Point A to Point B

Category: Learning

  • Ten Year Plan: One-to-One Programs Are Not Worth It

    Perhaps I’ve gotten your attention with the title. Please take the time to think about what’s on my mind here. If I look out over the next ten years, pushing and prodding toward better learning, dedicating time and resources to implementing a one-to-one computing program is not worth it. That is not to say that one-to-one computing is not a worthy goal. In fact, it is the only goal. Anything we do or say revolving around better learning and technology means that the learners have to have the technology access. We do not talk about one-to-one teacher programs. Be it a desktop or laptop – most every teacher has access to computer technology. Why then would I say student one-to-one computing solutions are not worth it? Simple…

    Students are coming to school right now, today, with their one-to-one computing device.

    cellphone.jpgJust about every cell phone out today has not only voice, but data access, a camera, and more capability overall than computers of just a few years ago. I further think that the cell phone, or smart phone as prices come down, as a one-to-one device will not be affected by the digital divide seen in schools. While the schools that many students walk into may not be digitally equipped, the students mostly are.

    Some states, and a number of districts, are investing heavily in laptop programs for students. The overhead in managing such programs is huge. Juxtapose that with the simple, powerful tool already in students hands that they use constantly while out of school, and what you get is a win-win situation. Cost of management of cell phone as technology tool – minimal; value – priceless (with apologies and credit to MasterCard).

    Would such a solution be viable in elementary schools? No. Middle Schools? Maybe (upper grades especially). High School? You bet. If I were to accept a student response to a class question that has correct grammatical construction, capitalization, etc. but was typed with all thumbs, should that matter?

    Here is one scenario that is young in thought process, but I think worthy of conversation. A school has a building-wide access phone #, and each individual class in the schedule has an extension #. A student walks into 2nd period English, and upon seeing the warm-up activity on the LCD projector, dials into the class, and texts his/her responses to the warm-up activity. In this case it is a daily edit, and the teacher watches as the responses from the students appear on screen, making comments as they appear. Since the students have linked to the class right at the beginning, attendance is done automatically with no intervention by the teacher. Instruction on the particular topic, along with feedback from every student, occurs within three minutes of class beginning.

    Now, the other side, better know as reality. How do we manage an environment where students use cell phones as a learning tool? How do we keep them focused on learning, and not messaging, bantering, bullying, or distracting? I do not have the answers, but I think this is where we should spend the time, energy and money for the next ten years. My motto is that a school is people. learning. The people in this case, the students, need to learn how to manage and interact appropriately and effectively within the context of being connected. We need to focus on how to get them there.

    There are a whole host of issues to think about in order to make a cell phone as learning tool workable, but that is a far better conversation to focus on. In this scenario the tool is owned by the learner, and the school does not have the exorbitant management costs. There will still be some equity issues to deal with, but even if some schools had to provide cell phone devices, that is a vastly different cost/maintenance issue than with computers. Will schools still need comptuers? Of course. So will students at home. However, if we want to focus on the best value for anywhere, anytime learning, the cell phone is the direction I believe we should proceed in.

    Image citation:
    JonJon2k8. “Cell Phone.” Flickr. 31 Dec. 2006. 23 Mar. 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/jonjon_2k8/340305918/>.

  • TechYES

    We introduced the TechYES program to a pilot group of students today. The Gifted Programming teacher and myself are taking a group of 12 students through the certification process this semester to get a full understanding of how this can work. The initial reaction from the students was very positive. When they understood that THEY get to pick the project, and that THEY drive the learning, they were very excited. The TechYES program puts the students in charge of what and how they learn. We spend so much time (appropriately) helping teachers learn and integrate technology, in hopes that it will transfer to the students. In this model, the students and the learning are the focus – what a refreshing and direct approach!

    There are many things we need to learn as we try this out – more related to how a full scale roll out would be managed with an entire grade or school – 12 is an easy number to deal with but plenty to start :-).

    I’ve been following and impressed with the GenYES folks for a while, and their work is worth the time to investigate. I’m looking forward to some great projects!

    Powered by ScribeFire.

  • Sage Advice

    During our Monday morning school reading period, I like to read through the pile of educational technology magazines that normally stack up (and until we began this reading time were often ignored…). Top on the pile this week was Edutopia (one of my favorites). In the monthly feature, Sage Advice, the question put to readers was, “What would you teach a teacher?”

    The first two responses (both from New Yorkers, BTW) are:

    1. Realize you are in the people business! (Dan Murray, Principal, Wheatland-Chili Middle School)
    2. Never stop learning. (Kristen Montgomery, English Teacher, Canajoharie High School)

    There it is again – my mantra – A School is People Learning. The other responses were excellent as well – its just that the first two rang especially true for me.

  • Raw Materials for the Mind

    I just finished David Warlick’s book, Raw Materials for the Mind. David is a terrific writer (and speaker) and lays out how the digital age has transformed how we can (and should) learn. Two of his summary points stand out:

    Citing Sources (p.192):

    1. Always cite your sources
    2. Seek permission when possible

    Seek Professional Development (p.288-9):

    • Form a community,
    • Set goals,
    • Continue to learn, and
    • Share.

    While both of these concepts are basic, they are at the foundation of learning. Also, they have nothing to do with technology specifcally. They apply to the basic tenets of learning from the beginning of time. All technology has done is provided new access in new ways to information and people. We have spent a lot of time getting distracted by the latest cool tools, and gotten away from the business of learning. There is a ton of great information on technology tools in this book which is worth the read, but at the end of the day, its about learning.

    Book citation:
    Warlick, David. Raw Materials for the Mind. Raleigh, NC: The Landmark Project, 2005.

  • A School is People Learning: Revisited

    Forgive me for waxing a bit philosophical here, but I want to spend a bit of time revisiting my mantra for education…A School is People Learning. I first wrote about it here during NYSCATE last year, and reaffirmed it here just before this school year started. This year’s NYSCATE brought it back again.

    At Milton Chen’s keynote, he showed the terrific video, Animal School. Take 5 minutes now to watch it if you have not seen it. I could not see the video very well during the keynote, and until it was just re-sent to me, I did not realize how powerful it is. It goes to the heart of our primary goal in schools – people. Our customers, our students, are the majority of the people in the school, and although they come in with unique talents, strengths, and weaknesses, it seems like all we do is teach to the test, and beat back all the things that will make each child do their best.

    There is no simple solution to making things better for every person, and we do an incredible amount here everyday to foster our students’ strengths. This video is a reminder for me to try just a bit harder, or try something different, because our students depend on us to. dog.jpg

    Image citation:

    Bondseye. Pose. Photograph. 2007. Flickr. 29 Nov. 2007 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/32731319@N00/492552952>.

  • Learning is Everywhere

    I continue to be amazed at how learning opportunities are all around, and sneak up when you least expect it. Tonight I was co-teaching an inservice class, and while watching my colleague demonstrate something, I was learning many new insights and ideas for a topic I was already familiar with.

    One of the great joys of teaching is that you get to be immersed in learning every moment of every day – what a fantastic job!

    teachingaboutelectricity.gif
    Image citation:
    “Teaching about Electricity.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 23 October 2007. <http://www.powermediaplus.com>

  • While We’re on the Topic of Science

    Following up immediately on the previous post, and speaking of great science teachers…

    Another lesson today was with Mr. Trombley and Mrs. Krieger (current gifted programming teacher and littlegirlreadingbook.jpg former science teacher). The three of us and another teacher are working together on our Professional Study Plans. We are in year 3 , which means we do some sort of study on improving learning. We have chosen to focus on the work of Robert Marzano and his Building Academic Vocabulary meta-research. This is a district initiative and we are using science (and math) classes to do our study.

    Today was the first time to introduce the study to the students. We administered a pretest using the CPS “clickers,” followed by a lesson on learning vocabulary with the Marzano method, taught by Mrs. Krieger. Today’s group is the “focus” group and next Tuesday is the “control” group. We will evaluate the results of the unit test to see if there is any difference in scores based on how the vocabulary is taught. Throughout this year we will be rotating the focus and control groups so all the students in the class have the same opportunities.

    Its really exciting to be able to work on projects such as this. It makes learning for everyone exciting!

    Image citation:
    “Little Girl Reading Book as Words Come off the Page.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 5 October 2007. <http://www.powermediaplus.com>

  • An Answer to the “Copy and Paste” World

    Just finished a lesson today with our excellent science teacher, Mrs. Merlino. She is starting a unit on photosynthesis, and we introduced the students to the notecard tool within NoodleBib. The notecard tool allows the students to copy and paste direct quotations from a source, and then provides scaffolding for them to put what they paste into their own words, and then create their own ideas from there. It is a straight forward process that has existed long before technology, but the simple-to-use interface and anywhere-access makes this a powerful and easy resource. Within 10 or 15 minutes of overview, we were having great conversations about the right thing – how to paraphrase, and form ideas and questions. The ease and power of this tool is great.powerful.jpg

    Man, I wish I had NoodleBib while I was in school!

    Image citation:
    “Dictionary Definition: Powerful.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 5 October 2007. <http://www.powermediaplus.com>

     

  • Harsh – But Gets the Ball Rolling…

    In David Warlick’s book Raw Materials for the Mind (4th ed.), he has the following quote in the introduction:

    “IT Departments do not work for the technology. They work for the teachers, to make sure that teachers can use the technology to produce the learning experiences that they know need to happen in their classrooms. ”

    I feel this statement is misdirected, but starts the correct conversation. We all struggle with networks that are tied down, filtered, and otherwise “safe.” The flip-side is an open, non-obstructed system, which is just not feasible. The Internet is a great, awesome, unbelievable source of networking and information. It is also a place of danger, mis-information, and viruses. We would do a disservice to our school community to not try to protect ourselves.

    I would suggest the correct statement reads as follows:

    (IT Departments) or (Educational Technologists) or (Administrators) or (insert whatever group here) do not work for the technology. They work for the learners, to make sure that learners can use the technology to produce the learning experiences that they know need to happen in the classroom.

    Note that I purposely did not make a distinction between teacher and student when referring to learner.

  • The Beginning

    My summer reading list did not get too long, but the books I read were awesome! See the recently read list in the sidebar at right for my book list. Interestingly, two of the books, totally different in nature, ended the same way. Each had as the closing, “The Beginning,” instead of, “The End.”

    Peter Reynolds “The North Star” is a simple, inspirational book about following your heart to where and what you should do in life. T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King” is a classic fantasy of the story of King Arthur. The reasons each of these made it on my reading are similar – they both invoke and reinforce a lifelong desire and committment to learning.

    Both books leave the reader with the sense of desire for more – the beginning of a journey. Both were great as a kick off to the new year. Having just finished the first day of the 07-08 school year, it really the beginning of an awesome new adventure – and only we can make it end up as we wish!