Happy anniversary to “nashworld.“  This post is the 65th of the year, and it comes exactly one year after my first post on April 21st, 2008.  Wow.  Looking back at that post, it was quite clear I was full of questions for the coming year of study and reflection, but very shy of answers.  In fact, this blog was initially titled “virtual southside” that first month.  My first plan was for this space to be a group blog to facilitate PD for our brand-spanking-new tech cohort starting in June.

Forming a purpose

Then I found Ning.  In one weekend, it was clear to me that this platform would be a far better, and more flexible, match for our school’s edtech PD mission.  It also served to bring some comfort for our staff in the world of social media.  Though we control membership to the site, it is certainly a more free-wheeling place than a simple group blog.  It was the decentralized nature of a Ning network that I loved.  I didn’t want to drive “virtual southside.”  I didn’t want anyone to drive.  I wanted to be merely another loud voice on a very enthusiastic and speedy bus.

So after a quick rename, nashworld became more of a personal place for reflection, sharing, and synthesis of thought.  I do drive this bus.  However, I had my first guest move up from the passenger section just this month.  Though I certainly do have an amazing passenger list here, this is where the metaphor breaks down, for the readers of this blog certainly help steer my thoughts and words with their comments.  To those of you who have put in your two cents here, I thank you greatly.  You have helped to develop many of the thoughts and beliefs I currently own.

Year One Archive

A couple of months ago, when I started to really reflect on what blogging has meant to me over the past year, I decided to create a different type of archive for the blog.  If you look up, you’ll notice that just to the right of the “About” page is a link to a new page entitled:  “Year One Archive.”  This page lists every post I have written over the course of the year by month-  with somewhat of an abstract-like summary.  I hope this provides yet another way to navigate the site.  It certainly isn’t a quick and efficient way, but it does provide a bit of a different approach.  The archive page also serves as an interesting chronological history of the past year.

Archaeo-blogology

In fact, after that first post in April…  I didn’t write another that month.  I didn’t even write one in May.  During that month I was working hard on both Virtual Southside as well as my first shot at social media for an actual course I teach.  June, my most prolific month, was the result of using the blog  to fulfill the requirements of a really lame online grad course on “educational technology.”  Truly the worst course I have ever experienced.  You can easily tell this by the lame posts and lame books and movies and edtech articles from five and ten years ago.  Jeeeez.  I wish I hadn’t looked back over those just now.

Things got much better when school started and I began to feel a true mission for the blog.  When November began, I followed along with Steve Dembo in his 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger adventure.  That experienced helped tremendously.  Also in November, I was actually even nominated for a 2008 Edublogs Award.  You can imagine my surprise as such a green little blogger, but that was no doubt extrinsically empowering.   I am certain to post several more reflective pieces on things I have experienced, learned and accomplished over the past year.  Stay tuned for those.  As soon as my grad program is completed in May…  I have a lot of things to explore yet.  Grad school, a new baby girl…  it’s a wonder I could pull off any of this at all.

To community

Most of all-  thank you.  Thanks for coming here.  Thanks for reading.  Thanks for commenting.  Thanks for joining in the discussion.  Thank you for helping to steer my personal learning mission over the past year.  I cannot thank each and every one of you enough.  The thinking I do about the things you say… is worth a graduate course in something each time.  In reflection over this past year, I can for certain that the biggest thing I have gained from blogging is people.  I now have current and future collaborators on from all over the country.  We have and will collaborate on projects that will no doubt extend not only my learning, but that of my friends and colleagues in Saint Joseph.  I am humbled by the professionalism, creativity, and generosity of people in this newly-generated community.  Thanks isn’t enough.

Artwork:

Vitamin A?
For the purposes of this post, “Vitamin A” = administration.

Given this equation, you might assume that I am about to promote an increase in administrative positions.  No.  Then perhaps more administrative oversight in education?  No.  Then what?  Have patience, this one requires a bit of setup.

The shift
I have personally witnessed a massive paradigm shift in administrative roles since I began my career in education.  Many of the school administrators I first worked with were picked first and foremost as strong managers.  It is pretty obvious from where I sit that the recent focus has shifted tremendously toward administrators possessing strong instructional roots.

I would argue that this is absolutely one of the best things to happen in the recent history of education.  I, for one, applaud this change of tack.  I don’t really have to look too far into the past to find a former administrator of mine who was fond of openly professing the fact that he was not a very good teacher when he was in the classroom.  I really don’t think I want to say much more about that here, nor do I think I really have to.  I am sure the shift toward a standards-based system was the driving force behind much of this.  However, here locally, I really do think this shift happened purely because it is the right thing to do as much as anything else.

So assuming you agree with this premise, let’s do a quick review of what this shift has delivered to this point:

• School administrators have long been expected to be strong managers of the people as well as the “stuff” of education.
• Administrators with proof of strong instructional roots are now being sought for even lower-level administrative positions.
• School and school district administration now tend to possess a stronger command of pedagogical skills.
• School and district administration are now in a better position to not only oversee best practices in education, but to model and assess these skills.
• In a secondary school, this equates to an administration ably equipped to monitor and promote strong instructional practice to go along with the solid content knowledge our teachers tend to possess out of college.

Bridges
So here is the bridge to this argument, and it has two parts.  In my opinion we are much better off than where we have come from in the very recent past.  Of course I am speaking for my own district here, and any attempt to extrapolate outward might not fit so well.  However, I think this is likely to be a nationwide trend.  I would love some feedback from my out-of-district readers in the comments below.  Is this true in general?

However, we still have another shift that needs to happen in short order.  Our world is flattening fast and economically we are faltering in many ways as a nation.  We need to release graduates in May who are equipped to deal with a rapidly advancing technological landscape.  They need to be 18 year-olds who are ready to learn, unlearn and relearn.  They need to be flexible to roll with each technological punch the world throws at them.

Some of us who work closely with kids today realize that our “digital natives” possess a high comfort level with emerging technologies.  However, most lack any depth of proficiency in managing the firehose of information these technologies make available to us.  Most here also lack the attention to a framework of ethics that is essential to the widespread use of these now-ubiquitous technological tools.  They lack these skills because the vast majority of their experience in learning technology comes with little or no guidance…  and it rarely comes at school.

Innate comfort builds strong familiarity with some web common web tools.  It can also build enthusiasm toward a digital world.  However, what it does not provide from the outset is an organized and purposeful approach to the skills and ethics required for life in our increasingly digital age. Our kids get basic content. Our kids nail down the cell theory, figurative language, the civil war and basic mathematical expressions.

But can they efficiently and effectively use the digital tools they already prefer to use?  Perhaps more importantly, do they possess a nucleus of transferable digital skills that will allow them to roll with the “technological punches” of even the near future?  As Will Richardson asks in his article in the latest issue of Ed Leadership, “will they be Googled well?

Rumblings of hope

There are strong rumblings finally taking shape in our district.  A few teachers are finally taking the first steps in mobilizing their classroom toward the simplest of these goals.  The senior students in their classrooms will now leave school in May with at least enough of an exposure in using emerging web technologies to facilitate their own personal learning.  (I suggest David Warlick’s posts on why PLN’s are important – here is one sample.)

I believe that if we continue to offer basic support for these early-adopting teachers and their subsequent students, we will see many more technology-proficient students in our neck of the woods in the future.  But please allow me to suggest that this is not our answer.  This is far less than we need.  This is far less than our children deserve.  Our children deserve the same purposeful attention to technology that we are now systematically providing for pedagogy.

The TotalPACKage
Is one less important than another?  Is rich content less important than skillful pedagogy?  Is technology less important than either content or pedagogy?  I say no, no, and no to these questions.  I am certainly not the only person suggesting this either.  If you have not at least briefly familiarized yourself with TPCK, or TPACK as it is now often tagged, then you owe yourself a read.  Mishra & Koehler first proposed technological pedagogical content knowledge as a real and viable framework for best instructional practice.

In a nutshell, the best teaching and learning take place when an instructor possesses strong skills in not only content and pedagogy, but also in the technology that is related to both.  I scribbled a few words about this previously in this post.  Technology treated as an extra in education is a faulty approach.  It has been a faulty approach for decades and I would suggest that it is an increasingly faulty approach now.

New framework for PD
So how do we get systemic attention to technology in education?  I would assert that this level of attention can only come from the top => down.  We no longer toss out infrequent PD plans toward effective instructional skills hoping they stick.  The “spray and pray” method of PD is slowly being abandoned for more job-embedded approaches to pedagogical revival in our secondary schools.  If it is essential, we build it into the day-  over and over again.  We look for it.  We assess it.  We empower its spread.

I believe that we need a similar approach to educational technology integration.  If you are reading this from an administrator’s desk you may ask yourself “we hardly have time for the learning we now stuff into the school day and the overburdened teacher’s mind…  how can we add this too?“  Here is where I suggest how an investment in increasing the technological proficiency of our instructional staff will pay real dividends across the board.

With a technologically-proficient staff and frameworks to facilitate further learning such as online professional networks, we can build a system that will catalyze PD in all areas.  I believe that arming teachers with the tools for anytime, anyplace learning -and the essential training required to jumpstart the system-  is the way to begin.  This model of PD is producing quick successes on a smaller scale at my school where just this year, we launched a technology-integration cohort of 20 teachers.  I contend that when the remainder of our staff comes on board this next year, we will grow exponentially as a staff.

A call to action
In my building we have enthusiastic leadership toward this initiative.  I believe we have similar enthusiasm elsewhere in our district.  In fact, I know we do.  The “Vitamin A” that we really need now is for our building and district administrators to truly commit to the guidelines set out in the NETS standards for administrators (NETS-A).  We need administration that not only advocates technology within curricular adoptions for students (standard II), but also that models technological approaches to enhancing productivity and learning new and emerging technologies (standard III).

These standards were adopted in 2002.  This was really before Web 2.0 tools were widely available.  The NETS standards go through regular revisions.  The student standards were updated in 2007, the teacher standards last summer at NECC 2008 in San Antonio, and the administration standards are set for a big refresh this coming summer in Washington D.C. at NECC 2009.  In my dreams, this post would be a call to action.  It would serve as a gentle suggestion that this conversation needs to flow in both directions.  Not only do we need teachers and students making suggestions upward on the chain of command, we need some vitamin A providing nutrition of this type in the opposite direction as well.

Sign up.  Plan now to go to NECC 2009.  Plan to study this idea enough to make you dangerous (and particularly receptive) when the new NETS-A standards are unveiled there.  Blog your experience.  Join the conversations.  They are happening all around us right now, but in wireless waves encircling our heads.  Join these conversations that are occurring among passionate folks at both national and global levels.

As teachers, we are taking the first steps toward building our “technological health” from the ground up.  We are in need of some good, solid vitamin A from above.

Artwork thanks:

Questioning

The art and science of teacher questioning is a powerful force in any flavor of direct instruction. Marzano and associates (2001) found a roughly 22 percentile gain in student achievement when skillful questioning was an instructional focus. Furthermore, a focus on maximizing student questioning can be even more powerful. However, when asking teachers to begin a focus on the practice of questioning in the classroom, it is best to begin close to home.

For this coming Wednesday’s job-embedded professional development, our principal asked each teacher to drag a colleague into their room to chart all questions asked in five or ten minutes of instruction. This will serve as a baseline for discussion in our PD session.

Coaching questioning

This blanket strategy of “questioning” is one I have been asked to work on with teachers from time to time. The enlightened teacher is one who realizes that only an objective and friendly observer can truly assess the goings-on of a classroom. In 2008, a teacher is charged with juggling a plethora of variables in the classroom at any given moment. Therefore, it is easy to miss some of the more subtle things that go on. As a generalist instructional coach in a high school, this is one area where my work with teachers frequently begins.

Ideally, this relationship will move from quick consultation toward more in-depth one-on-one coaching experiences. When a teacher enlists the ongoing services of an objective observer who possesses an eye for instruction… the gains can be rewarding for both teachers.

Enter: Bitstrips

As this latest round of questioning has approached the PD deadline, I have been asked in to do a quick assessment many times in the past few days. When several days of coaching feel the same, it tends to warp the mind. Trust me- rarely is one day the same as the next in this job. Thus the questioning cartoon. This one features none other than my wife- a talented and conscientious biology teacher. I can lay this baby out on the web because I know she can handle the parody.  I’ll let you guess who the coach is in panel number seven.

This artwork features the online cartooning software Bitstrips. This site has all of the characteristics of web 2.0. It is creative, interactive and often viral. It allows participation and recommendation to others. It is highly social and even allows collaborative remixability.  On Bitstrips, you can create yourself (as an avatar that can then be used for cartoons) as well as your friends, enemies and acquaintances.  How fun is that?  Can you imagine some sort of educational application for this webapp?

So today while I was sitting in Mrs. Nash’s classroom for ten minutes to chart all questions asked, I decided to share out the results (with her permission of course).  Today’s topic plays out amusingly as a comic strip.  However, the reproductive strategies of organisms actually do provide quite a valuable look into one of the major forces driving all animal behavior.  In fact, MO Biology CLE 3.A reads that students should be able to “Distinguish between asexual (i.e., binary fission, budding, cloning) and sexual reproduction.“  So from those ten minutes, you get a small chunk of questioning data, and a bit of classroom humor and fun in full cartoon color.  Learning about primitive animals, like sponges, isn’t always the most exciting thing.  Today, however, featured some great discussion.

Charting questioning

Lately I have taken to making my own classroom diagrams for teachers.  I hate feeling restricted by left-brained forms.  I wasn’t happy with any of the current forms I was using, so one day I just grabbed some printer paper and a tracing template I once used to help middle school gifted students with tesselations. I decided to do things a bit differently en route to a classroom last week.

Most generally, as soon as I take a seat in the classroom, I begin sketching out the lay of the land -so to speak.  Once the page is a customized black & white of the classroom, I scribble circles in the exact spots where students occupy a seat.  Looking at my watch, I jot down the time and begin to take in the classroom happenings for the agreed-upon time frame.  In that period of time, I trace an arrow from each person asking a question to the person they were addressing.

If the teacher directly asks Clint in table three a question, then the arrow traces from the teacher to that student.  If Katy at table two asks a question of the teacher, then the arrow points from Katy, directly to the teacher.  If Clint then directs a question toward Katy, the next arrow will be drawn directly from Clint to Katy.  The final piece of data would be to record teacher-generated questions that are directed to the entire class.  These are seen as hash-marks in the upper right hand corner of the sheet.

This type of exercise generates a mere slice of data.  Depending on the particular five or ten minute slice of time, you expect widely-varying results.  Therefore, it is important to take several slices of data of a period of time to see overall numbers and trends.

Reflections

Even this brief glimpse by an objective observer can generate a valuable “Aha” for a teacher.  Comments I have overheard recently include:

• “I didn’t realize I was carrying on such a one-to-one conversation with that student.”
• “It looks like all of the questioning in my classroom is coming from me.”
• “I wish they (students) would direct more questions to one another instead of relying on me so much.”
• “I really did do a good job of engaging nearly all student at least once in that short time.”
• “It seems like I don’t even pay attention to the left side of the classroom…  weird.”
• “Jeeez…  I ask a ton of questions… but most of them are pretty short and easily answered.”

Again, brief samples of classroom questioning such as those highlighted above can be interesting and helpful.  However, the real deal comes into play when the teacher wants to take the relationship further and delve more deeply into the art and science of questioning.  Once the relationship between teacher and coach moves toward a longer-term, one-to-one relationship, great things happen.  With trust, and open mind, and several small successes early on, this relationship is one of the most productive and rewarding to be shared by education professionals.

Here’s to hoping my wife finds her caricature somewhat flattering when this hits the web tonight. 

According to a teacher survey administered by CDW-G, a provider of brand-name technology to educational institutions and government agencies, the “use of computer technology translates into higher student achievement and improved parent-teacher communication.”

Like many survey reports, we are then presented with a laundry list of statistics that describe the tech-opinions of teachers from what seems to be a reasonably random sample. Right off the top, the highest percentage of respondents posting a favorable response were 85% of teachers who said that indeed, “classroom computers improve student performance.” Due to the nature of such a bland prompt, this is score is likely the product of many smaller factors working together. If we are measuring performance based on the many facets that make one successful in life today, this is highly encouraging. However, if in fact we are measuring student performance by the all-consuming NCLB test-score standards, one has to wonder why any other number matters at all.

So how exactly do we arrive at the 85% figure? Well, judging by the scant data presented in the article, we aren’t entirely certain. For example, the next-highest positive response (74%) indicated that teachers feel “computers improve students’ attention in class.” Considering that fact alone, many teachers might be compelled to say yes to the “student performance” question. 63% of respondents said that technology increased their communication with parents. Again, in a very loose sense, this fact could prompt a teacher to claim that this fact too increases student performance. Finally, 58% of teachers surveyed said that posting homework assignments online increased completion rates. And really, this one personally hits home. If I can remember childhood like I think I can, my parents having full access to all of my assignments that were due would have certainly shifted all of those lazy B’s into solid A’s.

However, the plain fact here is that none of those separate issues in question say a thing about “student performance” in regard to actual test scores. Now, I will be the first to speak up for the fact that test scores are certainly not the ultimate measure of student performance. But they are the only thing in this list that actually includes the content that our kids are (or aren’t) learning.

In my opinion, the most important information in the article concerns the feelings teachers have towards training for technology use. 76% of teachers felt that training is the key to increased technology use. In this increasingly complex world of education, this number makes more sense than perhaps any of the others. Digital immigrants need to be ferried over into the land of ones and zeroes. Training is the most important aspect of anything complex.

The final piece of this information contains an interesting tidbit as well. CDW-G also found a correlation between the number of hours of teacher training and their belief in the benefits of technology. What stands out as odd are the three categories which indicate hours of “computer training” in the past year. The three categories are “0″, “1 to 5″, and “more than 5″. 45% of teachers with no computer training felt they were beneficial for student learning, while 60% of those receiving five or more hours of training responded favorable for technology.

If all it takes to win 60% of our teachers is five hours of training in an entire year, then I think we can easily empower all teachers. What if five to ten hours of job-embedded training were built into the yearly schedule of teachers. This number, while still quite small by many award-winning professional development standards, is immediately doable and surprisingly effective.