I spent far too much time today on this image…….

But first

What are the key elements required for a transformation of teaching and learning through the use of technology?  There are obviously many reasonable ways to look at this.  From what position do you view this issue?  Are you a teacher, instructional coach, building principal, technology facilitator, director of technology, chief administrative officer of some flavor, superintendent, parent, or student?  For you, this issue will likely run through the filter of your current position.

It will also run through the filter of your experience.  Are you an eighteen year old student who lives a life that is highly digitally integrated, or are you a teacher of 20 years or more who is just now trying to become familiar with the Internet as it relates to teaching and learning?  Are you a superintendent or head of school who is beginning to open to the importance of a smart approach to technology integration, or are you a technology facilitator who has been a digital evangelist for the past five to ten years?

Those filters should all be applied to the problem of how to retool schools along the lines of technological transformation.  (Though I didn’t think it worked in the title of this post, you will see below that I would rather use the term transformation as opposed to integration.)  At this point, the vast majority of school systems are behind the curve in this area.  Being this far behind might just have one distinct advantage.  If there is no way to see any of the individual trees in a forest, you are likely going to be forced to start your mission with a whole-forest view to begin with.  This is not a bad thing.  It allows you to realize two important things:

1) You don’t need a flashlight.  It’s not that dark in there anymore.  Trust that there are others who have proceeded down this path before you, and they have learned many important lessons.  Collaborate.  Learn from their successes and failures.  Do not go it alone.  Resist the temptation to slap a digital device in the hands of each student and call it success.  Have a plan.

2) Rarely do we get to make decisions with the clarity that a little distance provides.  Take your time (but hurry).  Ask yourself: what can we do with these new tools available today that we couldn’t do before?  If we could remake our curriculum any way we wanted, how would we do it?  Think transformation of the way teaching and learning is done in your district, as opposed to integration into it as it exists.

Allow me to run this challenge through my own filter for the next several paragraphs.  For more on my filter for these ideas, consult the About page.  Also-  I certainly do not profess to know all of the answers.  I am currently sitting on top of a nice little foothill of educational technology leadership…  and staring up at some pretty massive peaks ahead.  Allow me to talk about a few things that make these peaks seem climbable from where I stand.

It is my belief that all schools (and/or school systems) need the following four pillars below any technology “integration” effort…

An Innovation engine

All systems need what I will call an “innovation engine.”  Whatever the system, whatever the setup, schools and school systems need pockets of sponsored innovation.  Without some folks directly charged with instructional innovation with digital tools, we will always be just trying to fit technology into what we do on a day to day basis.  It is far better to build innovation directly into the system, and to foster it purposefully.  I know this may seem somewhat fringe in the world of public education, but it can’t afford to be much longer.

“At enlightened, forward-thinking companies, managers understand the connection between learning, innovation, and higher productivity — in fact, employees at these companies may even be encouraged to spend time learning and experimenting with new technologies.”

~Joe McKendrick, FASTforward

So who will drive this engine of innovation in your school?  Will this be a technology facilitator?  Will it be a technology coach?  Perhaps an instructional coach.  A ad-hoc committee of teachers?  A requirement of your leadership team or department heads?  If you are thinking of this from a district perspective, where does this responsibility land?  Will you just hope for it, or will you truly sponsor innovation in new approaches to teaching and learning afforded by digital technologies?

Administrative support

An innovative technology leader will be of little use beyond their immediate world without direct, purposeful and inspired administrative support.  Administrators:  join forces with your innovation team.  Learn what they learn.  Push them to new heights.  Allow them to bring innovative approaches to the classrooms and teachers of your school.  Support your teachers every step of the way as they slowly transform the classroom environments they create toward new and better approaches to learning…

…and then hold them to it. Hold staff accountable for bringing their skills up to the present realities of the 21st Century.  We’ve been living passively in this century for almost ten years now.  It is time for all of us to sit up and take a direct and active role in the changes happening within the learning profession.  Without strong administrative support, advocacy, and supervision, no real and lasting changes of the magnitude are possible.  Guidelines for such leadership aren’t exactly guesswork.  Grab a copy of the NETS and familiarize yourself with these standards today if you have yet to.  They come in three fine flavors:  for students, teachers and administrators.

Unfiltered ubiquitous access

So now you have innovation closely coupled with administrative support.  With those two things, you can get a pretty immediate return for your buck, provided one more terribly important thing:  that you don’t filter the very usefulness out of the web. A school can have instructional innovation and local administrative support and still fail with regard to technology integration.  How do you kill innovation quickly?  Tie it down.  Even today, many schools filter all of the good, interactive raw materials right out of the web.  Figure it out, people.  Ask a school who only lightly filters.  Ask.  Don’t assume there isn’t another way.

Our school system does currently block Facebook and MySpace.  However, our general approach is to put the filters in place required by law, and then keep the real Internet open for education.  Yes, that means we have open access to YouTube, Flickr, UStream, Ning, Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, etc…  We have our hands on far too much fuel for innovation to even worry about looking at Facebook and MySpace at this moment.  They are where our students already are.  But for now, we are luckier than 95% of school districts I encounter.  This fact has allowed us to move quickly toward figuring out the advantages and disadvantages of these powerful new tools in an educational setting.

Oh, and ubiquity.  Access to these tools must be easy and everywhere.  Soon after access is all around you, it doesn’t even feel like “technology,” it just feels like the way things are done.  This is a good thing, for when technology becomes invisible, we can finally focus on the value added from new uses of these tools.  The world is moving quickly toward wireless access in all corners.  If your school isn’t wireless, then only your students have wireless access.  That’s right-  via their phones.  You have a cell phone policy in your school?  Don’t kid yourself.  Your students are on the raw, unfiltered Internet via the 3G connection of their cellphone more often in the classroom than you care to admit.  Why ignore this…   or worse yet, why punish it?  Embracing might just be the answer.  Try it.

If your school isn’t at a 1:1 ratio of students to laptop computers… and the students don’t take them home with them night by night, all year long… then you don’t yet have an ideal learning environment for 2009 in my opinion.  However, there are other ways until that time to assure ubiquitous access.  Our school currently employs MacBook carts at a ratio of 2.5 students to one computer.  60 of these machines will be available for checkout from our Media Center in the fall.  Our Media Center/Library will also be open well beyond school hours.  It isn’t perfect, but it is allowing us to move ahead intelligently.  We are moving quickly toward the 1:1 environment everyone knows is inevitable in schools.

Instructional model

So now you have innovation on the ground level, administrative support, and unfiltered access.  Be proud.  If you can honestly say this characterizes your school or school system, then you are in a very small but fortunate minority.  You work with smart, visionary people who know how to plan and have been doing so for some time now.  If your lone goal is to have students, teachers and administrators all gleefully pushing buttons and gazing at computer screens…  then your work here is done.  Congratulations.  However, if what you were wanting out of this nationwide technology push was something a bit more…  substantial, then you had better finish reading.

The fourth pillar of “instructional model” is more than a quick soundbyte allows.  I see three levels of this notion with increasing value as follows:  1) You have thought about and encouraged good instructional practices in your building/district.  2) You have a well-articulated plan for effective instructional practice that is building or districtwide.  3)  You have a true learner-centered instructional model in place in grades K-12 that credits the constructivist nature of human learning.

I am fortunate to say that though our district has awakened late to the call of real and purposeful transformation via educational technology, the toughest of our four pillars has already been built.  The final pillar of a student-centered constructivist model for instruction that is carefully stated, professionally-developed, supported, and supervised…  is in place.

As I stated earlier, we are looking up at some pretty tall challenges ahead of us.  Locally, we have unfiltered access to all of the content and interactivity the web affords.  We have pedagogical experts in district leadership positions who have put in place an ideal instructional model for the future.  We have a quickly multiplying group of administrators at both the district and building levels who are responding to the call of the digital world, and we are making plans to foster innovation and creativity in our classrooms.

I feel like I am at the foot of a mountain that a handful of good people have climbed…  20,000 feet below the summit, yet armed with the best climbing gear and support I can get my hands on.  Our immediate future should be interesting indeed.

Where are you?

So where does all of this leave you?  How many of these pillars have been already constructed around you?  What have you done to help in that construction?  What do you see as the greatest challenges in this mission?  What can I or others do to help?  Are there other pillars that you believe I have missed here?

This post was initially intended to be a part of “Leadership Day 2009“ as conceived by Scott McLeod.  I am posting it at 1:30am on July 13th instead of on July 12th.  This is not to shabby considering my two baby girls thought that since it is technically summer here…  it should feel like it today.

Artwork

This post begins with a bigfat pointyfinger toward a recent post on Dean Shareski’s blog: “Ideas and Thoughts.“  The title was so fitting that I couldn’t bring the idea without it somewhat as well.

Nuts & bolts

Though I took the post pretty lightly through the first paragraph, I then started seeing the relevance of this in my world.  The post rants away at the fact that so many people take technological tools at face value-  rarely digging down beyond default settings to see what all the tool might actually be able to do.  By actually changing each potential setting to fit the needs of the user, the device becomes a much better tool in the hands of the owner.  Always seemed pretty simple to me.  In fact, at one point in the post he describes working with students who were all using smartphones.  He noted that the students in that setting who were familiar with the customization of the device were much more satisfied users.

“I told them to start thinking like hackers. I asked them to think of their devices in terms of what it should be able to do rather than only what it does.”  ~Dean Shareski

These stories made my brain go in two directions, really.  One was a nuts & bolts connection where I realized how purposefully I take teachers new to the MacBook Pro (our weapon of choice) almost directly to the System Preferences pane before beginning any real work.  In my comment on Dean’s blog I spoke of this in a bit more detail.  Towards the end of my rather lengthy comment, I took the idea of defeating default settings (much as Dean vaguely suggested at the end) to its other destination in my brain.  That is, when we as teachers immediately jump purposefully and directly into a new world with new possibilities that we truly feel control over, then we can move into new dimensions.

And beyond

The next pointyfinger goes here.  By the time I read this post, Will Richardson had just dropped a post that seemed to take the seeds of that idea into full-blown question.  Entitled “If We Could Start Over, What Could We Build?“, the piece references a 2000 CITE article and looks at how nearly true reform is when it is retrofitted over the top of what we are currently doing.  To me, the difficulties of this are immediately apparent.  In fact, a book I am reading right now speaks, at least metaphorically, to the problems with building cumbersome entities on top of existing ones as a quick fix for the immediate moment.  While the book, (Kluge by Gary Marcus) speaks about the human brain’s construction and modification throughout evolution, school leaders at any level will likely be able to draw parallels with their situation.

Again, repeating my deeper connections to some of these ideas here seems silly when reading the referenced post/commentary in context makes better sense.  So therefore, I won’t do a repeat here.  But suffice it to say, I state my quite practical belief in finding ways to make this sort of “system redo” possible.  To me, the only practical way to hit reset and start anew within your own complex system today, is to build a pilot.  Pilot programs that are allowed the charge of innovation can truly create a fishbowl of study in your neck of the woods.  Do it differently.  Do it now.  Think hard, set something up…  then set about doing it.  Don’t just talk about what it would be like if you followed another approach, actually find out.  In science, we call this a controlled experimental setup.  In the rest of the world, we just call this smart practice.

“Pilot programs that are allowed the charge of innovation can truly create a fishbowl of study in your neck of the woods.”

Read both posts/comments.  And if you’re really adventurous, get the book.  Think of starting from scratch.  Think of rebuilding your system.  Think of rewiring your brain.  Hey…  if that all seems a bit much to you, at the very least think of changing the settings on your iPhone.  You might be surprised what all it can do!

Artwork

Shifting practices

Not long ago, the MS Office suite comprised the bulk of computer applications in the world of mainstream business.  I have to admit that as a career biology educator and instructional coach, I have precious little knowledge of the “real” business world.  That said, this past year I have found my work overlapping many trends in business as I explore the efficacy of collaborative online applications in education.  I am deeply interested in them as a framework for professional development as well as for classroom utilization.

“Yeah, but mainstream businesses aren’t using the Web 2.0 stuff…  those are mostly a few cutting edge companies with money to burn.”

How much more “mainstream” can you get than Best Buy?  Will Richardson pointed to the above video a couple of days back on Twitter, and I have held that browser window open since that time.  I really enjoy some of the language found within.  For example, one gentleman interviewed said that Web 2.0 applications allow the workforce to “…try a lot of different things, fail really fast, and then try things again.“  I dig that attitude in almost any endeavor.  To me it is pretty clear that being fearless and willing to innovate is a big plus in much of the business world as well as in education.  I also like the fact that another interviewee listed the following things as benefits to social media applications being implemented within the company structure:

• better loyalty
• less office politics
• ability to meet other individuals passionate about the same things
• ability to stretch an idea across an entire organization

Shifting schools

Now which of those things is not good as well for a school faculty?  Of course blind loyalty leads often to the Abilene Paradox, and this is never a good thing.  However, other than that, I’m betting that this list of four things is something all school administrators and staff would value in their world as well.

Those four items, as well as a few others, are a target of our school’s shiny new social network- Virtual Southside.  This site was piloted by a cohort of 20 teachers and administrators at Benton High this year in the midst of an academic technology integration program.  Starting next year, with our entire staff online in the program, this site will be a major part of how we conduct asynchronous staff professional development.  Today I interviewed several cohort members about the benefits of working within our social network this past school year.  A short list of their replies about our foray into social media is as follows:

• develop general comfort with social media
• ability to collaborate asynchronously
• differentiated professional development
• makes all staff a “professional developer”
• makes professional work transparent
• allows feedback from a wider dynamic of personalities
• provides an archival record
• creates an avenue for extrinsic motivation

Nearing the end of our first year employing social media in our school and in our classrooms, I am excited to see some of the benefits rolling in.  In my opinion, the featured video showing similar strategies in a mainstream business model provides another interesting nod to the value of utilizing these strategies with our teachers and students as well.  Are collaborative social tools being used currently where you work?  What role do you see for social media in our schools and with our students?

Artwork thanks:

*Thanks to Stephen Collins for the “fail gloriously” slide image.

Refocus

I’m certainly not the first person to utter that sentence in reference to the integration of modern technology into the world of education.  This was originally posted to our school’s professional learning network, Virtual Southside, here.

*Full size image linked in citation below.

Then what is it about?

Folks… our mission really isn’t about the “technology.” I think most of us are starting to come to that realization. I would love for you to weigh in on this assertion. I am becoming less and less fond of the “…if we’re gonna be the ‘technology school’…….” phrase. Are you?

To be honest, I never did want that. The reason we used the “technology” moniker is that: 1) it was largely “given” to us, and 2) it is familiar to all who hear it. As you know, familiarity can distort meaning. What we believe in is a move toward a student-centered, constructivist learning environment. The fact that we believe the best way to achieve this goal is through the integrated use of emerging 21st Century technologies… does not make us a “technology school.” A technology school is a school that is centered upon gadgets and tools. Some would say this is all “semantics.” I couldn’t disagree more vigorously.

Our goal as high school teachers is to deliver a relevant and rigorous curriculum laden with the concepts and facts of many different schools of knowledge… as well as (and perhaps most importantly) the processes of learning. “Technology” is not our curriculum. Nobody writes “use chalk here” in a curriculum guide, and mentioning any other technology will only date your work in about two years.  Technological tools are way to interact with said content and process… but they are only the curriculum itself in a scant few of our courses.

Honoring PD in this area for once

I never wanted us to “teach technology.” I have always wanted us to use modern and emerging technologies to access and extend our current curriculum. Are there times we need to directly teach the best uses of a tool? Yes, of course… but this is just the first tiny step.  The first waypoint in this mission is to ensure that we are collectively savvy as a faculty first.  Continuing to put laptops in the hands of kids, all the while skipping directly over the lead learners in the room is just…  wrong.  It is ineffective, irresponsible and wrong.  I’m so glad that we have a staff who believes in this important part of our mission.

Therefore, I would like to propose a new set of language about what we are doing as we move forth into year two of our initiative:

Really think about what this title says.

Finding our own way

I think the kids who have had the opportunity to interact with our cohort teachers this year are far more adept at accessing information and in finding creative new ways of demonstrating their learning than ever before. We have all absorbed that which we found most valuable throughout this first year. Our development should be allowed to be as close to the constructivist ideal we seek for the classroom.  Why wouldn’t we?  Some of us have even carried the torch directly into our classrooms at a very high level already. I have seen it with my own two eyes. The district “tech study committee” saw this as well in our classrooms in a recent walkthrough of our building.

With the coming summer of reflection and relaxed study, we will surely begin our second year far more prepared to bring this learning to our students in the classroom in a very regular and integrated way. What do you think?

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Bit ‘o setup

I think the TPACK framework is one of the most influential things I have learned about/grappled with this past year.  As an instructional coach in the middle of an educational technology implementation, this is one piece I have relied on heavily for personal focus and planning.

One thing I worry about with concepts of this depth (that possess a graphic illustration so perfectly simple) is that the real idea gets misinterpreted by any old joe who does a copy/paste of the Venn diagram from a Google image search.  You’ll see what I mean in the diagram below.  I’m not saying the diagram is in any way off the mark.  What I am saying is that the visualization is so elegantly simple that I think for some it might not at first glance convey the sophistication of the concepts presented.  Would I change it?  Not one bit.  I think it is a really good example of distilled reality.  Judge for yourself:

When it works

However, this post isn’t just another nod toward the synthesis of visualization and concept present in the TPACK framework (formerly TPCK).  It is also about a brief and recent e-mail exchange between one of the originators of TPACK and I.  Punya Mishra, professor of educational technology at the College of Education at Michigan State University, has been a fixture in my blogroll since I started nashworld.  In my opinion, the TPACK framework is one of the few things in educational technology that you can truly hang your hat on.  Tools will come and go, popular methods of instruction will as well…  and content?  Content changes in the blink of an eye in 2009.  However, to me this framework is core to what we do (or should be doing) in education.  And with a mouthful like “technological pedagogical content knowledge,” it really does help to have a visual representation that nails it cold like this one does.

Inspiring connections

I honestly don’t remember exactly how I first found Punya’s blog, but I instantly connected to the eclectic nature of it.  Particularly, the fact that he is not only deep into edtech, but is also a huge fan of all things regarding the visualization of information.  I too am fond of creative and innovative ways of visualizing data of all types.  My mixed life as a generalist instructional coach (who also teaches biology and marine biology) is one that often blends strategies for learning data with methods of collecting and interpreting it.

From reading his brief but frequent posts sharing precious nuggets of visualization, I now think of his blog whenever I find one of interest that is new to me.  So just a few weeks ago, I sent a different sort of link that included a visualization about visualizations…  and to top that, it was bent and twisted into the familiar form of the “periodic table” of elements.  My knee jerk on this one was not favorable.  However, I thought I’d e-mail it to Punya to get his objective take.  What developed into a small back & forth via e-mail, then developed into a full-blown post confirming not only what I thought he might find, but then quite a bit more.  For a table about visualization methods, this could easily serve as an “anti example” itself.

Visualization risks

Punya makes the case that it works to do this in sort of a humorous way, and provides several examples in his article.  I even have an example of this hanging above the sink in my own classroom.  The Periodic Table of Fruits & Nuts was given to me as a gift back in the days when I taught an Honors-level Botany course to Juniors & Seniors.  We had fun with the poster.  In fact, it is quite pretty and really does display a ton of information.  But I always made sure to point out the massive misconception machine that it was… in taking the shape of the periodic table of elements.  The main point being, the table of elements is the shape it is because of the periodicity of the elements within.  I assure you there is nothing periodic about the latin names of fruits, nor the caloric value of the nuts in my poster.

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

~Plato

Upon more closely mining the site for the source of this document, I finally found the original paper by Ralph Lengler & Martin J. Eppler of the Institute of Corporate Communication, University of Lugano, Switzerland.  So, I suppose it makes sense that this does not have roots within the natural science community.  All scientific inaccuracy, and creation of misconception aside, the authors apparently realized a few of the limitations themselves.  The conclusion on page five states that the chart, “…cannot be seen as a close adaptation of the periodic table of chemical elements. It is rather a functional, metaphoric homage to it.”

However, the Plato quote above was lifted from another paper linked to the site, from the same university, entitled: “The Risks of Visualization.“  It seems that this second paper might have some further suggestions for the first, huh?  There are some other interesting non-examples presented in this paper.  Check them out toward the end of you have time.

What is happening?

Are you doing this at all?  If so, how do you address visual literacy in (or out) of your curriculum?  What do you do to help students acquire skills in this area?  What supporting sources do you use?  Do you have a colleague who is doing this really well?  Have them weigh in.  I want my kids to be visually literate.  I think addressing this by the time a student is 18 is important.  I think I personally have a reasonable level of skill in this area.  I try my darndest whenever possible to address visual literacy.  However, this is a far cry from being organized, efficient, and well-equipped to do so.

“Play game, ‘puter game… play ‘puter game… gaaaame… yayyy!”

My almost-two year old has a thing for letters and numbers.  That, of course makes me delighted because from there, everything is exciting.  I spend my professional life trying either to help teenagers find excitement in the natural world or colleagues find excitement in refining their practice.  Those two groups of people in my professional life have little in common with preschoolers.  Yet, the content carrots I have to work with there are far more thrilling than the bare bones geometric shapes and associated sounds of letters and numbers.

Now, it is here that I must tell you (as if you didn’t know) that I am no kind of authority on early childhood education.  I have spent nearly 18 years as a teacher or an instructional coach.  However, those years have been spent working in secondary education.  I have developed a really healthy love of the process of learning itself, but I walked to the plate in 1991 swinging a love for science.  Now that I think about it, I suppose there would be a bit of overlap in a Venn diagram of those two entities.  I have now spent less than two years on a case study of early childhood education.  How could I not?  Instructional coach + new father = easy fit.  That said, I welcome the comments here of anyone and everyone who might carry a bit fatter portfolio of educating children.  Please allow me to extend the educational technology discussion down a grade level or ten.

So let’s get back to the leadoff quote.  Yes, that is exactly what our little beast now exclaims when either of us sits down by her with laptop in hand.  In reality, all it takes is the slightest hint.  What on Earth is she speaking of while in the throes of such excitement?  Starfall.  She is fired up about the online reading site at Starfall.com.  This is not a new site.  It was founded well prior to the “Web 2.0″ boom around 2004.  If you are an early childhood educator -and computers don’t frighten you- you likely already know about Starfall.  Since this is not my largest reader demographic, allow me to point most of you in this direction.  Even if you don’t have your own larvae at home, you can certainly share this link with friends who do.  They might just thank you.

At Starfall, you will not be blown away by slick graphics nor amazing audio.  What you will find is a rather engaging little site for curious tykes that seems to be very sound at what it does.  What does it do?  It provides a version of online reading instruction starting with ABC’s and moving on to various levels of early reading.  The ABC’s introduce students to the sounds of letters (phonemes).  Learn to Read teaches students how letters are combined to create words.  The simple animations associated here are quite good as the letters (always pronounced by a child’s voice) move closer together as they become a word.  The It’s Fun to Read section uses learning activities to begin simple sentence construction.  Finally, I’m Reading uses plays, myths and folk stories to increase fluency.

How well does it work?  I honestly have nothing to compare to.  My little girlie could identify all letters by sight when she was 18 months old.  She has delighted in the phonemes for each of the letters, and is starting to identify simple words.  Is this website the only thing she has explored in that time?  Certainly not.  Erin & I read and read and read.  That’s pretty much what happens in the family room.  Whether we are reading to ourselves, or to the babe, we read tons…  and much of it is online.  Our little bookworm even finds little corners in the house to hide away and “read.”

Will Starfall raise a child through the screen of a laptop?  Not so much.  Will it help out in the early stages of learning to read?  I certainly think so.  It is a very cool part of the puzzle.  In fact, my wife just remarked about how she also first began to actually nail down colors and numbers as a side effect of several of the mini-lessons on the site.  I guess watching mom & dad work & play on laptops influences the way a child likes to learn.  She gets so fired up when we let her take center stage in front of the ol’ Mac and click her own way through the site.  No gift we have yet given her has been met with the enthusiasm this website has, and continues to deliver.  Ok, maybe Discovery Channel dinosaur flicks.

Check out Starfall.  Copy the link to anyone in your world with small children.  Or really-  perhaps even older kids who struggle with reading.  I would be curious about that.  Are the animations & examples too young for somewhat older kids to gain from the program?  Or is this something that might be utilized in a school setting?  As I said above, my “expertise” with early-childhood education amounts to one case study with a 23-month old princess.  If you need a “testimonial,” link back to this page. Check it out.  Check back.  Let us know what you think here.

And oh…  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and many others.  May you all glow in the warmth of any celebration of light in the middle of Winter’s darkness.

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I will never forget my second year as a teacher when a student asked:  “Who is George Brett?” …in reference to a signed photograph on my wall.  So, mark 1992 as the first time I was blown away by the fact that my students were in some ways “not from my world.”  At the time, just two years removed from his third of three batting titles, I thought I had just experienced a travesty of justice.

I can drop a name here because I have cool kids who are quite open to learning.  So on Friday, when Chris asked, “where are the seeds in an orange?,” I was at first taken aback.  However, it didn’t take long to snap my brain back to the reality that today’s students do not come equipped with our experiences.  For those of you who have yet to an experience such a moment:  it is coming.  Honestly, the sooner, the better.  Perhaps the biggest mistake we can make as educators is to assume that our students have background knowledge and experiences anywhere in the neighborhood of ours.

This post  -really-  could go anywhere from here.  However, it is late and today I choose to cut to the chase and deliver the succinct message.  Chris thought oranges didn’t contain seeds.  Chris -and a ton of the kids in that class- had never seen an orange (or any other citrus fruit for that matter) with seeds.  As much as I think I know-  this hit me upside the head.  He said never.  They said never.  It seems that the preponderance of seedless fruits has all but overtaken the market since I last checked.  Who knows-  perhaps I just haven’t noticed because I understand how plants are born.

For the moment:  forget that “oranges” are fruits.  Forget that “fruits” are swollen ovaries that protect and deliver the next generation in the form of seeds.  Forget that seeds are structures that deliver the next generation unto the world.  Do remember that this kid…  and probably 70% of his classmates report that they have never seen…  never seen seeds within an orange.

So, though most of you reading this may be surprised, most Americans the age of our students are so distanced from the food they ingest, that it is:  you pick the astonished noun.

As a longtime instructor of a high school level botany class, I have seen this one coming.  Still, this one smacked me in the face.  These were some of our best, brightest and most observant students, and they were clueless as to the origin of those orange-colored orbs of goodness.

This post is about detachment.  Though a detachment that has little to do with technology as it related to information and communications technology (of which I so often write).  This has more to do with botanical knowledge, selective breeding technology, and just technology of planet Earth combined.  The bottom line?  Our kids are distanced from the natural world we (most of us reading this) grew up in.  This is perhaps the first generation of children that are so distanced from the food they consume.  Our kids think their food comes from an aisle in the local HyVee…  or perhaps a Price Chopper.

How do we fix this shortcoming?  Fellow science blogger (if I can lift myself to this level), Michael Doyle suggests this lesson plan that will likely never be delivered.  I agree.  However, it would likely do tons of good in the year 2008 for many many reasons.

I will never forget sitting in for an address by Richard Louv at the 2007 NSTA in St. Louis.  What is funny is that my wife (also a biology teacher) purchased a copy of Louv’s Last Child In the Woods earlier that same day without realizing it.  In this book, Louv proposes the idea of nature deficit disorder.  In extreme summary, Louv proposes that we are the first species that has raised its young almost totally dismissed from nature.  By this generation, at least.  Kids don’t venture outdoors.  Kids don’t play away from their parents.  Kids don’t know anyone…  or currently have relation that still farm…  anything.  His keynote that day can still be found on video here.

The quest for calories is equal to a walk down the aisle of the local grocery superstore.  The living organisms that gave their lives to nourish us are so far removed that we are clueless as to their connections to our daily lives.  For the first time, instead of battling through boredom by lying still beneath a neighborhood tree and staring up to watch the leaves blow in the wind, we plug up the Xbox and be-still their brains.

I am a huge proponent of technology as a positive force in the loves of our kids.  This, however, is a different story.  In teaching biochemistry and it’s relation to human nutrition in my Dual-Credit Biology class, I have learned where to focus the future springtime explorations into ecology.

Our kids are the leaders of our brave new world.  They are also the first who are so drastically distanced from the planet which nurtures us all, and are the ones who will make all future environmental decisions.

Our botany class did not “make” for the second year in a row due to an NCLB focus on “basics”.  My previous botany students are urban kids who at least get the basics.  What are the basics?  What should we teach?  Do we face a “brave new world” unprepared?  Yikes.  Where are the seeds in an orange?

And in a really odd conclusion… and to answer Dembo’s question…  Why do I blog? It is actually quite simple.  For synthesis.  I read things from talented and amazing people.  I work with amazing kids.  I have seen amazing things.  I put them together.  I blog.

Artwork thanks:

Weil, Gyorgy. “wguri’s photostream.” oranges. 17 MAY 2007. Flickr. 24 Nov 2008 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/wgyuri/501884430/>.

Duke, Jenifer. “dukeofnyc’s photostream.” Processed Food Night. 12 MAY 2008. Flickr. 24 Nov 2008 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/dukeofnyc/2487805379/>.

Which letters to use?

Call it what you like: “problem-based learning”, “project-based learning”, “project-based science”, etc. Heck, use an acronym if you want to come off as in-the-know (or snooty depending on who you ask). Regardless of your fondness for the names or symbols, they all surround a solid educational tenet: learning should be experiential. If you cannot provide kids with a particularly valuable experience, then engineer one. Allow virtual experience. Create experience by proxy. Ideas experienced are far better than ideas discussed.

Bottom line in naming almost anything: in order to market something, you can’t just market “something”. Simple enough? I thought so.

In my district, an administrative push toward constructivism in our secondary schools has come complete with labels. It is important to note that I do understand the need to possess a common language. Getting to the heart of any issue is simpler if the involved parties do not have to talk the long way around issues. Get a common set of terms, figure out what they mean, inform all parties, stick with them. I get it.

However, I would assert the thing that gets lost in translation here is the commonality. Science inquiry, reading and writing workshop models, math investigations, and problem or project-based approaches in social studies…  are all learner-centered constructivist approaches. In reforming curricula for school toward the 21st Century, it is important -in my opinion- to focus on student ownership and engagement. Omission of these facets risks an educational system that is even more disconnected for future students than it is for so many today.

The rub

However, there are arguments that fly in from both sides on this issue and they can be quite direct at times. Even a quick search will net individuals and groups who contend that constructivist practices are the hope for the future, and at the same time, the bane of the current day.  Both sides of this argument hold merit.  How can this be, you ask?  Usually when pure arguments fall flat either way, it is due to the fact that the reality is far more complex.  I would go so far as to say that the only people likely failing our children today are delivering instruction in a completely laissez-faire or purely direct way.

If you could just sign the dotted line on your teacher contract and follow one or the other school of thought until the day you retire with little thought, then you could argue that teachers might be paid too much.  In reality, those reading this blog likely know that this is simply not the case.  Learning, and thus teaching, is an incredibly difficult and nuanced endeavor.  My biology background allows me to see human beings as the complex entities that they really are.  Perhaps that is part of my personal angle into charting a path for my students.

My personal approach

I would suggest that my classroom is as constructivist-leaning as possible in secondary science in my corner of the world.  We try to focus on process over content.  As a generalist instructional coach in a high school, I have been perhaps able to more quickly make a move further down the constructivist pipeline considering I have to prep for far fewer classes.  In fact, all you have to do for a glimpse of this reality is peek into a classroom reflection from October 24th.  To be perfectly honest, October 24th of this year marked the first day where what most would refer to as “direct instruction” was utilized in my classroom.

My students are “big kids” and I tend to let them in on these decisions.  It is interesting here to see how many of my students were huge advocates for the “direct instruction” approach to biological molecules.  Even kids who had been brought along this year with nary a hint of teacher-driven content still harbored a longing for it.  However, perhaps they just inherently knew that this was a curricular piece where they would have floundered at first on their own.  We talk about scaffolding in class.  They get it.  They also get those instances where the gap between the curricular goal and background knowledge is just too large to scaffold in an appropriate time period.

I would have to say that has been building for some time.  A favorite friend and coach (Jincy Trotter) and I, years ago, would lament how our practices at the beginning of the year would leave us “behind” most of our colleagues.  Though we knew we were bringing our kids into the fold the best way we collaboratively knew how, we still felt pressure to “keep up” with the curricular bullet train.

In a constructivist classroom

*The following suggestions are from In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms by Brooks & Brooks, 1993, and were adapted by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory in 1995:

Student autonomy and initiative are accepted and encouraged.
By respecting students’ ideas and encouraging independent thinking, teachers help students attain their own intellectual identity. Students who frame questions and issues and then go about analyzing and answering them take responsibility for their own learning and become problem solvers.

The teacher asks open-ended questions and allows wait time for responses.
Reflective thought takes time and is often built on others’ ideas and comments. The ways teachers ask questions and the ways students respond will structure the success of student inquiry.

Higher-level thinking is encouraged.
The constructivist teacher challenges students to reach beyond the simple factual response. He encourages students to connect and summarize concepts by analyzing, predicting, justifying, and defending their ideas.

Students are engaged in dialogue with the teacher and with each other.
Social discourse helps students change or reinforce their ideas. If they have the chance to present what they think and hear others’ ideas, students can build a personal knowledge base that they understand. Only when they feel comfortable enough to express their ideas will meaningful classroom dialogue occur.

Students are engaged in experiences that challenge hypotheses and encourage discussion.
When allowed to make predictions, students often generate varying hypotheses about natural phenomena. The constructivist teacher provides ample opportunities for students to test their hypotheses, especially through group discussion of concrete experiences.

The class uses raw data, primary sources, manipulatives, physical, and interactive materials. The constructivist approach involves students in real-world possibilities, then helps them generate the abstractions that bind phenomena together

While Jincy & I were busy turning kids on to the beauty of science, assessing their prior knowledge and experiences, engaging them in collaborative situations to teach classroom procedures, and building rapport, our friends nearby were blazing ahead on the prescribed pathway.  Though we mostly caught up by year’s end, we preferred to err on the side of deep student engagement and learning as opposed to curricular coverage.

Original purpose

So perhaps the real bottom line here is that I suck as an educational blogger.  I have been doing this for so little time that whenever I want to drop a cool link on my readers, I end up attaching 18 years of experiential baggage.  Honestly, once again while I read the GenYES blog by Sylvia Martinez, I felt moved to write.  Her post entitled:  What Makes a Good Project inspired me to scribble a few lines in the direction of project-based learning.  Look at what that got me. I guess succinct is just not my style

So to cut to my original goal, the document Sylvia refers to is located here in .pdf format.  This document outlines “eight elements to guide great project design.”  I would have to agree that these are all solid things to consider when planning a project or problem-based learning experience.  The article references Seymour Papert’s constructionism.  This is a very closely-aligned idea in many ways.  The “questions worth asking” is also an important section, especially from the perspective of a coach.  Outside consultation is always a valuable commodity in any worthwhile undertaking.

The important thing to keep in mind here, which is one of the criticisms of “project”-based learning, is that often in these classrooms, the approach means less than the “product”.  If this is your hang-up, then be sure to key in on this quote while you take this article in:

“…artifacts are commonly thought of as projects, even though the project development process is where the learning occurs.”

To me, the bottom line is that this type of learning is often deeper, richer and more memorable than other approaches.  It takes longer to develop.  Even with a thorough understanding of the ways in which a curriculum can contain both coverage as well as depth, this is no easy task.  Our secondary schools largely contain content experts with a smattering of pedagogical input throughout their brief teacher certification experience.

Connect

So to the millions of content experts without a background in curriculum, hang in there.  Creating a learning environment where the prior knowledge of students is honored is a big step.  Respect of student autonomy and initiative should be encouraged, as well as higher-level thinking and rich student dialogue about content and understanding.  If you are feeling frustrated about a curricular piece that doesn’t seem to fit this approach, it very well may not.  Our curricula have input from many outside influences and implementing one approach to solve all issues rarely works.

If you wonder where, when and how constructivist practices should be implemented into your classroom, find a consultant.  Find someone to help you reflect along the way.  Grab the shirtsleeve of your coach, call your curriculum coordinator, bug an experienced colleague.  Whatever you do, find someone.  Implementing engaging and rich experiences for our kids deserves the best collaboration and reflection you can get your hands on.

What do you call constructivism in your corner of the world?  How do you manage student vs. teacher generated elements of your practice?  Weigh in if you dare…

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:

History was the talk of the day today.  It all started with Barack Obama’s inspirational late-night victory.  It evolved into a lunchtime chat with the Apple folks about an educational technology revival in our district.  The icing arrived in a conversation about writing and publishing in the aisles of a local grocery store.  I don’t know… if yet another dose of motivation comes my way, I might just just pinch myself for a bit of reality check.

I don’t know when I’ve seen so many Americans so happy on so many television stations.  I didn’t realize what a breath of fresh air this would really be.  There is power in inspiration.  There is power in promise.  There was a snap in the step of a real majority of Americans today.

Lunchtime brought conversations of revival.  However, this was a revival of purpose surrounding the implementation of rigorous technology-integration standards within our school system.  I attended an Apple “21st Century Learning Leadership Institute” in Omaha.  I was a member of a team of three.

Our technology curriculum specialist, building principal and I spent two days learning about Omaha Westside High School’s journey into a 1:1 computing environment over the past five years.  We could have certainly used a few more members in our study group, but the trip was an overall success in learning.

I capped the evening in a conversation while grocery shopping at the local HyVee.  Near the frozen foods section, I ran into a retired communication arts instructor who worked for years in my building.  I never did get the opportunity to be a true colleague of Donna Jean Boyer.  Her career in education ended at about the time mine was beginning.  She is a beloved teacher and was a well respected member of the Benton High School faculty for 38 years.  Donna Jean has since been a St. Joseph Councilmember since 1998.  She is now the senior member on the current city council.

Donna and I know one another, but mostly from afar since there was no real overlap in our careers in education.  So, you can imagine my surprise when shortly after “hello,” she greeted me with, “I have been reading your blog.”  Wow.  I have to tell you, that was weird.  I know my current colleagues at Benton read these entries.  I know folks in states and countries afar read them as well.  I have electronic data and warm commentaries to document those interactions.

However, running into someone local who “accidentally ran across” this blog and started to read, is not something that has happened to me.  How fun is that?

We chatted for some time about writing, teaching and technology integration.  It was a fun conversation.  Not only did I get to share the new technology staff development network at my school, we talked about the value of publishing.  In fact, Ms. Boyer related the past impact of simple computer-based word processing on writing education.  She explained how she saw a huge increase in student engagement when -all of a sudden- student writing could look instantly-professional.  The very act of seeing their own words and ideas in an instantly glossy format was empowering at a point in history.

Of course, there would never be a substitute for substance, but never discount the power of a nice sheen of gloss on a rigorous piece of work.  Paying $100 for a fresh coat of wax on a ‘76 Maverick might be a waste, but it certainly looks compelling on a Ferrari.  There has been some discussion of these ideas in my community as of late.

Towards the end of our conversation, I explained to Ms. Boyer about how I believe I am seeing a very similar reaction to my students given the still-recent phenomenon of instant publishing.  The fact that web 2.0 features are now being used to leverage student empowerment via publishing is exciting.  The novelty of on-screen writing has likely worn away long ago, but this next edge is always just around the corner.  I ended our chat by relating my enthusiasm toward professional writing on this blog.

I starkly remember the stinging feeling of the rejection letter I received in response to the first poem I ever submitted for print publication.  I can be a pretty stubborn person, but that hurt.  I am a biologist.  I am a teacher.  I am a colleague.  But that experience pointed toward the fact that I was not a writer.  Rejection was tough.  I didn’t feel any less of a person, but I certainly didn’t feel like a writer.

Driving home from the store, it hit me:  post it, Sean.  You tell people every day about the virtues of today’s instant web publishing.  Yep.  I’ve been writing here since April and this one never occurred to me.  I think I will post it after all.  Who cares about its merit?  It meant something to me.

So here’s to healing.  Here’s to healing myself as a creative writer-for-fun.  Here’s to a potentially nation-healing election.  Here’s to the birth of true technological pedagogy in our school district.  Here’s to swallowing your pride and giving a nod to the century of the everyman…

AND YOU ARE SO SMALL

I bathe in the pale silver moonlight

I smile as it looks

Down upon me

The moon feels my mood

Tomorrow I celebrate the burning of the sun

As it casts its radiant glance

Down upon me

Largest of all things

And you, you are so small

Yet when your smile burns

Its way into my heart

You seem larger than the heavens.

So take that, 20th Century.  You hold us all back less and less as the days go by.

Artwork thanks: