February 2012
5 posts
5 tags
Learning to Fly
When I was a little kid, at least once every few weeks in the warm months my mom would fill a big wicker picnic basket full of sandwiches, drinks and some hidden sweets, pack it and me and an old blanket in the back of our long, white Chrysler station wagon, and drive out to a parking lot behind a factory that was a stone’s throw from O’Hare Airport outside of Chicago. As soon as the car would...
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The "Shift to Networks"
Just a couple of quotes that found me this morning, some pattern recognition in my sleepy brain.
Joi Ito in the New York Times:
I don’t think education is about centralized instruction anymore; rather, it is the process establishing oneself as a node in a broad network of distributed creativity.
And George Siemens at his blog:
Planned information structures like textbooks and courses simply...
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"Open Network" Tests
I just recently ran across Jonathan Martin’s posts regarding the “Open Internet” tests that he’s piloting with some teachers at St. Gregory School in Arizona, and I’m just loving the thinking. In November of 2010, he first asked:
We know that content memorization must no longer [be] the goal of our learning programs; what our goal must be is that students can make...
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Quote of the Day
“The mess from this generation’s political paralysis and refusal to address looming problems can’t be cleaned up using the same education that helped create it.”
—Marion Brady
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The Sorry State of Standardized Writing
A couple of items from the world of writing and assessment have been niggling at me of late.
First, news that the Hewlett Foundation is sponsoring a $100,000 competition to create automated essay scoring software that, in theory at least, will do as good or better job of assessing student writing on standardized tests than the current human graders do. I get the reasoning behind this. Current...
January 2012
10 posts
4 tags
The New Resume
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A Couple of Bold Ideas at Educon
The past couple of Educon days at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia were, as always, packed with fun catching up with old friends (and meeting new ones) but, as always, also filled with conversations that have me thinking more about what “reform” looks like and what bold schools might do to get there. It was fun not to lead a session this year and just be an attendee (though I...
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SOPA in the Classroom
As Royan Lee points out, there’s every reason to have a conversation with students about SOPA and PIPA in almost any classroom right now. (If last Wednesday wasn’t a teachable moment, I don’t know what was.) For most older kids, the debate strikes at the heart of their practices online, and even for younger kids, the larger themes are well worth the mention in general terms. My...
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2 in 2000
So here’s a little state of the world update from my recent trip to Wisconsin to speak at the state school board association conference there.
First, let me say there are a lot of folks who are beginning to talk with more relevance around change when it comes to education. The rhetoric, at least, around inquiry and problem based, student-centered classrooms seems to be expanding despite the...
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The Rise of State Schools
So this pretty much sums it up as well it can be summed up right now:
U.S. schools under the jurisdiction of state and federal governments are now scripted processes that view knowledge as static capital, students as passive and empty vessels, and teachers as compliant conduits for state-approved content. The accountability paradigm is antithetical to human agency and autonomy and thus to...
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What Qualities do "Bold Schools" Share?
First, let me thank everyone who commented and Tweeted examples of “bold schools” over the last few days. Very much appreciated, and over the next few weeks I’m planning to dig into the list and make some connections and inquiries around the learning that’s going on in those places. Meantime, if you have any other ideas for schools that might be worth checking out,...
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It's 2012: Help Me Find Some "Bold Schools"
For lots of reasons, some of which I articulate here, 2012 feels like it’s shaping up to be a critical year in the conversation about schools. Politics and money are no doubt driving the mainstream conversation, but I sense an Occupy Wall Street-ish push back coming from a lot of parents and educators that seems to be finding some traction as well. In fact I’ve had some interesting...
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"The Network is Literal Survival"
Some interesting thoughts on networks by Deborah Mills-Scofield:
For me, the network is literal survival. My family, throughout history, escaped to places where we had family or friends who would support, hide, and in the case of America letting my mom and grandparents enter, sponsor us. No sponsor, no entry; no entry, Auschwitz. Without the network, the odds of survival were slim to none....
The Pearson Graduate
The Texas Observer on the decline of “public” schools:
With the prevalence of companies like Pearson operating in Texas and many other states, the U.S. education system has become increasingly privatized. In some cases, the only part of education that remains public is the school itself. Nearly every other aspect of educating children—exams, textbooks, online classes, even teacher...
December 2011
5 posts
5 tags
The "Dirty Work of Education"
No question, one of the most talked about, Tweeted about, blogged and written about ideas in the past year has been the “flipped classroom,” the idea that we can use technology to deliver the “lecture” as the homework and then use class time, ideally, to bring the concepts to life in meaningful, real world ways. And it’s been interesting to watch the...
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"When Test Scores Become a Commodity"
Teacher Jonathan Keiler from Maryland absolutely nails it in this essay in EdWeek:
When student scores become like orange juice, pork bellies, or yen, the people with the greatest incentive to cheat are the weakest teachers and administrators. These people might be weak, but that doesn’t mean they are stupid. Weak but clever educators will inevitably find ways to game the system, sometimes by...
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Teachers - Thank Goodness!
A couple of days ago, my friend Howard Blumenthal sent along this essay that his 86-year-old father wrote in response to a post here about online learning from a few weeks ago. I thought it might make for some uplifting Sunday reading, so I’m sharing it here. Enjoy!
By Norm Blumenthal
As the fourteen year old son of a widowed mother in 1939, I had to contribute to the lowly household...
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"Forget About Your Children"
One of the things I’ve been wondering more and more as I’ve been reading and thinking at length about the recent wave of corporate and private (mostly online) inroads into education is what happens when it no longer is about the best schools for our kids but, instead, the best education service? As more and more choices and paths crop up for MY children to “get an...
November 2011
10 posts
4 tags
Questions for Knewton
I’m looking forward to spending about an hour or so on Thursday morning in NYC with Jose Ferreira, the founder and CEO of Knewton. In case you may not be familiar with the company’s work, here’s a short synopsis from a release announcing their new partnership with Pearson:
Knewton’s award-winning Adaptive Learning Platform™ uses proprietary algorithms to deliver a personalized...
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Privacy in a Networked World
danah boyd articulates the move from private to public in online spaces about as well as anyone, I think:
Social media has prompted a radical shift. We’ve moved from a world that is “private-by-default, public-through-effort” to one that is “public-by-default, private-with-effort.” Most of our conversations in a face-to-face setting are too mundane for anyone to bother recording and publicizing....
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Fundamentally New Types of Value
I’m convinced this our new work when it comes to schools as well:
There isn’t one solution. Each retailer will need to find its own unique formula. But I can say with confidence that the retailers that win the future are the ones that start from scratch and figure out how to create fundamentally new types of value for customers.
Running Scared
The most striking thing about my day at the CELL conference (pdf) in Indianapolis earlier this week was sitting in on a conversation among three Indiana superintendents (with many more in the audience) talking about how they are being affected by reform efforts in the state. It was enlightening, fascinating, and frustrating all at once. And I’ve been wondering how much what they discussed...
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What Do We Absolutely Need to "Teach"?
So I’m trying to push my own thinking here a bit, and I’d love some feedback. If I believe (and I do) that school should be more about letting my children find and solve their own problems with others, create and share meaningful works about the ideas they care about, and develop the dispositions they need to be powerful, patient and passionate learners, then what are the fundamental...
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"My Teacher is an App"
(This is a long one.)
So I hope no one minds if I continue to try to document the ways in which “education” is being reframed in this country at the peril, I think, of losing everything that is best about schools and teachers and classrooms.
If you’re not up to speed with these reframing efforts, the above titled article in the Wall Street Journal this morning should do the...
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The Not So Great Jobs Reality for Kids and...
Still think we aren’t facing a bigger crisis in the teaching profession than we’re currently talking about? Try this from the Economist this week:
The conventional explanation for America’s current plight is that, at an annualised 2.5% for the most recent quarter (compared with an historical average of 3.3%), the economy is simply not expanding fast enough to put all the people...
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"It's All About Distrust"
The scariest part of this story about how the new teacher evaluation policies in Tennessee are sending “morale into the toilet” is not that the framework is broken. It’s that someone actually created this stupidity in the first place. I mean, just read this:
Teachers have it worse. Half of their assessment is based on their students’ results on state test scores, a serious...
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"Blowing Up" Education
So, regardless of whether you think Khan Academy adds real value to the learning conversation, don’t miss the shift in rhetoric around the potential:
In case you haven’t noticed, lots of people want to “blow up education” right now. And the monied interests are going to have much to say about which direction education takes from here. I know I’m sounding like a...
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Redefining Our Value
Over the past few months, I’ve been thinking more and more that the biggest challenge we face as educators is redefining our value as schools and classrooms and teachers, not just to the taxpaying public but to ourselves as well. It’s becoming more and more apparent to me that unless we are able to articulate and manifest that shift, we really do risk losing much of what is meaningful...
October 2011
15 posts
4 tags
Easier vs. Better
Look, I can get to why schools look and act the way they do. They were built to do a certain thing…”educate” every child…at a certain time when folks didn’t have a lot of easy access to “quality” content or instruction. It was a monumental undertaking, and regardless of the fact that the founders of the system wanted to create factory workers instead of...
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The Correct Question
Seth Godin nails it:
“The question that gets asked about technology, the one that is almost always precisely the wrong question is, “How does this advance help our business [read: education system]?”
The correct question is, “how does this advance undermine our business [read: education] model and require us/enable us to build a new one?”
Yep. That’s the...
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Make it Stop. Please.
I came across a 9th grade unit test on ancient history and Islam recently. One hundred point test. Forty-five multiple choice worth two points each, then choose one of five essay questions for the last 10 points.
Of the 45 multiple choice, 17 dealt with the names of capitals, countries and land masses. The rest looked pretty much like this:
This Roman emperor changed the official religion of...
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It's Not an Either/Or Question
All sorts of silliness in this New York Times article which attempts (once again) to paint the technology in education discussion as either/or rather than right time/right place. We considered Waldorf schools for our own kids at one point, and there was much to like in terms of their focus on the environment, social justice and more. But we knew from the outset that their no-tech approach probably...
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Learners not Knowers
I’m not saying that my kids don’t need teachers. But I am saying my kids don’t (won’t) need teachers any more to get them to pass the test.
Knewton’s software analyzes students’ performance on practice questions and recommends tutorials based on the student’s answers. Knewton optimizes learning by focusing only on the areas that students need to improve....
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WatchA pretty sobering and realistic look at the struggles that public schools are facing across the country. Tons of questions raised, the biggest of which to me at least is what does a fiscally leaner education look like in the end? What will the economic stresses force schools to evolve into? Some of those answers are obvious. Others…notsomuch.
(via In Mifflin County, PA, budget cuts are...
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The Global Culture of the Internet
Interesting study out of the UK that looks at the global effects of the Internet.
Findings from this study show that a global Internet culture has emerged as users across countries often share similar viewpoints and habits related to these vital matters pertaining to the Internet. Users worldwide generally support and desire the core Internet values, without signaling a willingness for tradeoffs...
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Some Sane Voices in the Forest
Some seriously good news yesterday from the front line battles for some sanity in the education conversation.
First, how nice is it to see the Governor who oversees 1/8 of all school children in the US come out and say “Enough!” when it comes to standardized tests? In his veto of California state bill SB547 which called for even more testing data to be used to evaluate school,...
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The Talent Divide
Thomas Friedman quotes John Hagel III in his column today, talking about the “Big Shift” that he wrote about with John Seely Brown in their book The Power of Pull. What resonates here is the idea that to be successful in the “flow of ideas” that we are now a part of, we need to be constantly growing our talents. (Read: Our kids need to be constantly growing their talents.)...
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The Start of a Revolution?
So, I’m kinda fascinated by the whole #occupyWallStreet protest on a couple of levels. First, it’s about time we started organizing against the monied interests that have literally taken over this country for their own purposes. But second, I keep trying to find a crossover to education. Here’s a snip from a great piece in Salon that got me thinking about this again:
The idea...
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20th Century Lenses
Douglas Rushkoff isn’t writing about education in this extremely important post, but there is much here that resonates nonetheless.
To be fair, the reason why some mainstream news journalists and many of the audiences they serve see the Occupy Wall Street protests as incoherent is because the press and the public are themselves. It is difficult to comprehend a 21st century movement from...
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No Quick Fix
It’s always interesting to me how many people in education, once they start waking up to the big shifts that are afoot, immediately jump to the “ok, so how do we change our schools?” question without addressing the “How do we change ourselves?” question first. It’s as if they’re looking to buy the off-the-shelf “EduChange” software program and...
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Hey Kids, Invent Your Own Jobs
Thomas Friedman today in the Times:
It has never been harder to find a job and never been easier — for those prepared for this world — to invent a job or find a customer.
I have a love/hate with Friedman because it kills me the way he turns everything into a catch phrase, but this resonates. Especially the “those prepared for this world” part. The parent in me latches on to that....
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“Our education right now is always about the simple answer and never about the...”
– Trung Le, author of the excellent The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching & Learning, at the 2011 Cusp Conference (via curiositycounts)
September 2011
18 posts
4 tags
What if we Did School for Kids, Not Adults?
(UPDATE: After a post-posting Twitter exchange with Chris Lehmann, I’m thinking a better title might be “…for Kids AND Adults.”)
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the education issue here in the states, lots of mostly white middle-aged “experts” meeting and pontificating about change at venues like NBC’s “Education Nation” and the...
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Leaders Building the Future
This piece by Nilofer Merchant is more about business, but I think the translation to education is pretty obvious and relevant.
We must recognize that we are always a product of what we’ve done and who we aspire to be. It is not enough to lead our current businesses; we must also lead our future businesses. Over the past dozen or so years, I’ve learned that to do this, the best...
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Watchfuturejournalismproject:
It’s great to see how digital media is helping to keep analog publishing strong. Makeshift Magazine, which launches on Sept. 30, takes a global look at hands-on creativity, and people who improvise out of necessity. With 18 days left on the Kickstarter, the project is massively over-subscribed, with 329 backers pledging $26,000 thus far.
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Lawrence Summers at Schools of Tomorrow
I spent waaayyyy too much time listening to the Livestream of the Schools for Tomorrow conference that the New York Times put on today. I think I set an all time record for most Tweets in one day as well. But the highlight for me was this talk by Lawrence Summers which, I’m telling you, is well worth the hour to view. Enjoy!
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New World, Old Rules
From the “I Try Not to Get Too Depressed When I Think About This Stuff” Department comes this snip from the New York Times today on the state of the global economy:
“The initial and follow-up reaction from the equity market is likely the realization that the Fed has little left to offer, that Washington is a mess, and their only hope is to ‘ride it out’ over a long period of time,”...