It’s Everywhere!

I’m on vacation in sunny Palm Springs. How ironic that the CUE conference is being held this week at the Palm Springs Convention center.

CUE is the California association for educational technology, or Computer Using Educators. Looks like a big conference – there are a couple interesting keynote speakers:

  • Marco Torres is a teacher/technology director/professional filmmaker  in LA who has had success using technology to empower minority students.
  • Diane Ravitch is a history of education professor in New York who has written recently about the crumbling of education. She is also an outspoken critic of NCLB and charter schools, and a vehement supporter of teachers.

I won’t be attending any of these – how odd. These keynotes are very temping….. but vacation is vacation!

Stop Stealing Dreams

Do check out Seth Godin’s recent education manifesto, “Stop Stealing Dreams.”

There are many quotable quotes, but here’s just one, about multiple choice tests. Frederick Kelly created multiple choice tests in 1914 as a way to literally assign factory workers.  He said:

In the words of Professor Kelly, “This is a test of lower order thinking for the lower orders.”

Yup. And we still do it.

Slow Going

Saw this article on Twitter today (from the Iowa City, IA, newspaper, I believe) about how the adoption of technology in schools is “slow and uneven.”

“If (educators) could realize the value of technology, I think that would contribute greatly to the amount of learning that could be done,” [Adam] Canady said.

Adam is a high school senior.

The article discusses a number of reasons, including a school system getting stuck in a rut of always doing the same thing; funding priorities; and the need for a culture change.

I disagree with the expert quoted as saying teachers are afraid of technology because they feel they will be replaced. I certainly don’t see anyone successfully integrating education technology ever saying teachers will be replaced. It’s quite the opposite. Most people advocating more tech integration say the success of the integration depends on the teacher.

I certainly do relate to this article. I work with schools and teachers all day that are committed to integrating technology for the good of the students’ education. Then I set foot in my kids’ schools and am told students can’t use phones, teachers don’t post assignments online, etc.

Someday!

 

A Post to Regret

In general, I try hard not to write posts that might offend or appear to be critical of the schools and teachers in my kids’ lives. Teachers work hard. They have too much to do. They are expected to do more than is humanly possible. They serve as nurse, college professor, psychologist, coach, judge, referee and more. They aren’t paid nearly enough.

Yet, sometimes I get frustrated. Really frustrated. Like today.

I’ve been very lucky to immerse myself in the field of educational technology for the last two years (almost). I don’t have to be distracted by field trips, parent-teacher conferences, truancy, etc. But today I am frustrated by schools, teachers, administrators refusing to think outside the box. By refusing to try to learn new things. By thinking that since that’s how they learned (whether it’s 3 or 30 years ago) that that’s how it needs to be.

Isn’t that enough? Nope. I’m frustrated with the snail pace of decision making. With the constant phrases, “kids will be distracted by the technology.” “Kids will just cheat.” (perhaps we need to redefine our definition of cheating, by the way.)  “I learned without technology, so can they.” With the refusal to think that there is more than one way to teach a child.

Quit telling me (or them) to put that computer back in their pocket. That’s how the world works now. Why aren’t kids being encouraged to do the same? Instead, teach them how to use it responsibly. Take advantage of what they want to use and teach them with that. Quit telling me that you can’t use any technology in class because not everyone has a phone, or texting, or a smartphone, or an iPad. Then figure out how to get them something. It can be done.

Do you think perhaps the reason kids are goofing off and being distracted by their technology is because your lesson is boring????  That perhaps that page of math problems that looks exactly like my math book 30 years ago is no longer engaging to a kid?

Quit telling me that it’s their job. Quit telling me that students should make themselves interested in the topic, that they are in school, that they need to make themselves motivated. They should be interested just because it’s what they are supposed to learn.

That’s a cop out. It’s the education system’s job to keep changing, to keep things relevant to kids. It’s a teacher’s job, and administrator’s job to keep looking for new ways to engage and educate students.

I don’t know about you, but my workplace looks pretty different now than in 1988 when I had my first “professional” job. I typed memos, made photocopies, put them in envelopes and put them in interoffice mail. It’d take two days to get info out. Scheduling a meeting? It took a nimble secretary hours to nail down everyone’s schedule and send the paper notice out. The job I have now? It didn’t exist even five years ago. Couldn’t have been envisioned.

Yet, my kids’ schools teach pretty much the same way I was taught, and I graduated from high school 30 years ago. It’s a disservice to kids to think they all should learn the way we were taught.

I know there aren’t enough hours in the day. I live in that world, too.  Don’t expect to hand teachers (or students!) a device and expect them to come up with great ideas. Thinking outside the box takes inspiration. Give teachers time to read blogs. Send them to conferences. Encourage them to watch webinars. LEARN! Start trying new going to half-day seminars. Watching a webinar. Open your mind. Learn something new. Or – get this – have the kids teach you.

If you’re a teacher, I’m sorry if I offended you. Instead of being upset, please help me understand. Why aren’t my kids’ schools keeping up with the world?

Student Learning at the Center

Interesting article, “Rethinking Teaching” from the Oberlin Alumni Magazine about how teaching at Oberlin is changing. Overall, it sounds like they are moving away from the professor lecturing for hours to student created content and visual learning. Collaboration between departments is increasing, which in the end is a win-win.

Steven Volk, a History professor, is using a flipped classroom model. He has students watch a 30-minute lecture on video before class. Then, in-class time is spent on discussion. He seeks to create a community of learners.

We know that the way students learn best is to construct knowledge in their own heads.

– Steven Volk, History prof

Professor Volk seeks to teach students to think and work with material, to to memorize facts:

Volk doesn’t expect his students to recall all the details they’ve discussed in class — after all, they have smart phones if they need to know that Bolivia’s independence from Spain took hold in 1825. He approaches his classes with what he calls the “backward planning” hypothetical. “If I bump into one of my students 10 years after graduation, what do I want them to remember?” he says. “Not the details, but the concepts and the learning skills: how to investigate, read closely, analyze, interpret, and work with others.”

Visual Learning is OK

I think one of the problems with moving to a more integrated technology framework at schools is that people think it implies that students don’t learn like they did before. Kids don’t read. Kids don’t focus. Kids don’t write. Kids don’t….. etc.

Somehow, there is the attitude that if kids aren’t learning like kids learned 20, 30, years ago, then it’s not valid.

But really, do any of us learn and consume information like we did 10, 20 years ago? I doubt it.

Look at newspapers – even if you read a printed paper (and I do – I get two papers delivered to my door every day), the newspaper is different than it was 30 years ago and certainly different than it was 50, 75, 100 years ago. Pictures were non-existent and very rare. Articles were much longer. Print was much smaller. That’s how people got information. Not now – photographs are prevalent, stories are shorter, fonts are bigger, infographics and maps visually represent information that wasn’t possible to communicate before.

How about YouTube? The viral nature of some videos is amazing. If you need to know how to do something? Kids will check YouTube before looking anywhere else. How to tie a tie? Much easier to communicate if you have a video than to describe in a book. Cooking? Same thing. Building something? Same thing. The instructional possibilities of using video are huge.

RSA Animate is a good example. These are excerpts from thought leaders with intricate drawings. Do the visuals detract? Absolutely not. They are a huge plus. Are they popular? You bet. TED Talks are another example. Video of thought leaders giving short, powerful talks.

The list could go on. How about art history classes? Are they still making slides? Or using collections found on many museum sites to build lectures?

So, why are schools (not every school/teacher, thankfully!) so resistant to meeting students’ learning needs through visuals? Why has coursework not moved in the direction of working with increasing visual learning? Why still rely on heavy print texts and assignments?

Moving to visual does not mean dumbing down.

DIfferentiated Testing

Interesting article in a New York Times School Book (“Students Learn Differently. So Why Test Them All the Same?”, Feb. 17, 2012) about the New York State testing requirements. This particular teacher blogger is an ESL teacher, and his description of teaching to the test is distressing. (Not the teacher — but the fact that he had to totally design a course to help kids pass the test.)

In his case, he is dealing with English language learners, and it is (well, should be) that testing needs for this population should be different. Not only do we teach to the test for native English speakers, for the same happens to newly arrived immigrants, when truly, there must be more important things for them to learn.

I think the concept Mr. Goldstein presents is valid for native English speakers, as well. Any teacher knows that kids have different learning styles. Some kids need pictures, some need to hear it. Some need to move things, some need to see words.

But I don’t think standardized tests come in different learning styles, do they? They heavily favor the text based learner. The kids who read and process text easily. Standardized tests exclude the visual thinker, the kinesthetic learner. How is that fair?