Making the wrong "Data-Driven Decisions"

Almost six years ago I heard the question asked for the first time in a job interview, "How do you use data to inform your decisions in the classroom?" I was a little taken back by the question and didn't really know what to make of it. I was interviewing for an art teacher position and considering the nature of the job and considering the questions I was accustomed to hearing in interviews for similar jobs, the question didn't seem like it was developed with the intent of finding the qualities they normally would look for in an art teacher. In fact, the question seemed a bit absurd.

I remember answering the question something like this:

"It depends on what you mean by data. Data could mean many things and can be acquired in many ways. If I have a field drawing lesson planned where I would take the kids outside to draw and it is raining, that data would tell me I probably ought to keep them indoors. Likewise, if I give an assignment for students to draw something in linear perspective and a kid draws nothing using the technique I use that data as an indicator that they probably didn't understand how linear perspective works and that further guidance would be necessary. If you are wondering how test scores affect how I make decisions in the classroom I don't have much to tell you other than the art teacher typically isn't one who is pulled into focus groups to study and analyze that kind of data."

I ended up getting the job. Turns out this question was one of those standard questions written by the district administration for use with all their teacher candidates for all positions. Also turns out that the school in this district that was hiring for this position was filled with teachers with an equal disdain and skepticism regarding what has come to be called "data-driven decision making."

Most administrators and bureaucrats love to hear that you are using data. I am thoroughly convinced that it doesn't matter what your conclusion is or how narrow your focus is, if you can use any set of statistical data to defend any practice it is good in their eyes. After all, if you have numbers you can prove something right? Problem is, in the classroom no amount of data can give a full picture. There are just too many factors and so many of them do not translate well into statistics. Decision making in the classroom requires the ability to manage a much broader and more complicate set of data than that of the statistician.

Data can often lead to poor decisions. Tonight I left the house briefly to make an emergency run to the store to buy a kit to fix my eyeglasses. The thermometer said -8 degrees Fahrenheit. At the store there was a guy in line in front of me wearing shorts. I asked him if he considered how cold it was outside before making his wardrobe choice. He said, "I put on what was clean." Obviously this guy made a data-informed decision. He examined his clothes and determined that shorts met the criteria of being clean so obviously they would be a good choice. He could defend his choice with data regardless of other data sets that would otherwise make someone else choose differently. I probably would have made a data-driven decision to put on a dirty pair of pants to run to the store if my choice was between clean shorts and dirty pants given the temperature outside. If this guy were an administrator and in charge of assessing other people's data-driven wardrobe decisions, would he give me a poor evaluation? Probably.

The same scenario is played out in education everywhere the misleading phrase "data-driven" rears its ugly head. Its not whether you use data to inform your decisions or not, everyone does this. Unless you are making a blind choice or using a coin to determine the outcome of a decision you always use some kind of data to inform that choice. Heck, even the outcome of a coin toss is a form of data. What matters more is what qualifies as data and in an organization today that emphasizes this phrase usually that data set is intentionally narrow. Narrow sets of data lead to foolish decisions, decisions that are still data-driven. In practical terms, this phrase is meaningless.

So, what are some bad decisions you have seen schools make that were "data-driven?"



This post is fifth in my "war on words" series. Other terms in this series are: "best practices," "child-centered," "value added," and accountability.

"Child-Centered" Killed by Repetition

Before becoming a technology integration specialist and edtech consultant I was a classroom art teacher. In many ways I still am. I do miss the studio classroom, the materials, immersion in hands-on learning and creative expression. I also miss teaching about art history, theory, and philosophy. Every time I walk into an art room to assist an art teacher with a tech need I feel a strong longing for my old line of work and a deep sense of envy for those who have managed to keep their art programs going.

Andy Warhol (1975) Electric Chair (BW)

One of my favorite topics to teach was on Pop Art and Postmodernism and not at all for it's aesthetic attributes. Pop Art and Postmodernism are largely about concept. The concept is more important than the actual work. In fact, one of the defining features of Pop Art is repetition and repetition for the purpose of rendering it's subject meaningless. The image that most art textbooks use to illustrate this concept is that of Andy Warhol's screen prints of the electric chair. Taken by itself the image of the chair, an instrument of the ultimate capital punishment, is enough to evoke an emotional response in the viewer. But Pop Artists discovered, when you repeat the image over and over the viewer loses the emotional response and instead is left with nothing. The repetition becomes the art, not the image, not the meaning that the image carries, only the meaninglessness carried by repetition.


This effect is true in other areas of our lives and society, not just the visual arts. Perhaps the most dangerous place for the effect of repetition on meaning is with language. Words loose meaning with repetition just as Warhol's images do. This happens every time a term shifts from an authentic and meaningful usage to the status of "catch phrase" or "buzz word." We see it in the political discourse displayed by politicians and pundits but we also see it in education. So many meaningful ideas are lost through the creation of buzz words out of the language used to describe them. As a result, we often hear terms thrown about hap-hazardously and used to describe things that they don't really mean.

One of the most unfortunate terms in education recently to undergo this effect is the phrase "child-centered." "Child-centered" is a term whose concept it represents is beautiful. It represents an environment, an activity, or thing designed around the needs of the child rather than the needs of the adults and in schools the term refers to an idea of putting the needs of the student ahead of the needs of the teacher, administrator, policymaker, taxpayer, etc. In many ways the concept the term "Child-centered" is anti-Taylorism. It is an unequivocal declaration that the ones we server are actual human beings, organisms and individuals as opposed to products in a factory model of education.


But, the term has been used and reused to the point where it has lost it's meaning. Through over use and repetition the term became open for redefinition and today, I fear, the term is used by people to describe whatever it is they want it to describe. When I hear an educator or administrator use the phrase "Child-centered" today I really cannot tell what they mean and what they mean can just as well take adult needs and objectives as primary focus and "centering" them around the child. Are we putting the child in the center to serve that child or putting the child in the center of all the crap we are going to do to them? The term being up for grabs I fear it has now been hijacked, assimilated by the Taylorist Cult of Efficiency.

Doug Johnson on the Purpose of School

After Doug's presentation at the TIES Conference I sat down to discuss, among other things, the purpose of school. So here is the third mini-interview in my ongoing series on this topic:

Wes Fryer on Digital Storytelling & The Purpose of School

In St. Paul, MN on Friday at the Collaboration Convention & unConference 2010 I had an opportunity to sit down with Wes Fryer, executive director of Story Chasers, Inc. and author of Moving at the Speed of Creativity, and discuss digital storytelling, school reform, the purpose of school and what we want school to be for our own children. The following are some clips from our talk:

Wes Fryer on Digital Storytelling in the Math Classroom:



I plan on using this clip in a future Weekly Tech Tip I am working on but thought I should should also share it now.

Wes Fryer on the Purpose of School:



Thank you Wes for helping me kick off this side project I have been wanting to do for some time. For some months now I have been wanting to start a video interview project collecting different responses to the same question, "What is the purpose of school." I can't think of a better person to kick off what essentially is a digital storytelling project.

Then, Wes turned his camera on me and essentially asked me the same question:



Wow did I blink a lot. It was the end of the day after an exhausting two-days of co-facilitating this conference and I was beat. I imagine Wes must have been too but he sure didn't show it.

#Edreform Required Reading List

The other day I asked a few people on Twitter what three books, if they could, would they require all those involved in the education reform debate to read. Jon Becker suggested that I start a Google Form for this question, indicating that the responses I get might be interesting and valuable. This question was asked in an attempt to guide my own personal choices in books to read for Twitter Book Club. Restricting the list to three books would require respondents to limit their selection but also encourage authors to list more than just their own.

This question was also derived from examination of the nature the debate is taking in popular media. Education reform and education in general is a complex issue not well reduced to sound bytes and drive-by messages. The nature of this platform tends to lead people to invest in quick solutions and accept short-sighted answers. One strength of literature is its ability to engage people in deeper dialog or deeper thinking about issues. In generating this list I hope to help move the debate, even if ever so slightly, to a more appropriate venue.

Please consider adding your own choices to this list:



See the responses to this question here:



So far, at the time of this blog post, the following authors seemed to gather the most attention on this list:

• John Caldwell Holt (3 mentions)
• Neil Postman (3 mentions)

This is rather early and there is quite a bit of diversity in the list.

Another way to sort this list is by the copyright date of these books. The majority of the books on this list are less than three years old. I think it is too early to tell which of those will have staying power and continue to be relevant ten, twenty, fifty, or even one hundred years from now. Those books on the list older than ten years include:

• Mind Set!: Eleven Ways to Change the Way You See--and Create--the Future John Naisbitt 1943
• Education and the Cult of Efficiency Raymond E. Callahan 1962
• How Children Fail John Caldwell Holt 1964
• How Children Learn (Classics in Child Development) John Caldwell Holt 1964
• Teaching as Subversive Activity Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner 1971
• Deschooling Society Ivan Illich 1971
• Schoolteacher Dan Lortie 1975
• Place called School John I. Goodlad 1984
• 36 Children (Innovations in Education) Herbert R. Kohl 1990
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education Grace Llewellyn 1991
• Moral Leadership Thomas J. Sergiovanni 1992
• Borderliners Peter Hoeg 1993
• The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School Neil Postman 1996
• The Schools our Children Deserve Alfie Kohn 1999

Also "anything by John Dewey" should be on this list but since no specific book was given I couldn't enter it into the sort.

It might also be interesting to examine which books published this year made it on the list:

• The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education Diane Ravitch 2010
• The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future Linda Darling-Hammond 2010
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? Seth Godin 2010
• Rework Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson 2010
• The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need--and What We Can Do About It Tony Wagner 2010

There seems to be something ominous and troubling about the mood of these book titles. Somehow they make me feel depressed, like we are failing, like I am failing, like we are worthless, like we are broken. While I do think it is important for the continuation of the dialog to read what is new I will hold out on whether any of these are truly important in the long-view of education reform. The fact we are still reading the books in the >10 year group is a testament to their relevance. I think for the purpose of Twitter Book Club I will stick with the older set.

I am currently reading Postman's (1996) End of Education and I have Alfred North Whitehead's (1967) The Aims of Education waiting on my bookshelf for when I finish. From these recommendations I think I am going to order and read the following books for Twitter Book Club after I finish Whitehead:

• How Children Fail John Caldwell Holt 1964
• Teaching as Subversive Activity Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner 1971
• Education and the Cult of Efficiency Raymond E. Callahan 1962

Weekly Tech Tip: Beginners Guide - Social Networking for Educators

While Myspace & Facebook are still largely taboo in k-12 schools social networking has recently made a huge splash for Educators. There are many social networks that have been created in the past three years designed specifically for teacher professional development and educational research. This week's tech tip introduces you to a few popular networks for teachers.

Weekly Tech Tip:

Related links:

• NEA's list of social networks they recommend for teachers
• ElEdBlog - Space to discuss articles from NEA Today
• ASCD EDge
• Classroom 2.0
• Educator's PLN
• iTeach Mobile
• English Companion Ning - Where English teachers go to help each other
• Early Career Teachers - NCTE Ning
• Art Education 2.0 - Using New Technology in Art Classrooms
• MEMO - Minnesota Educational Media Organization - Serving school ...
• k12Online
• SEMTEC The SE MN preK-12 Technology Coordinators
• The Future of Education
• WebQuest Dialog
• Independent School Educators network

Want to build your own social network, try these platforms:

• Ning!
• Mojofiti - Social network & blogging platform that instantly communicates in 27 languages
• Taskbarn
• Planypus
• Wetpaint - free wiki platform that has social networking features

Link Stew:

• Educon 2.2 is this weekend
• Follow them on Twitter!
• Attend Virtually (links to Elluminate Sessions Steaming unConference Sessions)
• Avatara - Create 3d avatars online
• iTALC - free computer lab management software - gives you big brother control over your fleet of machines
• Try Android 2.1 on Windows

Blog Carnival

• How to Request Ad Removal from an Educational Network
• 50 Cool Search Engines for Serious Readers
• "Will Richardson and the new high school, Clay Shirky and the new college" by Alex Reid on Digital Digs

Clayton Christensen presents Disrupting Class to Education Commission of the States, 2009

Education|Evolving posted a video of Clayton Christensen speaking about Disrupting Class today:

Belief to Behavior and the clash of Social Media

I have been giving myself migraines lately trying to figure out how traditional institutions of learning can be married with new emerging networked forms of learning such as those apparent in Personal Learning Networks (PLNs). On the surface this seems like it should not be an issue. Both largely serve the same objective. Both exist with the intent of trying to promote learning and improve the lives of their patrons. However, on closer inspection, a fundamental quality of these learning environemnts places them at odds with one another in a rather disruptive way.

The clash that exists at the core of both educational approaches, I believe, runs deeper than just the education world and embodies and infects all aspects of our world effected by a new world paradigm. This new world paradigm encapsulates what lies at the heart of what we have all come to identify as social media, web 2.0, wisdom of crowds, grass-roots endeavors, the "cult of the amateur," participatory politics, user-created content, etc. We are seeing the effects of this clash today most noticeably in two realms: media and religion. Church attendance and membership is at an all-time low and traditional media outlets are quickly going under. The pinch these groups feel is evident in how much they are lobbying congress to pass anti-net neutrality legislation and how in recent years right wing evangelical agenda has been on the front lines of politics. These are hot button issues because the status quo in both these fields has been upset. The same is true in education. For the past few years we have been fed a line about social media tools in school as being dangerous for kids. Schools were quick to ban or limit the use of these tools by students. Teachers have felt the pinch too. Louisiana recently enacted a new state law that moves teacher use of the social web within the jurisdiction of their k-12 employers.

What is the common denominator for these three great institutions (the church, traditional media, and schools)? What is the common denominator of endeavors that fall within this new world paradigm? Last week I saw a TED Talk by Devdutt Pattanaik called, East vs west -- the myths that mystify that I feel answers this question. In this talk Dr. Pattanaik discusses how the fundamental belief structures between east and west cultures clash. He illustrates this with a simple story about Alexander the Great meeting a gymnosophist, "When they met, the gymnosophist asked what Alexander the Great was doing. To which he replied, 'I am conquering the world. What are you doing?' 'I am experiencing nothingness,' replied the gymnosophist." Neither could see the point in the others endeavor because the denominator for Alexander's life was One and the denominator for the gymnosophist's life was Many. This fundamental element of belief informed everything about how both individuals interpreted these actions.




In this talk Dr. Pattanaik shows this slide that I think explains it all. It explains the clash between the world views of the gymnosophist and Alexander the Great, and it explains the clash between new and old world paradigms we are seeing played out right now.


Today, I read two posts by Ira Socol, Crossing America: An Education, and The Colonialism of Michelle Rhee or TFA v BoA that bring to our attention that this sort of clash is nothing new. Ira serves up some examples of how we have disastrously addressed this conflict in the past which should serve as a warning to reactionaries and policy makers to be careful how they deal with this new conflict. In these posts two distinct conflicts similar in their relationship to the "belief to behavior" equation are discussed: racial integration and the effect of environment on learner background. Here are some excerpts:

"When you leave Michigan and head west, first entering "The Prairie" in Illinois, the world begins to change, and thus, so do the ways in which people see, hear, think, and learn."

"And the inherent "truth" of that creates one of the great fallacies of our current educational debate. Yes, there is only one right way to add 2+2 or spell "tomorrow," but there are hundreds or thousands of ways to perceive both "2+2" and "tomorrow," and as many different ways to learn about both."

"This lack of appreciation of cultural and physical environment on the process of education makes our teachers and our political leaders look like fools. And it results in diplomatic and schoolroom disaster."

-----------------------------------------

"Impoverished minority kids need to learn "to be white" as Rhee insists. They must learn how to speak the English, and behave in the way, that will get them hired...'Wait,' I said, 'still colonialism, still the powdered wigs for Nigerians and Indians so they could become Brits.' And, I added, there's a counter-narrative, an anti-colonial narrative.'"

"This counter-narrative suggests that we need not force minority students to learn to march and chant (KIPP), we need not "just" give them white role models to copy (Teach for America), we need not deny them the creative education all children deserve (Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Paul Vallas, Arne Duncan). Rather, we can help them take control of their communities and their lives within the context of their own culture."

The belief system that governs the institutions effected by current change and the systems of the west Ira describes all have one thing in common. They all are built upon a belief system that requires a top-down hierarchy, a denominator of One. When that system clashed with antithetical structures in the past it was usually disastrous. Can we find a way to marry the new world paradigm with the old or are we doomed to repeat this kind of battle? Can systems rooted in bottom-up hierarchies meet those with top-down hierarchies half way? Can they coexist? Is there a way to lend credit to networked learning learning experiences without causing the demise of traditional institutions of learning? Is school doomed to suffer the same fate as the newspaper or will PLN's always aspire to be "school-like" only to fall short of ever being able to reach that goal? I still have no answers, just more informed questions.

What is the Purpose of School?

I have spent a significant amount of time this summer conducting workshops and giving presentations to teachers, administrators, and school boards about topics ranging from disruptive innovation to emerging technologies to project-based learning. In nearly every presentation discussion seems to turn to some degree to the question of, "What is the purpose of school?"

Whenever I pose this question the responses always seem to vary between three distinctly different overarching concepts. First, I always hear people refer to schooling as serving a Jeffersonian purpose of creating an informed electorate which is essential in a democracy. Second, I always hear people bring up the Hamiltonian idea that schools should prepare students to enter the workforce or go to college so they can be further trained to enter the workforce. Third, I usually hear people say the purpose of schools is to prepare students to become lifelong learners.

When I think these ideas through I always come to the conclusion that the first two are inherently contradictory in nature and the fact that for the duration of state sponsored education these ideas have always been at the foundation of our education systems is amazing. The notion that schools are supposed to prepare students to become lifelong learners is one I almost only hear from other educators. I also find it flawed or at least not complete. This thought, and I am not sure where it originated from, implies that people are not inherently lifelong learners. I find this hard to fathom. Do we need schools for this or are people naturally learning creatures? Is there ever any point of any day that a living, conscious person is not learning? Of course not, learning is a quality of life.

So, why does this notion sound so appealing? What does it imply that is not really said? I think what is really meant by this notion is that the purpose of schools is to help direct students' learning. It is not to create lifelong learners so much as it is to create lifelong learners within a socially acceptable and proper context. A context that has been established. When viewed this way there are two divergent paths that can be taken. First is conformity and adherence to authoritative structures and the second is critical thinking. I propose we drop the idea that the purpose of schools is to create lifelong learners altogether and instead replace this third purpose with, "The purpose of schools is to create lifelong critical thinkers."

Social Networking: An Evolution in Communication Media

Wow! It has been a whole month since my last post. I hope I still have subscribers. Well, I have been busy. I have the first draft done of Wasioja Valley School's charter school planning grant application done. Now, we sit and wait for the other interested parties to add their feedback. In the meantime I am excited about some other upcoming events I have been getting ready for including teaching summer school for National Connections Academy, the NEMEN Institute in June, and various presentations/workshops at TIES.

The following is a video I just put the finishing touches on that I plan to use in a presentation to a group at TIES on May 19th on Social Networking. Basically, what I hope this video does is help us to take the long view for a moment and examine social networking from a different perspective. I feel we are too close to these trees to see the forest and an examination of social media/networking from a larger historical perspective could help inform our decisions about how schools address these new developments. I contend that the development of social networking on the internet is the present stage in an evolutionary process of human communication and that soon it will be thought of as an integral part of the internet. This film is a call for schools to encourage teachers to use these tools with students. We would not teach a student how to read and not allow them to write, why would we teach them how to use the internet without teaching them how to participate.

Social Networking: An Evolution in Communication Media from Carl Anderson on Vimeo.

Click here for Youtube version.
Click here for Blip.tv version.

Project-Based Hybrid Charter School Within a School Interest Survey

For those of you who have been following my blog you will know that I have been exploring the possibility of starting a new charter school in Minnesota that is partially virtual but will exist as digitally connected classrooms within the walls of our existing public schools. If you are interested in this idea and want to be involved please fill out the interest form below:

Film Idea about Disruptive Innovation - Part 1

Scene One:

The film opens with a first person shot of me walking my dogs. The audio is a speech from Ken Robinson's TED Talk. This goes on for about 5 minutes until I take my iPod out of my pocket and reveal that the audio is from the downloaded video I have been listening to on my walk)






(Scene cuts seamlessly to a small segment of the video synced with no cut in the audio.)

Dog footage to be shot with my Flip camera.
TED footage to be ripped from YouTube.

(This video of me walking my dogs will get recycled throughout the film whenever I use my voice as narration. This image will be symbolic of progress and change as the dogs, while I encourage them to go where I want, pull me forward in a not entirely controlled path.)


(Scene cuts to me putting away my coat, walking downstairs and plugging my iPod into my computer.)


Scene in my entry way to be shot with my Flip Camera
Scene at my desk to be shot with a webcam

(Audio fades over the webcam image of myself sitting down to my laptop then cuts to a screencast of myself checking my RSS reader, commenting on blogs, checking Twitter updates, and reviewing the feed from my del.icio.us network.)

Screencast to be shot with Camstudio

(voice over screencast)

Me: This is part of my daily routine. Each night, after I put my daughters to bed (insert clips of putting my 3year old and infant to bed) and my wife goes to sleep I walk my dogs and listen to podcasts. This is my daily zen moment. It is a time I feel like I can think more clearly. I never set out on my walks with any particular agenda in mind. I often let the voices on the iPod set that for me. This is when I take a step back and try to look at things from an outside or big picture perspective. Then, when I get home and plug my iPod back into the computer I slip into my PLN of education bloggers, teachers who find their voice online and connect with ideas and people. Many of these people are average employees at the schools where they work but online their ideas and thoughts make some celebrities. (slowly fade in the song "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane) This place is the fertile garden that is growing the ideas and momentum for the next wave of change in education. It is a sophisticated flash mob that when unleashed will disrupt everything we have come to understand about schools, learning, teaching, and education. Alice is coming back from the looking glass and is bringing Wonderland with her.

Switch to an Animoto video similar to this one showcasing seminal blog posts about 21st century learning.



Scene Two:
(Scene two cuts to me coming home from work. My wife is watching the news and my daughter is playing in the living room.)

Sheri: Did you hear? Macy's is closing 11 stores.
Me: Wow! First Daytons sells their stores to Marshal Fields, then Marshal fields goes under and Macy's takes over, now Macy's is in trouble.
Sheri: People just can't afford to shop at those fancy stores anymore.
Me: Yeah, when was the last time we bought anything there? We go to Walmart and Target every week but I can't recall the last time I shopped at one of those stores.
Sheri: Too expensive. They don't sell what we need either.



...Stay Tuned for more

RE: So Digital Natives Don't Exist?

The following is my comment to Tim Wilson's post on The Savvy Technologist titled: "So Digital Natives Don't Exist?"

I think that many teachers, especially those for whom it has been a long time since they were students, forget that learning is not easy and learning new technologies is not necessarily easy either. The frustrations they encounter when trying to learn how to use, much less how to utilize, a new technology are largely felt as a personal deficit or shortcoming. Where the student is used to this and has active strategies for dealing with this frustration (some better than others) the veteran teacher who has not been a student themselves for some time (especially the teacher for whom delivery of lessons is automated as Chris Craft illustrates) no longer has this strategy. The Digital Native/Immigrant argument is ideal for this teacher because it provides an explanation for why they have tried and failed or tried and only had minimal success. I completely agree that this argument has hindered progress.

Also, modern technology has an effect on the cognitive load that is disruptive to experienced teachers. By having to integrate technology into instruction (or alter pedagogy) the part of teaching that was once automated has to be unlearned and retooled. For a teacher who was used to having their eyes in the back of their head functional this can be blinding, especially if done effectively. Effective integration of technology in the classroom involves a substantial pedagogical shift; its big enough to turn expert teachers into novices.

It is easier to say, "I can't learn this, I am a digital immigrant," and to say, "We need to figure out how to reach these Digital Natives." than to say, "What implication does this technology have for teaching and learning and how do I modify my teaching methods and policies to benefit my students?" More often than not the answer to that question involves a teacher giving up some control of the learning that occurs in their classroom and empowering students by making them responsible. It also usually involves individualization of learning where the student is placed in the center and the teacher acts as guide or mentor. This is offsetting in many ways to the teacher who is comfortable with traditional behaviorist teaching methods, spending many years perfecting their lectures and worksheets, and has developed secure classroom procedures to perpetuate an illusion of respect from their students. "I am just a digital immigrant," simply means, "I am unwilling to change what I do if it makes me uncomfortable," or "I am unwilling to give up control or look stupid."

Personal Learning Environments

I love this video. The message is right on, the visuals are excellent, and the form is something to admire. This film raises a many questions though:

1. If we as a society ever move away from the formal institution of learning into a model such as this, how are we to measure credentials?
2. Will schools exist as ala cart centers for learning where students choose to take classes if they feel they need them?
3. Will governments reallocate education dollars to content development that is public domain?
4. What role will teachers play in this world?

Prensky Rubish? A Response to a Skeptical Native

Back in January a post was made on TipLine - Gates' Computer Tips regarding a student response to Prensky's, "The Need For Change."
The following is my response to this blogpost. I don't normally repost my comments on others blogs but I feel strong enough about this topic to do so here:

I have always been skeptical of Prensky's work though I am always intrigued by his ideas and inspired by much of what he says. Prensky has a way of convincing most of us that our there is a neurological difference between the generations and that the current young generation is significantly different. He does this by pointing to things that all of us see and speaks to frustrations we all have. He does this in nearly every book or scholarly article he writes. I have to admit that I have at times been convinced by some of his arguments and I still think he has some valid points. Our students are different and the world is changing. That is nothing new. The world is always constantly changing. Change happens in different ways in different fields. Ask a 60 yr old in 1890 if the world was the same as when they were young and I am sure you would get a similar response. Ask an illustrator in the mid 1800s if technology is changing the world and I am sure you would hear an earful since photography brought that profession to a near standstill.

It is the nature of our brains to shape and form based on external stimulus. The stimulus that is around now is different than the stimulus that was around before and is different than the stimulus that will be around in the future. However, there is no affirmative evidence that the way we learn is significantly different today than it was in the past. The way we teach is changing and as Scott McLeod pointed out we have twenty years of research that affirms that a constructivist approach to teaching and learning is more effective than other known models. This does affirm what Prensky tells us about how we teach but what I have always been skeptical of and critical of is the method of content delivery Prensky prescribes. It is not that I don't think games have a place in education, to the contrary I think there is solid research to support their effectiveness (see Malone & Lepper, 1987). The problem is that Prensky represents a business interest that benefits financially from the adoption of a game centered curriculum. Also, as Jamie McKenzie points out, Prensky is not really a researcher and the whole basis for his Native/Immigrant argument is based on one study that he misquotes and spells the author's name wrong.

Prensky represents a polar end of the argument/topic of technology integration in school. I feel his writings are important for reflective practice but that we are building our houses in the sand by basing important pedagogical and curricular components of our practice on his iterations. The other polar end of this argument is represented by the student/teacher response to Prensky's article. I have to say I whole heartedly disagree with most of what this student/teacher writes, although I must admit that I had some similar responses the first time I read any of Prenskys work. I will address each point separately here:

1. he wrote: "The problem with constructing a "student-centered" curriculum where the
   students spend their time "learning" by connecting with their peers all
   over the world through blogs and whatnot is that this only works if the
   student knows the material already...The whole point of a teacher is that the teacher knows more about the
   topic than you do, and you need them to impart their knowledge to you
   before you can really do anything with it." -This response missed the point. The use of online publication tools in education is not always meant to be some kind of summative assessment. The value in activities such s blogging or collaborating on a wiki is that these tools are fluid. Students learn from interacting with others. A blog can be used to keep a record of progress on a project and to invite feedback from others outside the classroom community. These tools open up a whole world of human resources to students that were not available, or not easily available, before. Also, a student-centered curriculum is not one where the student dictates what is taught or what they will learn but rather a curriculum where the student interests drive the learning. Idealy this would look something like a student and a teacher both taking turns driving somewhere.
   
2. he wrote: "so just because kids seem disconnected in school doesn't necessarily
   have to do with technology. More likely its the usual reasons - they
   see us, like their parents, as authority figures trying to "keep them
   down"." I don't think this comment is totally off-base. I do agree that drop-out rates probably have less to do with technology than they have to do with other factors. However, technology can play a factor in possible solutions. I worked at an alternative school for two years. I have seen a lot of students drop out and understand the reasons pretty well in each case. Most of the time these students dropped out for reasons stemming from external factors such as homelessness, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, or involvement in organized crime. Of all the students I saw drop out of high school in the past two years I can only point to engagement as being the prime reason in two cases and those were two of the brightest students I ever encountered in eight years of teaching. In those two cases it was less about the technology but rather the methods of teaching and learning that were at fault. Had we been able to personalize their learning more and teach them, or rather guide them, in academic study that was more rigorous they may not have dropped out. However, both students were not motivated to do more because they knew it would not be sufficiently rewarded. I am sure both of these students will go on, much like this teacher/student's father, and have a successful career and life despite their drop-out status.
3. he wrote: "What matters is not necessarily how much technology you are using.
   Instead, what matters is if you are moving past pure memorization to
   higher level thinking. If you can use technology to do that, so be it,
   but if not, it doesn't make it any less authentic." I completely agree.

Free Image Editors

Yesterday I blogged about some of the online operating systems featured in PC Magazine's March 2008 article "The Best Free Software." Today I had a chance to evaluate some of the graphics programs they include in their list.

As an artist and art educator I have long had a love affair with Adobe Photoshop and for that matter most Adobe products but last summer when I first was introduced to GIMP I started to have a change of heart. I found GIMP inspiring because, just like most open source software, it leveled the playing field for those who cannot afford premium applications like Photoshop. However, I never really found myself using it. I still preferred Adobe because of the look and feel of the program. GIMP with all of its windows is cumbersome to manage. Commands are not located in the same place, or even very similar places as they are in Photoshop.

Today I found two other free programs that look and feel like Adobe Photoshop, offer the basic features that I use Photoshop for, and are more user friendly than GIMP. First is Paint.net. According to their website this program was originally developed by an undergraduate student with the help of Microsoft. It was at one time slated to replace Paint as the free image editing software to come with the Windows OS. Why they did not go with it I am not sure. Now it is in open source. This program looks and feels like Paint but has the functionality of an early version of Adobe Photoshop.
The only real problem I see with this program is it is only currently available on Windows. Our district is seriously looking at moving to Linux next year and if we do this program will not be supported.

The other program I found and am just ecstatic about is Splashup. Splashup is a flash based image editing program that looks almost exactly like Adobe Photoshop in your browser. It does all the basic things you need a good photo editor to do. Since it is web based you don't have to download anything. If you have an internet connection you can edit your photos. You also do not need to sign up for an account with Splashup the way you do with other online image editing tools. Since it is flash based it is then also cross platform. The only downside to this application is that it cannot be downloaded.

One cool feature that I like in Splashup is the webcam capture feature as demonstrated in this picture. The only big problem I found with Splashup is the inability to copy and paste between programs. I tried pasting this screen capture of Splashup in Splashup but it would not let me. I had to use Paint.net to save this final screen cap.

Online Operating Systems

In the March 2008 issue of PC Magazine there is a great article, "The Best Free Software." In that article they list, among many other things, free online operating systems. I spent a little bit of time exploring some of these programs. The first they list, ajaxWindows crashed my browser when I tried to use it. The second I used, eyeOS, worked well and seemed simple to use but was not all that versatile. The third one I used, Glide, sparked some excitement for me. This tool, while similar to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, is much flashier. It's graphic interface is very user friendly. Most interesting is how Glide seems to merge basic elements of an operating system with the collaborative potential of web 2.0 tools like YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, del.icio.us, and online office programs. The 2gb storage space they give you free makes Glide a nice service for anytime, anywhere computing. The other nice feature that is present with Glide that is not readily present on other similar programs is the ease of creating websites with editable CSS templates. I can definitely see how this could evolve over the next five years into what the Horizon Report talks about when they say that social operating systems will greatly influence education in the future.

Glide Write

Glide Present

Glide Edit

Glide Publish

Cell Phones as Learning Tools

Croquet

I just learned of this new open source virtual world. It is called Croquet and in the next few weeks I definitely have to give this platform a whirl. If Croquet is as easy to use as this video suggests it might just be the perfect virtual world app for education (I am making this prediction prematurely I know). I especially like the ability to broadcast your webcam image over the top of your avatar and how the program appears to display the 2d web within the world(s).

Goodhue Techspo - Rescheduled

In January I posted that Goodhue Public School would be holding a Technology Expo at the end of the month. Due to a makeup day that event had to be postponed. It is now scheduled for February 18th. All are welcome to attend (teachers, administrators, parents, community members, etc.). I extend this invitation to anyone, especially teachers in schools in SE Minnesota. This will be an afternoon for us to share some new things we are doing with technology and a time for reflection. For more information on the sessions click on the links below.

Goodhue Techspo 2008 wiki - A public exhibit of educational techn... via kwout