students see as relevant, valid, meaningful, and engaging, they'll choose us.  And if we fail to do that, well then, we're not going to get their "business" just by trying to make them a captive audience.

[Side note: While I was at the NBC News site, I also came across this video, which I wanted to share because of its relevance to anyone who works or interacts with teenagers or young adults.  It's completely unrelated to the rest of my post, but it's worth knowing:

Why walk when you can drive?

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm in an online doctoral program with a cohort of educators from my district.  Strictly speaking, you could call it a blended program, as we take two classes online per semester, but each semester we meet face to face three times for all-day sessions.  Today was our first session, our first F2F, of this term.

In advance of today's meeting, we were asked by one of the professors to print out several powerpoints that had been posted to the website, and to bring those with us to the class. We were also given a number of handouts - printouts of the course syllabus, and of several newspaper articles about a school issue. We were assigned to groups for a major project, and several groups then worked to identify times they could get together, to meet, to work on the project.  One of the professors said that we've "moved past" the age of technology - now it's all about relationships.

Certainly, I don't think online work can, should, or will ever completely replace face to face interaction.  And some people deal better with hard-copy text in front of them than computer-based text.  And yes, relationships are more vital than ever.  But here are the thoughts racing through my brain as I sit here processing today's class session:

• Old habits, and traditional ways of thinking, change very, very slowly.  In the same way that I, too, have not always naturally or automatically turned to computer-based tools to meet my needs, neither did our class, in some cases going straight to that which we've known forever (handouts, printouts, etc.)
• It *is* about relationships - it *shouldn't* be about the technology... but the technology can and should help facilitate those relationships - that is, after all, "the whole point" of web 2.0/read-write technologies/the interactive web... whatever you want to call it. 

None of this is meant to be an insult to the program or professors - we're also going to be participating in online discussion forums, and working with Elluminate, and generating videos with iMovie/MovieMaker, so the technology is certainly there, and the professors are challenging us with it, and in those ways it's technology doing exactly what it ought to be doing:  serving as a tool to meet our learning and communication needs. 

Instead, my observations are meant as a comment on how hard it can be to get our minds around just how much these tools can change things for us.  Even if we are ones who use the tools, their full value may not be instinctively known to us. So the fact that we used a bunch of printed documents when we had access to them online is not my concern - it's a perfectly natural stage in the process of embedding these tools in our lives, I think.

What does concern me, however, is the impact some of this can have on people who aren't yet embedding the tools into their work.  When I hear someone say "it's not about the technology, it's about the relationships", what that means to me is that technology is of course not replacing relationships, but I also know that technology is powerful in helping to build relationships. 

But so many people still caught in the cycle of thinking of technology as an add-on, as somehow something separate, may not interpret it the same way - some of those people may say, "yeah, see, there's no reason to get into all this technology stuff, because relationships are what's important."  And it becomes one more validation of the idea of rejecting technology, as if somehow technology = depersonalization.  For some, it can become one more validation of the idea that it's okay for an educator to be technologically illiterate. 

Part of what makes 'this whole technology thing' hard is that, when you're first learning to use these tools, it is about the technology, because it has to be - but you don't want to get stuck in that mode. Nor should you think that you don't need to learn, just because you don't value technology as an end in itself... of course it's not an end in itself.

When you're learning to drive a car, it's about the car - the steering wheel, the brakes, the accelerator, the rear view mirrors. But once you learn how to drive at a certain level of proficiency, then it's no longer about the car - it's about getting from one place to another. When you get a new microwave, you have to learn which buttons to push to do what - but once you do, it's no longer about the microwave, it's about cooking your food.

Cars aren't the only way to get from one place to another; microwave ovens aren't the only way to cook food; technology isn't the only way to learn or to build relationships. But we don't just walk everywhere when cars are available to us, and we don't settle for cooking over open flames when we have microwaves. Don't we want to be able to use every tool at our disposal to learn, and to connect?

You Gotta Lava It

Please check out the work of our school's newest blogger, Ms. Holly Cowburn.  She's our World Geography teacher, and she was recently awarded a grant from the Collier County Education Foundation to travel to Nicaragua with Earthwatch.org - she'll have the opportunity to explore a major volcano, collect data, and share what she learns.  She's very interested in getting ideas about interdisciplinary uses for her trip, and she's using this trip as a major launching point to expand her repertoire of interactive tech tools.  Not only will she explore the use of tools while in Nicaragua, but the establishment of her first blog will, in itself, give her a window into the world of the blogosphere and the value it might have.

If you're someone with ideas for interdisciplinary connections, please comment on her blog with your thoughts.

If you're someone with ideas for tech tools she could use on her trip, please comment on her blog with your thoughts.

If you're someone who likes to encourage new bloggers to keep with it, when it comes to blogging, please comment on her blog with your thoughts.

You get the idea:  please comment on her blog with your thoughts.

I'm so proud of her for receiving this grant.

I'm so proud of her for what she wants to do with this grant, to benefit herself, her students, and our entire school.

I'm so proud of her for her excitement about the new things she can try out while on the trip.

I'm so proud of her for establishing a blog to share this experience with the world, while at the same time learning about blogging.

You get the idea:  I'm so proud of her.

Taking the Facebook Leap

"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."
- Benjamin Disraeli

I've had this post in me for a while.  But it's Vicki Davis's brilliant recent post about social networking that's finally pushed me to jump the chasm and write this.

I'm way behind many in education when it comes to trying to understand social networks, for a couple of reasons.  In addition to all the typical reasons about not knowing much about these technologies because I didn't grow up with them, there's the added factor with social networking (MySpace, Facebook, Ning, etc.) that it just hasn't personally appealed to me.  I guess you could say I'm kind of anti-social that way.

However, one trap I've never fallen into with social networks is thinking they're evil.  Others, far more knowledgeable than I, have written eloquently about the extreme fearmongering that seems to have such an audience in many circles, including in education, about internet tools in general and social networking in particular.  Because of some of the truly inappropriate or frightening ways in which social networking has occasionally been used, social networks have many parents and educators running scared.  School districts don't know what to do about it, so they often avoid the subject altogether until something about it smacks them in the face, and then they react, often without full knowledge or understanding, rather than proactively act, by grappling with the issue upfront. 

Social networks are not evil.  They're a tool.  Like all tools, they can be used properly or improperly, wisely or unwisely. Some tools are appropriate for all ages; some are not appropriate for children. Some tools are useful educationally, some are not. Most tools require training, and supervision when people are first learning to use them. 

Some tools just seem like play-toys, and I'll admit that certainly was my first impression about social networking.  But social networks are changing the business world; they're changing politics; they're changing entertainment; they're changing the way the world communicates.  Just about the only thing they're not changing, apparently, is education. 

But when the National School Boards Association itself comes out with a report, as it did this past summer, which encourages schools to rethink social networking, then it's time to take the leap.  Let me cut to the heart of the report, and share with you their recommendations for school districts:

• Explore social networking sites.
• Consider using social networking for staff communications and professional development.
• Find ways to harness the educational value of social networking.
• Ensure equitable access.
  
• Pay attention to the nonconformists.
• Reexamine social networking policies.
  
• Encourage social networking companies to increase educational value.
  

I want to especially highlight two points the NSBA found important enough to feature in big, bold lettering in the report:

• "Students and parents report fewer recent or current problems, such as cyberstalking, cyberbullying and unwelcome personal encounters, than school fears and policies seem to imply."
• "Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression — but students may learn these lessons better while they’re actually using social networking tools."

I do not mean to suggest that all teachers should run out and immediately start social networking with their students.  I've learned enough about Read/Write web tools in the last year to know that the first thing we need to do is learn and use them ourselves, before diving in with students.  We need to work with our colleagues, and with our students' parents, especially when the tools are this unknown, mysterious, and sometimes frightening because of the reputation they've been saddled with.  This teaches us not only the logistics, but the value, uses, and pitfalls of them, as well; in doing so, we're building our own capacity to help students use these tools safely, responsibly, and ethically. 

And if you're still not convinced that this is an important need, well then, you didn't read Vicki Davis's post.  Read it.  Social networking is a tool that isn't going to go away.  And it's affecting our students, both now and in the future: their friendships, their communication, heck, maybe even their college admissions and future employment.  Most high school administrators either already have, or will have before long, at least one story of how a social-networking related issue has impacted the school environment.  Seems to me we ought to be taking hold of it, so that we can act and react intelligently and knowledgeably, rather than leaving it to take us by surprise when our students use it without any adult guidance, training, or direction whatsoever.

Which is why I now have a Facebook account.  I'm having fun with it, and I'm trying to learn from it, and for me the jury's still out on what role social networks ought to have in school.  But it's irresponsible of me to remain ignorant of them, so I'm leaping.

Time to scoff at a few more naysayers, I suppose.



"leap", by Rick Harrison (Tricky, on Flickr).  Used by permission under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.


Technorati Tags: facebook, social networking, edtech, web2.0, education

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Lightening Up

According to Doctor Who, "There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." (thanks for the quote, oh quotations page)

So, I had this big post planned for my 2008 return to blogging, all about the nature of leadership, and giving yourself credit for the work you do as a leader, and making tough decisions in the face of resistance, and managing the workload that comes with the job. And then I decided not to take myself quite so seriously, and simply kick 2008 off with a few things that are making me smile here at the start of the new year (have no fear, there are no links to the dancing bird here)...

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert20024446980102.gif





http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/images/dilbert20366704080101.gif

 

 

And although this one has one slightly indelicate word, it's worth sharing:

(If you want to see the original, undubbed version, which is almost just as cute, you can watch it here)

Here's to a year of acting like the cute cat that you are, and getting all the treats in life that you deserve.  Happy 2008!

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