EdTech .. savior or demon?

I'll preface this post by saying that I have been an EdTech professional in K12 for 13+ years, in the same position as the first day I started my career in EdTech.  To boot, I've been in the same small district for my entire educational career.  I believe this gives me a certain perspective to watch our district evolve over the years.

For 13 years, I have been advocating more TRUE technology integration in our schools.  In my mind, we still aren't there yet and I'm not just speaking of my own district, but countless others.

TRUE technology integration is hard to define if you don't first have a solid belief on what TRUE learning is.  We struggled for years trying to convince folks that teacher-use of technology wasn't the end goal.  We've also struggled trying to convince folks that just because a kid creates a Powerpoint(less) presentation to regurgitate information, doesn't mean she has used technology to better herself. 

Over the last several years, I have seen an enormous swell of "Web 2.0" that educational folks have promoted for learning purposes.  I have seen the same swell in physical devices that promise the same.  The echoes of "this is where are kids live" still bounce around inside my mind.

My daily professional life collided today with my virtual one when a coworker sent me a link to Paul Barnwell's article in EdWeek.  I read the article and all of the comments, some of which touted that the title of the article was misleading.  One comment by Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) was reposted today on her own blog with additional commentary.

I'm writing tonight to say that I agree with both of them.  They both are looking for ways that technology can be used by our students to enhance their learning, to promote real thinking and problem solving.  They are finding ways to do this that are comfortable to them and their students.  Paul has seemingly abandoned the short and quick nature of social networking tools because he values deep prolonged thinking, citing blogs as a way to do this. Vicki has found a way to use those short posts as a stepping stone to greater learning. (If either disagree with my summary, please feel free to comment!)

EdTech is neither a savior or a demon.  First and foremost, it is a tool.  As with any other tool, if you don't use it appropriately, you won't get the desired results. Every educator should be ignoring the gimmicky attraction and ask first, how will this help my kids learn?

Twitter as Professional Learning?

I became a Twit on Nov 7, 2009.  I resisted this new form of social networking for a good deal of time, but eventually succumbed.  I had little activity in my new Twitterverse then, but decided around March of this year to engage once again.  Since then, I have found it to be a large source of my professional learning. 

I'm completely in love with Twitter for helping me learn new things and connect with others.  I still don't have a lot of tweets, I'm not following an enormous amount of people, and a modest amount of folks follow me.

Twitter can be intimidating.  Depending on who you follow, there may be more tweets than you can handle.  However, I've found that spending 5 to 10 minutes looking at a few tweets a day can lead to new discoveries. 

I've also found the #EdChat Tweet Chat enormously enjoyable and a profitable learning experience.  The tag is used for education musings everyday, but on Tuesday there are two different hour-long live chats focusing on particular topics.  Watching one of these is not unlike watching a popular IRC chatroom of days past.  Post a thought and see who responds or retweets.

Go ahead.  Meet new people, whether they be like or unlike yourself.  Contribute to a larger community.  Grow yourself as an educator.

Generation Gap

I'm back to writing about EdTech.

For years we have heard how our youth are much more savvy with technology than adults.  I read an interesting article today that reports research that suggests the contrary.  The study was done with college age students (I believe).  The findings include that the younger students are adept at using technology for social and entertainment means, but not so adept at using it for their own intellectual learning (as opposed to older students).

Also apparent to me (being a PK-12 educator) is the existence of  a good percentage of kids that indulge in social media, and technology in general, who don't necessarily use it appropriately (ethically, morally, legally, etc.)  This use is NOT due to the nature of technology, it is due to the nature of young people trying to find a place in the world.  Whether "real" or "virtual", it has always been the adults that are charged with helping our youth differentiate between danger and safety.  And, today, adults are largely unequipped to deal with these inappropriate uses.  Why?  Because even our adults have not embraced technology as a means for life-long learning.  The shame is that this is where our kids live and what are we doing to help them be literate in this "new world"?

As I see it, the generation gap is not defined by technology.  It is defined by the willingness to take risks.  Us old folks are less willing to learn new things, so we shy away from the exponential growth of new technologies.  Our youth embrace everything new, but they do it in a way that meshes with their interests and helps them connect with their world.  For a young person, this is primarily social.

Our adult population has adopted the social mentality as well, yet the adoption was a tad slower for the old folks.  Our adults have been mimicking the actions of our youth.  How many adults have reconnected with classmates of years past due to Facebook?  How many adults feel comfortable sharing pictures of their kids online, but aren't connected and share with a larger world to help them be better at their profession?

We owe it to our kids to help them discover the wonderful opportunities technology affords and to teach them how they can use it responsibly. 

For more information on helping kids learn these lessons, check out Common Sense Media, or the Digital Driver's License.

It's time we all step into the digital age, stop using technology for purely social/entertainment purposes, and help our youth learn to respect the plethora of sharers in this world.

America's Future

It's dim.

Our country's future is entirely dependent on how our adults treat our youth.

I have high hopes, however, because I sense a small uprising in the education-world that seeks to overthrow the standards of the past, ready to adopt a new ideal of learning.  Truth be told, it is nothing new, just ask Socrates.

Our kids are great thinkers, from the day they are born.  Somewhere along their educational path, we suppress their innate ability to question, to be creative, and we teach them that they have to learn a set amount of facts so that they can pass certain tests. We are here today, I believe, because of our need for competition in America.

I had a rather confrontational conversion tonight about the value of competition.  I was told that my views are Socialist.  Maybe I am when it comes to educating our youth.  Competition CAN be good, but when the playing field isn't level, it isn't fair, and the result is a young person's self-deflation in their abilities.

In education, cooperation/collaboration is far more effective than competition.

When certain jobs are being outsourced to other countries (whether high or low skill), as Americans, we ALL need to critically analyze how we can secure our future.  Do we want our youth to be able to find jobs when they graduate or live with their parents?  Do we want our youth to work for peanuts or find a career that promises both personal satisfaction and financial security?

We won't level the playing field in education unless a lot of changes are made, among these are:  

1. Eliminate any discrepancy for basic needs (food, shelter, clothing)... [believe, me, I know, there are huge issues with this for all sorts of political parties.]
2. Put way more emphasis on learning how to learn instead of memorizing facts. [i.e. put less emphasis on standardized tests that mostly assess low-level thinking; put less emphasis on evaluating teachers and schools on their performance on said tests.]
3. Understand that the profession of teaching is just that.  Teachers are PROFESSIONALS.. educated and devoted to helping our youth learn.
4. Understand, that in America, public education (and education across the board), is a SERVICE job.  Teachers are not in the profession for profits.  They are in the profession to help kids learn.

America's future entirely depends on it's BOLD stand that education needs to change.  The change lately, however, has been sprinkled with more of the same low expectations and false assumptions on what makes education better.  We don't need new standards.  We don't need more tests.  We need the freedom to help every young person to grow wings so that they can be successful adults.

Lights out,
Nik

Ignoring the Blog

Short post tonight.

I've been ignoring my blog for the last week.  Why?  You may have guessed: state testing.  This week in particular, much of my day is be spent helping out with our high school computer-based testing.  It's been pretty smooth so far, but it is oddly exhausting.  I've found myself very sleepy before the school day is even over, so my evenings are largely a waste in any intellectual thought.

I've avoided posting, because I'd end up saying something about standardized testing at a moment in time when we need all folks positive and doing their very best.   <sigh>

One good thing, I've been able to continue my reading of Finnish Lessons.  You can read my thoughts about it here and here.  When I'm done, I'll post the final part 3.

From Ballet to Rocket Science, And Back Again?

As any good mother (with the means) does, my mom involved me in activities in my youth to expose me to a variety of interests.  At a very early age, this involved ballet lessons, I'm sure among other things, but I really don't remember those lessons.  Perhaps I don't remember them because they were short-lived, maybe a few times before my mom realized I was more interested in watching the butterflies flitting around the room than listening to my instructor.  I had private lessons in piano that I do remember, but never pursued that either.  I had my own interests in the arts by my middle and high school years. I was pretty darn good with the flute and piccolo in MS.  In HS, I pursued, unprecedented at the time, to take a vocational art class for only one hour of the day which was and still is normally a half of the school day.  My main interests in my later adolescent years and teens were purely analytical pursuits.  I clearly liked math and science more than I did the arts.

Tonight I read an interview with Yong Zhao:  Will the Common Core Create World-Class Learners?  What resonated with me was Yong's response to the "single high bar" question:

In fact, I would argue a single bar in itself is discriminatory because it favors one type of ability over others, while other abilities may be as valuable. For example, a newly arrived immigrant may not do as well as native born students in English but she has already spoken another language. By judging her ability in English only, she would be "at-risk." Likewise, if a child is musically talented but may not do well in mathematics, if using a single bar, he would be "at risk" in math. Like Albert Einstein once said: "if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Or imagine judging a swimmer by how high he can jump and training him as a jumper.

Fast-forward from the early years of butterflies and ballot, to my Junior year in high school, when the guidance counselors started talking to us about choosing our future careers.  The message seemed to be, "choose wisely because this is what you will be doing the rest of your life."  We were told we had to make this decision within the next year because we would be filling out college applications.  We even had computer-based tests that would tell us what career we were most suited for.  I think the computer told me I should be a florist.

I chose my first 6 years of college after many talks with with my parents about career choices.  Because I liked both art and math, architect was an idea tossed about at one point.  My choice was conceived when my my mom told me the ballet story, how I watched the butterflies and that maybe I should study aerospace.  While many mathematical/analytical areas of study may seem dry and uninteresting to most folks, this particular one intrigued me.  I still find enormous beauty in flight, whether nature-made or human-made.

Yong's comment left me wondering at what age can we tell what a child is meant to do?  And, in the meantime, what is the responsibility of educators to help children discover those interests?  Does the common core help our youth discover their interests or not? 

I don't know if "standards" led me to where I am today, but I do know that my academic experiences helped to make me a better learner. 

Yet, I did not become a rocket scientist, even though I get to tell people that I'm a non-practicing one.  Nor did I become a florist or an architect.  I was an adult when I decided to become an educator.  While I'm not always very graceful and from time-to-time I fall, I found myself dancing once again.

The F Word

As educators, at this very moment, we are standing at the precipice; we are looking over the edge wondering if we will plummet or soar.  We face many challenges and unfortunately for the majority of educators we feel powerless to address them.  Challenges such as poverty, negative public opinion, popular media touting choice, the elimination of funding for things such as professional development... ooo, sorry, I said the F word... Funding.

Do I think we could do more with less?  Yes, I do.  Only because I think, as a nation, we are pushing for unfounded programs with unfounded ideals at the heart. 

As an EdTech professional today, I've enjoyed a variety of challenges myself.  Technology in my district and in my state is woefully underfunded.  I can't speak for other districts, but for my own, we have done very well to date.  And, I believe, our state has led the nation in technology infrastructure for quite a while. Times are changing though.  The state has had cuts on their end for years and they have tried to absorb the cuts themselves through eliminating staff and other means.  The cuts have continued and now local districts are facing lower state funding for technology and less funds to support our state Internet access (meaning less bandwidth for districts, i.e. slower speeds and sometimes outright inability to access).

Many of the initiatives we are promoting as a state and locally are entirely dependent on technology.  These are online programs for teachers and students. What good are they if we don't have the money to purchase the necessary equipment or services to access them?  As an example, our district is participating in the online end-of-course assessments this year.  In order to do that, we are blocking a ton of sites to make sure we have the necessary bandwidth.  I also predict that in a couple years, we will not be able to test online due to the number of computers we will have available ... aging computers that cannot be replaced.  (Side note, do I think our tech money should be spent insuring that we can satisfy state testing ... NO!)

Besides the icky F word, Funding, I'd like to throw out a few more:

• Fortitude is an F word.  If you really believe in something, let others know, and educate them on why your view has merit.
• Fantasy is an F word.  As a society, we admire innovation, educators are not excluded in this equation.
• Freedom is an F word.  If you feel restricted, think about how you can change this. 
• Family is an F word.  The Internet has afforded educators a method for connecting with a larger community, take advantage of it!

I often end personal notes with "Always", but tonight I'll substitute it with:

Forever,
Nikkol