An Invitation Letter to Parents

If there is one force today that I believe can break our cycles of status quo hereditary practices in education and bring us to someplace better a key to it lies in our ability to communicate and share ideas in real-time between educators and education stakeholders. The networks of individuals using tools like Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, YouTube and other social video, Skype, and countless other online communication tools that have come to be commonly known as Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) carry with them a method to let good ideas spread and take seed in even the most draconian of learning environments. Teachers who have plugged themselves into these networks and become actively involved in their own learning have felt this power for transformation. This is truly a grass-roots mobilization machine. However, for school systems to change it requires more than just enlightened educators, it requires enlightened students and parents who will support the change.

Time and again we see true reform efforts fail because the new model doesn't look enough like the common conception of school in the public eye. No matter how rooted in sound theory and philosophy the school will fail if reform efforts do not bring parents and community members with us. So, what we end up with are perestroika efforts at reform like we saw today in President Obama's speech on Education Reform. Changes that are not real change. More testing of students or more rigorous testing of students is not real change. A focus on teaching and instruction is not real change. The spread of a back to basics drill and kill model of schooling like Mastery Charter or KIPP is not real change. The spread of a "put the rich privileged (mostly white) Ivy League graduate who was successful in school in front of the classroom for students to emulate" model that is Teach For America is not real change. These are bureaucratic changes that in the end will only further to strengthen the definitions and delineations between groups of the emerging American Caste System complete with high school dropouts at the bottom "untouchable" level. Schools like Mastery, KIPP, and TFA, by the way, don't have to count their dropouts among their students and therefore can claim higher levels of success since by nature they self-select students. We all know there is a better solution, a real change that is possible. We have examples of it in schools like Minnesota New Country School and the Science and Leadership Academy in Philadelphia.

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Educators, perhaps Obama and Duncan are right to beat up on us. This situation may be our own doing. By focusing so much on ourselves and our students we have neglected to invite a very important stakeholder into the fold, parents & community members. So, what follows is what I propose every Teacher Tweeter, EduPlurker, and Edublogger come this school year send home with their students, an invitation letter to parents (altered to include your information) to join in the discussion:

Dear Parent or Guardian,

I am excited to begin a new school year learning with your son or daughter. I say learning with because I have found to be a teacher today requires one to also be a learner both in and outside the classroom. It is undeniable that the world your child is growing up in is in many ways different than the world you or I grew up in. Much of these changes mean necessary changes in school. For one, we did not have the Internet and fingertip access to the wealth of human information when we went to school. Having such a device in my classroom has meant my role there has been altered. It has removed the necessity for me to always have the right answers for the students and has created a greater need for me to help them develop strategies for finding the right answers on their own.

Things in school are different now than they even were when I went to college. Nothing in my teacher training addressed some of these issues we face in education today. Therefore, I have found a community of other people interested in helping each other find their role in this new world through tools like Twitter, blogs, and YouTube. This community consists of not only teachers but also school administrators, education researchers, graduate students, and other parents. In this space I make my learning about education transparent and you are welcome to follow me in my exploration of new technologies and new ways of thinking. I also invite you to join the conversation. The real education reform happens because of what happens in the classroom and for your son or daughter's classroom what happens will be greatly influenced by the shared dialog happening in this digital space.

I invite you to follow me on Twitter, read my blog, or watch my YouTube videos and join the global conversation influencing your child's education. There are a few things you should know first. This digital space is my learning environment and as such community building activities both serious and lighthearted occur. We have fun in this space and we are serious. The fun elements hold us together and maintain our community and the serious elements help us to progress our learning. Both are necessary for learning both online and in the classroom.

I am @anderscj on Twitter and my blog is http://carlanderson.blogspot.com. Please join me in trying to make your child's education great.

Sincerely,
Carl Anderson

Filling the Production Gap

PBS FRONTLINE's digital_nation is full of great clips and sound bytes. Addressed in that film by many of people interviewed as what Arne Duncan refers to as the "Opportunity Gap." This opportunity gap sounds very similar to what many of us are calling the "Production Gap." I have taken the important clips related to that topic from that documentary, added clips from a keynote speech by Alan November, interviews with Seymore Papert, and clips from old public domain ephemeral films from the Internet Archive. Combined, I feel it both explains and makes the case very well for addressing the production gap as a social justice issue.

Filling the Production Gap from Carl Anderson on Vimeo.

View this clip on Blip.tv
View the abridged version on YouTube


While school filtration policies play an important role in sustaining the production gap because they limit our ability to engage students in tools and with information as content producers they are not the only issue. What is more important are practices of pedagogy and I think the video makes this clear. So, how do we fill the production gap? Here are four simple prescriptive steps:

1. Open access to read/write web resources (stop blocking blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networking, and vodcasting sites like YouTube)
2. Create a learner-centered learning environment (tailor learning experiences to individual student interests, needs, and abilities)
3. Engage all students as content producers.
4. Provide all students with a thorough and honest digital literacy education so they understand the levity of what they post online and are able to manipulate the web to meet their academic and entrepreneurial needs.

What are your thoughts? Is the problem laid out here valid? What are the consequences of not addressing the production gap, especially for economically disadvantaged students? Would you change or add any steps to this list? Let me know.

Highlights and reflections from FRONTLINE's Digital Nation

This is by far my favorite clip from PBS's FRONTLINE Digital Nation:



I completely agree with Henry Jenkins on this point. The best way to deal with the "dangers" of the internet is by talking with students honestly, not by putting computers in classrooms, wiring them, then disabling their use.

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This clip makes me respect our Secretary of Education a little bit more:



It is refreshing to hear this message come from the top.

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Of all the clips in this program, this one probably bothers me the most.



I wonder if assistant principal Dan Ackerman realizes how creepy he looks spying on kids through their laptop webcams or how their acceptable use policy still reinforces the production gap in their school even though they have made tremendous gains using technology to help students learn.

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Another great clip by Arne Duncan:



He says opportunity gap, I say production gap. Either way, I agree, "Schools need to be places of opportunity."

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Regarless of how I feel about Prensky's notion of Digital Native/Immigrant I really like what he says about the type of learning activities students want and need to be engage in in this clip:



The second half of this clip where he says, "Schools are no longer the centers of education," is especially of interest and worthy of global conversation.

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This teacher describes a fantastic application of social networking in the classroom:

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In this clip James Paul Gee delivers what is probably the best explanation of school internet filtration policies and the fears people have that drive them that I have ever heard:

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Finally, Henry Jenkins on learning strategies needed in the age of information overload:

Manditory Summer School?

In this week's Time magazine there is an article about an idea that is gaining steam in many states that involves mandating summer school. The article points out that research shows that in the summer students suffer a 2 month loss in reading progress. It also points out that this is a big initiative of Arne Duncan and the Obama Department of Ed. The article also point out some interesting statistics. They take Massachusetts as an example to show that it costs the state $1300 per pupil to run summer school programs. To me this seems a bit high. The dilemma is that with districts already having to cut back across the country, how can we afford this? The counter dilemma is, with the research findings on the effect of summers off vs summer school, how can we afford not to?

When I read this article an idea synthesized in my head that I just have to get out there. I am sure it has been thought of before but it is an idea that seems to make sense to me and I believe is worth further discussion. The idea is to make mandatory summer school online. Many states are beginning to require students to have taken an online class to graduate and this for one would be one place this requirement could be met without overburdening or complicating normal school year operations. I also believe it will be substantially cheaper.

This summer I have been teaching summer school courses for National Connections Academy. Tuition for a class was $125/course and students could take up to two courses either concurrently or simultaneously. At $125/course I believe this summer program was still profitable for the school. That is roughly $1175 less per pupil than Massachusetts is reportedly spending.

Now, I know the first thing many people will say is, "What about students who don't have computers or access to the internet?" Well, such students most likely would also fall into an economic category that would qualify them for free or reduced lunch. We could use that litmus test to gauge who would be in need and provide those families with the necessary technology. A netbook costs around $350 and a stipend for bradband internet service could be issued for $100/month or less. Combined, for our most needy students that is a cost of $575 instead of $1300 (a $725 savings).

Coincidentally, doing this would also solve some other problems. Many schools would like to go to a 1:1 setting but that model has not yet proven to be financially sustainable. If we mandate students take online courses in the summer we essentially mandate that they have the tools to do so. If through a combination of providing these tools for poor families and requiring them as a school supply for everyone else we create a 1:1 potential for all students. There would be no reason why a teacher couldn't just decide theire classroom is a 1:1. Schools would then have to decide whether to mandate all teachers apply 1:1 pedagogies in their classrooms or leave it up to teacher discression. Schools would need to shift their technology priorities toward that of being a service provider and open WIFI networks to all students. I belive having this 1:1 potential for all schools would also prompt much needed innovation in our field in places where before it was hindered by lack of resources. Also, solving the digital equity problem for students will also solve it for parents. A whole new host of community education and parent outreach will be made possible. I am sure there are other problems this would solve as well.

The biggest problem I see, and the number one reason such an idea is likely to get some resistence from teacher unions and local school boards, is that many students who would never have taken an online class otherwise might find that method of delivery preferable and more suited to their needs than already have found their way there. The fear would be that these students would leave the traditional brick and mortar institutions for their online counterparts further propelling the momentious shift of pupil units to these schools. The result always means more cuts to the traditional model and with more cuts means fewer program offerings which could potentially spark another round of students leaving or force consolidation. This idea is bad for the status quo which for many of us is actually a positive.

Arne Duncan is Now Following Me on Twitter

Thought this was an interesting message in my inbox this morning: