LeaderTalk

Disability meets Culture

On November 29th, Reggie Engebritson wrote a great entry on this blog called Working in Collaboration. It raised the issue of special education students and regular education students related to assessment. This is a big issue for all districts. How do we handle grading without compromising the integrity of the assessment? The real question is one that many states and school districts are dealing with, which is related to growth.

     However, I would like to talk about a subset of special education and that is the children who are Deaf in our schools. I did mean to capitalize deaf because there is a difference. Deaf with a capital "D" means those students who are deaf and use sign language and are part of the deaf community and culture as well. There is another group who are deaf and these are lower case "d" students. These students are medically deaf but do not associate with the deaf community or embrace Deaf culture. I am really only addressing those students who are Deaf. This group is very large and should be handled in a different way than almost any other disability. These students primary language is  American Sign Language (ASL). This is a true language as it has been proven by Stokoe

In my mind these students are ELL students, however, under NCLB, they are not counted as such and most states make no accommodations for them. The language they use everyday has a different morphology and phonology than English and this is a language that they use to communicate on a daily basis. They must learn English grammar by reading only and never pick up language by "hearing" it. They miss out on all of the side conversations and other ways of learning the language.

As leaders, we need to make sure  that we handle the few Deaf students in our school or school district a bit differently. Especially when we are talking about assessment. There are also other groups that are out there and we need to understand so that we truly do not leave any child behind.

(full disclosure-I have a Masters in Deaf Education from Gallaudet University and taught at American School for the Deaf)

What if?

I was at NSBA this week. One of the last sessions that I went to was about NCLB and Tech Literacy. The speaker, Michael Cline from the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center, raised an interesting topic. It was his position that why don't we test tech literacy? As it was a small group, we started to really grapple with the idea.  We started to discuss making it part of the current exams that states require OR does it replace some of the exams that we test right now?
I am not talking about some of the exams that are out there that test JUST tech literacy but rather that it is in the content area itself and demonstrating tech literacy across the curriculum?
     We discuss often about literacy across the curriculum. Why not tech literacy?  Michael even pointed out that there is language in NCLB that supports tech literacy but there is no funding or any "teeth" behind it.
Now there are tons of problems with this and much to contemplate.   However, how much benefit would it give us as well? 
I will stop there and let all of you contribute and debate. It definitely gave me pause and actually hope.

The Edtech Culture

Educational technology has been transformed from basic CDs and computers in a few labs, into rich online resources that can add valuable tools to a teacher’s toolbox, provide data to teachers and administrators to inform instruction, and, at its best, it can become the reason why students become successful, lifelong learners.  However, it is up to a school district to make educational technology a priority. If a school district wants to make instructional technology part of its culture, three key areas must be addressed: the budget, the quality of the resources, and the professional development allocated to it.

    Let’s put it up for bond!  Let’s do a referendum!  Is there a way that we can take a little from each department? Could we wait another year? This is the kind of thinking that can kill an educational technology budget.  To make technology part of the budget, the district must reform its thinking and understand the role that technology can play in instruction.  This can be as general as probes with PDAs for the science department, to a set of Wii Fits for physical education.  Once the district makes technology a part of each curriculum area, the school community will see how students benefit from it and why it is essential to make it part of the budget.  The technology budget needs to be as close to the center of the budget as instruction.  They are, after all, one in the same.

    The quality of the resources is crucial. Every school district has a limited budget and must use its money wisely, so districts should explore online resources. By doing so, students and faculty can continue their learning past the end of the school day. Using these resources allows a school district to ask for changes in those applications and for them to be done in a timely manner. In addition, online resources don’t create as many technical issues. If a computer goes down, another computer can be put in its place and as long as it has a functioning Web browser, then the student can work. IT does not have to worry about where a certain CD is or if some other program is installed.

    Professional development is essential for the success of any program; therefore, the district has to allocate as much money for professional development, as it does for any other curriculum initiative. Again, you have to look at the software as another part of the curriculum. This will allow the staff to get to know the resources and how it can become part of their instruction.