Dangerously Irrelevant

I have enjoyed serving as the first guest blogger for Dangerously Irrelevant.  I have benefited from the time to reflect on issues relevant to technology leadership in schools and I am reminded that thoughtful reflection takes time, something that many of us do not have much of.  I am going to use my last blog referencing a few websites that I have used in my teaching and service work with school leaders and teachers.  I am sure you have seen some of these, but I hope this introduces some of you to new and useful sites. As a parent of two young girls, I wanted to reference the starfall website because my daughters love using it as they learn to master reading.  Thanks for the opportunity Scott! DMQ

http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/

The IRIS (IDEA and Research for Inclusive Settings) Center for Faculty Enhancement was designed in response to a request from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs. This national effort, serving college faculty working in preservice preparation programs, aims to ensure that general education teachers, school administrators, school nurses, and school counselors are well prepared to work with students who have disabilities and with their families.

http://reinventingeducation.org

The Reinventing Education Change Toolkit, based on the work of Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, is a Web site created by IBM to help education professionals be more effective at leading and implementing change. The Reinventing Education Change Toolkit was created through the collaborative effort of Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Goodmeasure, Inc.  The Change Toolkit helps you to: Diagnose your situation, Get quick, relevant advice, Poll your colleagues and get anonymous feedback about your progress, Read real-life vignettes from other educators about their experiences leading and managing change, Plan for your change initiative or project, Collaborate with your team and hold on-line discussions.

http://www.starfall.com/

The Starfall learn-to-read website is offered free as a public service. We also provide writing journals and books at a very low cost that can be used with the website or separately. Teachers around the country are using Starfall materials as an inexpensive way to make the classroom more fun and to inspire a love of reading and writing. Primarily designed for first grade, Starfall.com is also useful for pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and second grade.

http://www.readplease.com

Read Please is a free downloadable text reading software program (PC only) that reads any text file aloud to students, e.g., text scanned into the computer with OCR (optical character recognition) software or downloaded from web sites, information posted on web sites, etc.

http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/home_tumblebooks.asp

Animated and narrated storybooks and games.

Miguel Guhlin invited me to be a guest blogger on the TechLearning blog. A couple of days ago I submitted my first post – I will be blogging for TechLearning the third Wednesday of every month. Below is an excerpt and a link to the full post. Thanks for the invite, Miguel!

Should schools allow teachers to use outside technology tools?

I’d like to kick off my guest blogging by raising again an issue I once blogged about long ago. Many educational technology advocates have been blogging about the need to enable teacher and student use of Web 2.0 tools – for example, see these recent posts by Wesley Fryer, David Warlick, Susan Brooks-Young, and Jeff Utecht. While I agree with them, I also want to highlight the essential conundrum that school administrators face: there are rarely ways in which school organizations can effectively monitor the use of many of these tools.

As I said in my long-ago post…

Schools and districts are required, both legally and professionally
/ ethically / morally, to monitor employee and student use of
technology tools when those tools are used for professional or
instructional purposes. School organizations that don’t must face the
legal and public relations ramifications of ignoring potential employee
/ student abuse of digital technologies. No school system wants to be
sued and/or highlighted in the news because it wasn’t effectively
safeguarding against sexual harassment, cyberbullying, dissemination of
inappropriate content (e.g., pornography), etc. via electronic
communication channels or online environments.

Some schools and districts are providing rich sets of tools for
teachers and students to use for classroom purposes. These tools
include e-mail accounts, network folders, web pages, parent portals,
online chat, online threaded discussion areas, online whiteboards,
online calendars, instant messaging, wikis, blogs, podcasts, and other
similar tools. No district, however, is making all of these tools
available to all teachers and, indeed, probably never can. The
incredible (and burgeoning) diversity of available tools is simply too
much for school systems to keep up with, more or less provide.

Many enterprising teachers thus are using (or would like to use)
tools provided by entities outside the school organization (such as NiceNet, Yahoo! Groups, Blogger, pbwiki, Flickr, and SchoolNotes)
to enhance the classroom experience. These tools typically are not
hosted by the school system, however, and there is no ability for
administrators to effectively exercise oversight over teachers’ and
students’ appropriate use of these tools. In many instances, school
leaders may not even know such tools are being used.

So administrators are essentially in a bind. If they don’t allow
usage of these tools, they become fodder for bloggers and other
educational technology advocates because they’re failing to tap into
the pedagogical potential of these creative technologies and ignoring
the future needs of students and society. If they do allow usage of
these tools, they run the very real and likely risk of inappropriate
usage, including usage that may incur legal liability and significant
financial costs for the school organization and the taxpayers that it
serves. I think it is important that we not downplay schools’
obligations in this area. Cyberbullying, sexual harassment, and other
inappropriate uses of technology are real and frequent occurrences by
both students and employees. Schools cannot abdicate their legal and
moral responsibility to monitor appropriate usage of technology tools.

As an educator, I desperately want to allow students and teachers to
use these wonderful new tools that are external to the school
organization. As an attorney, I’m struggling to figure out how to make
this happen.

What do you think schools should do to enable student and employee
access to these external tools while simultaneously fulfilling their
obligation to monitor and protect against abuses? Should administrators
just trust that instructional uses of these tools will be okay and deal
reactively with lawsuits / parent complaints / financial costs / media
feasts as they occur? Since there is no way that school leaders can
monitor all of the different tools that are out there on the Web,
should schools have a preemptive ban on all non-school-provided tools
because monitoring is literally impossible? What would appropriate
school policy and/or guidelines look like for these types of tools?
Does anyone have a good example of school- or district-level policy
language that deals with these issues?

This post is also available at the TechLearning blog.

(Seth Godin, The Big Moo, 2005, p. 36)

I just finished teaching my Thursday night class "Leading Change" and decided to blog about the changing paradigm of offering courses and entire programs entirely online or through a blended model using face to face and online instruction.  Over the last 4-5 years I have taught under a web-enhanced model.  Classes would still meet weekly but I used the web to provide additional opportunities for collaboration, uploading assignments, posting readings, etc.  This is a model that many professors use and I personally believe that it has been very effective. 

This past spring I taught my first completely on-line course – "Data-Driven Decision Making".  While I am a huge advocate for technology, I still believe in the power of personal interaction and the synergy that can emerge from a group of people deeply engaged in group discussions and activities.  I was somewhat trepidatious, wondering how I might engage students as meaningfully as I had within a classroom setting.  However, as the course progressed, I was extremely pleased with the level of dialogue and interaction that emerged among the 21 students in the class.  In a "good" face-to-face class meeting (like the one that I led tonight), students may deeply engage in discussions with four or five other peers, and may hear other classmates share out briefly in a whole group setting.  However, the online forums and wikis that I utilized in the DDDM class, allowed students to interact with all of their peers, not just a small group.  Many of my students commented that the depth of interaction in this online class was much greater than most of their traditional courses.  This didn’t just happen though. I put in much time preparing for the course and establishing expectations and norms to create a community of learners.  I have seen many of my own colleagues successfully transition to on-line learning.  I have also seen those who did not put the time and energy necessary for their on-line classes to be successful and the results were as bad as expected.

My preferred teaching mode is probably a blended approach.  I used this model this past summer to teach "Technology Leadership in Schools".  We met in a computer lab the first 6 class meetings and met face to face about every third scheduled class.  The remainder of the content was delivered in a similar method as my DDDM class with online discussions, wikis and other tech leadership related activities and assignments. 

I hope to continue teaching courses under these various modalities: online, blended,and face to face, because they acknowledge interactions needed for effective adult learning while utilizing new technologies to allow some of those interactions to occur from a distance.  Good night. DMQ

Since David posted about one of his data-driven decision-making (DDDM) projects yesterday, I thought I’d chime in with some info about a massive DDDM initiative underway here in Minnesota…

The Minnesota Statewide DDDM Readiness Study is an attempt to answer two basic questions:

• Are Minnesota teachers and administrators ready to engage in data-driven education?
• What needs do Minnesota educators have as they work to integrate data into their daily practice?

To try and answer these questions, paper surveys were sent out to every public school principal, superintendent, and technology coordinator in the state of Minnesota, including charter schools. In addition, surveys were sent out to five randomly-selected teachers in every public school building. Participants had the option to complete the survey online instead of on paper. A total of 13,850 surveys went out for this initiative; we’ve heard back from over 4,200 educators across the state. The next phase of the project hopefully will be to complete some follow-up interviews.

We’re currently doing the first round of data analysis. If you’re interested in the survey instruments themselves, they’re available here:

• Teacher survey
• Principal survey
• Superintendent survey
• Technology coordinator survey

We believe this is the first statewide DDDM needs assessment in the country and we are delighted that the Minnesota Department of Education saw fit to fund this project. If your state has interest in using the surveys we created, we have the ability to host those online for you. The general URL for the project is www.minnesotadatasurveys.org.

(Seth Godin, The Big Moo, 2005, p. 35)

I have learned much about data-driven decision making (DDDM) from Dr. Scott McLeod.  He is an acknowledged authority on DDDM and is especially knowledgeable about frequent formative assessment. My own interest in DDDM is focused on how individuals can use data to lead change in schools and create cultures that are more data-driven.  I wrote a monograph for NASSP in 1999 entitled "Using Data for School Improvement".  At the time I could see where the winds were blowing in the US in regards to school accountability.  Looking back, I don’t think I could have predicted how far along that continuum we have traveled.

In principle, most all of us believe in the ideals of DDDM which Scott has discussed extensively on this blog.  The problem is that for many policy makers and even educators, the only "data" that counts in DDDM are student test scores.  While I agree that academic success should be the primary focus, this perspective dismisses so much of what teaching and learning is really about.  My first grade daughter is an incredible artist (yes I am biased) and has been inspired by a wonderful public school art teacher for the last two years, but I worry that talent may not be nurtured in future grades because schools are divesting from art, music and other "non-academic" subjects to devote more resources for reading and math.

To investigate my interest in the relationships among DDDM, leadership, change, and school culture, I spent part of last year creating a survey instrument to assess teacher perceptions.  I have used the survey "Data-Driven Decision Making in Schools" in ten schools so far and I have begun factor analysis procedures.  One of the high school principals whose school completed the survey indicated that she has used the results to create her own professional development plan for personal growth.  She is building on her strengths as a leader of DDDM and is formulating action plans to address areas of concern.  I hope to conduct in-depth research and use this instrument to help school leaders understand teachers’ beliefs and learn what their teachers know or do not know about DDDM.  The initial data that I have analyzed does not paint a positive picture.  Not only are teachers lacking the knowledge about DDDM and concepts like frequent formative assessment. The data also indicate that teachers and even principals in many schools do not have access to the data that they need to make informed decisions about instructional practice. These are organizational and structural barriers that have to be addressed.

While educators sometimes complain about the application of business related research and theory to educational organizations, I have found much in this literature that has informed my work in DDDM.  I am especially impressed with the Balanced Scorecard concept by Kaplan and Norton and the practical application that it holds for education.  I am about to submit a manuscript for publication with one of my doctoral students, examining the relationship between DDDM and the Balanced Scorecard. Speaking of manuscripts, I have to take my leave to edit one now. DMQ

(Seth Godin, The Big Moo, 2005, p. 36)

I wasn’t planning on blogging about Art Levine, former President of Teachers College at Columbia University, however his latest "research" report entitled "Educating School Teachers" was just released and it is going to shake up teacher education colleges and programs just like his first report "Educating School Leaders" sucker punched educational administration programs in 2005. Some bullets from the press release relevant to this blog include:

• most education schools are engaged in a "pursuit of irrelevance," with curriculums in disarray and faculty disconnected from classrooms and colleagues. These schools have "not kept pace with changing demographics, technology, global competition, and pressures to raise student achievement.

• fewer than half of principals reported that education school alumni are very well or moderately well prepared to use technology in instruction (46 percent); use student performance assessment techniques (42 percent); or implement curriculum and performance standards (41 percent).

These two bullets would lead one to believe that his report would go on to address the deficits in technology integration in teacher education programs and make recommendations for improving the application and integration of technology.  However, after reading through the full 142 page report, the word technology only comes up 9 times and several of these are repetitions of previous sentences. So, this just seems to be more lip service and no substance.

I just had a revelation.  By nature, I am not overly critical of others but the act of blogging seems to bring out the inner critic in me.

These arguments about the lack of training around issues of technology are similar to those that Levine made about principal preparation programs.  While I believe Levine paints Colleges of Education with a broad brush and many have challenged his research methodology, he does bring to light many points that people like Scott and I have raised – for the most part we are not adequately preparing future teachers and school leaders to function in a world of ubiquitous technology.

I’m back. A big lightning storm just rolled through Gainesville so I shut down just in case.

I was going to blog about data-driven decision making tonight, but Levine’s report seemed an appropriate and timely topic.  DDDM tomorrow! DMQ

This is a post for those of you who work in, or have taken classes from, university educational leadership programs. Below is a statement from a recent e-mail exchange I had with a colleague at another institution:

This is sort of a follow-up from two previous posts I made:

• Servant leadership
• Preparation programs

Any thoughts out there on this issue?