Dangerously Irrelevant

I have three young kids, so macaroni and cheese is a staple in our household. But the box drives me bonkers.

‘To open, push here.‘ Are there any more dreaded words for mac and cheese lovers? You know it isn’t going to work. You know you’re going to have to rip the entire top off the box, and yet you try it anyway, hoping against hope that this time the little cardboard button will work the way it’s supposed to. But of course it doesn’t and you have to rip it open with your bare claws, or use kitchen shears, or a chainsaw…

‘To open, push here‘ is a classic example of design getting in the way of purpose. I mean, let’s face it, the mac and cheese box only has three purposes:

1. to entice us to buy it,
2. to protect its contents while shipping, and
3. to allow us access to its contents so we can eat them.

The box fulfills the first two functions pretty well, but fails miserably at the third.

Now, let’s extend this metaphor to our own technology (and other) initiatives in our schools. Like the mac and cheese box, what elements of our design and delivery get in the way of us achieving our purpose(s)? Lack of adequate training? Insufficient support? Failure to allocate appropriate time? Unreasonable expectations? As school leaders, if we don’t want our initiatives to fail (‘To open, push here‘), we have to attend to these issues if we want to get to the yummy goodness inside.

Is your school organization aligned to get the results it says it wants to achieve? If not, what’s getting in the way and what are you going to do about it?

Jeff Yearout, Ed Tech
Treehouse, sent me a link to this article in the Wichita Eagle. Although the
article is framed around the concept that we’re losing our boys, it seems pretty
clear to me that the real issue is engagement.

As the article states, both boys and girls believe that much of what is
occurring in their classrooms is tediously boring and/or irrelevant to their
current and future lives. Are boys more likely than girls to withdraw from or
rebel against unengaging, seemingly-irrelevant course content? Are girls more
likely than boys to sublimate their desires to do the same? I don’t know.
Someone better-versed in school psychology and/or sociology will have to answer
those questions. But I do know this:

If schools (and universities) want to be relevant to today’s youth, they are
going to have to find ways to become more engaging in order to compete with the
interactive, individualizing, empowering technologies that adolescents are using
out of school.

As educators, we are in a battle for eyes, ears, and brainwaves. So far many
of us are losing (and, as a result, so are our students).

The Brookings
Institution’s Hamilton Project recently released a report titled An Education
Strategy to Promote Opportunity, Prosperity, and Growth. After noting that
approximately $874 billion per year is spent on education in the United States,
the authors highlight the economic and educational benefits of universal
preschool and rethinking our current system of financial aid for higher
education. Here are some interesting quotes from the report…

Preschool

Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University and Isabel Sawhill of The Brookings
Institution propose a program called Success by Ten. This program would give
children from low-income families high-quality, full-time education for the
first five years of life, and then would use proven-effective methods to give
them extra help during their elementary school years. The early childhood
program would be based on the successful Abecedarian Project; it could be
thought of as “Head Start on steroids,” as it would combine, expand, and
transform the Early Head Start and Head Start programs. Ludwig and Sawhill
estimate that, if fully implemented, Success by Ten could increase GDP by up to
0.8 percent, while, on an individual level, bringing the dramatic benefits of
Abecedarian – greater employment and college entry, reduced teen pregnancy and
crime – to millions of American children.

Higher education

Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton, both of Harvard University,
argue that the complexity and sluggishness of the federal system for
distributing student financial aid creates serious obstacles to college
attendance by making it enormously difficult for low- and moderate-income
students to assess their eligibility for aid. Indeed, studies have found scant
evidence that the federal program of grants and tax credits actually increases
enrollment, in contrast to the proven effects of much simpler programs such as
the Social Security Student Benefit Program and Georgia’s HOPE program. While
the complexity of the current system is intended to target aid to those who need
it most, Dynarski and Scott-Clayton show that a dramatically simplified aid
process could nearly reproduce the current distribution of aid. Under their
proposal, students could figure out their grant aid eligibility by looking at a
small, simple table that fits easily on a postcard. In fact, the table would be
put on a postcard and distributed through schools and the mail so that aid
information could be simple, certain, and delivered early. Meanwhile, the
application process could be as easy as checking a box on the family’s regular
tax returns. Dynarski and Scott-Clayton estimate that their proposed program
would increase enrollment among the grant-eligible population by between 5.6 and
7.4 percentage points.

The authors also discuss the teacher labor market and K-12 curricular
experimentation, among other things. Even if you’re not interested in
large-scale education policy issues, the report might be worth a quick read
just to familiarize yourself with some of the ways national policymakers think
about K-12 education.

My letter to Secretary Spellings in the previous post about online multimedia textbooks is the outcome of a conversation that I had with Jim Hirsch, Associate Superintendent for Technology and Academic Services for the Plano (TX) Independent School District, at the TIES conference last December. I’m not the only one thinking on this front. For example, Scott McNealy, Chairman of the Board for Sun Microsystems, said last June that ‘technology trumps the textbook.‘ Similarly, four days ago Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, noted that textbooks as we know them will disappear.

To be honest, the two most visible free online textbook initiatives still have a long way to go. WikiBooks, a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, seems to be having a hard time getting off the ground; most of its content has yet to be created or is in the very earliest stages of development. Curriki, which is sponsored by Sun and has gotten a lot of media attention, so far seems to consist primarily of disparate resources and activities rather than comprehensive, meaningfully-organized textbooks. Both seem to be relying on volunteers’ efforts for most of the content. While both initiatives have potential, so far that potential remains unfulfilled. It’s early in the game, though. The National Repository of Online Courses (NROC) also is doing some interesting work but appears to be complementing, rather than replacing, print textbooks.

As my letter indicates, I think we need something more intentional and systematic. A strategic investment of monies could go a long way toward creating some pedagogically powerful, wonderfully engaging, online multimedia textbooks that then could be used by anyone in the country (or world). Can you imagine what a rich, interactive, media-saturated textbook a team of expert teachers, professors, and computer / Web programmers could create given a year’s time and $800,000 to play with (above and beyond their sabbatical salaries)? Can you imagine how fiscally and educationally empowering it would be for schools to have free and open access to 150 to 200 high-quality online multimedia textbooks created by the top experts in the country?

Clearly this an expensive venture from a raw dollar standpoint, at least to do it well. That said, the $200 million per year figure that I proposed represents less than 4 one-thousandths of the current federal discretionary funds allocated for K-12 education. The federal government clearly has the money to pull this kind of thing off. So might a consortium of states or maybe a large private foundation. As big as the numbers are, the return on this strategic investment would be HUGE.

Textbook publishers probably would oppose this idea. So might others, for a variety of political, educational, and sociological reasons. But Public Education Network CEO Wendy Puriefoy’s February 14 statement that "the new federal education budget is full of enthusiasm but lacks powerful ideas and transformative levels of funding" strikes home with me. I think this is a powerful, transformative idea whose time has come and I hope someone besides me will think big and make this happen.

[send this letter to Secretary Spellings, Director Magner, and Congress]

The
Honorable Margaret Spellings
Secretary
United States Department of
Education
400 Maryland Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20202-7100

Dear Secretary Spellings,

The United States Department of Education currently administers a budget of
approximately $56 billion per year in discretionary monies. I am sending this
letter to encourage the Department to make a relatively small, but extremely
strategic, investment that would pay enormous dividends for our nation’s
elementary and secondary students.

For $200 million per year, the Department could create phenomenal,
mind-blowing online multimedia textbooks that could be used by students all
across the country. Imagine 50 teams, each made up of individuals who took a
paid sabbatical for one year, working to create rigorous, standards-based,
online textbooks that included text, graphics, electronic presentations, audio,
video, simulations, learning games, interactive problem-solving and review
activities, etc. The teams could be comprised as follows:

• 16 expert teachers * $100,000 each = $1,600,000
• 4 university professors * $100,000 each = $400,000
• 8 computer / Web programmers * $100,000 each = $800,000
• 1 assistive technology expert * $100,000 = $100,000
• 1 national organization representative * $100,000 = $100,000
• 1 project manager * $200,000 = $200,000
• Communication and other software, supplies, travel, etc. =
  $800,000

Four teachers plus a professor plus two programmers equals a workgroup; four
workgroups per team. Each team receives ongoing feedback from a representative
from an appropriate national organization (e.g., National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics, National Council for Social Studies), has an assistive technology
expert to ensure content accessibility by students with disabilities, and has a
project manager to keep the workgroups moving along. The workgroups create
content; post that content online as they go along for review, comment, and
input from others; and, over the course of a year, create several units each
that add up to a complete, amazing, deep, rich online multimedia textbook.

Each year would see the completion of 50 textbooks. Over three or four years,
these Department-sponsored teams would create 150 to 200 textbooks for common,
key courses (e.g., Algebra I, Physics I, AP English, United States History, 5th
grade reading) that are present in nearly every school district nationwide.
Textbook content would be refreshed every three or four years to ensure content
relevance and usage of the latest digital technologies. If the textbooks were
wiki-based, much of the content could be revised and updated even before their
refresh cycle came due.

Once created, these textbooks then could be hosted by the Department, state
departments of education, and other entities or could be downloaded for hosting
on local school district servers. Federal provision of these textbooks would
free states and school districts to spend funds on laptops, classroom-level
high-speed wireless connectivity, and other technologies necessary to ensure the
global competitiveness of our students in the decades to come. All textbook
material would be free and openly accessible to our nation’s K-12 students and
educators.

I hope that you can see the instructional power of teachers and students
tapping into expert-created content delivered via the latest interactive,
engaging digital technologies. Although a few organizations (e.g., Wikibooks or
Curriki) are attempting to create free online textbooks or learning materials,
their reliance on volunteers has resulted in relatively little progress. A
strategic investment by the Department could make an extremely powerful
contribution to the K-12 educational landscape and would be a powerful lever
toward ensuring that all students had access to top-quality, engaging learning
materials.

Please consider instituting a national online textbook initiative. I believe
that this is an idea whose time has come and would welcome the opportunity to
discuss this further with you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Scott McLeod
Assistant Professor, Department of Educational
 
Policy and Administration
Director, UCEA Center for the Advanced Study
of
  Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE)
Affiliate Faculty, Law
School
University of Minnesota

Dangerously Irrelevant was six months old last week. It has been a non-stop learning journey.

Like Pete, I too have been pleased with the warm welcome extended to me by more established bloggers. As I have come to understand this communication medium better (by participating, not just reading!), my understanding that there are a bazillion blogs out there with interesting things to say has increased significantly. This is dangerous to an incessant learner such as myself. It’s very, very tempting to try and spend hours each day reading, dialoguing, and discovering.

We all make important decisions about which blogs to read. We pick and keep what resonates with us. Sometimes we get overwhelmed and have to blow out our RSS aggregators and start over. Here’s how I choose what I read:

1. I rarely read blogs that are focused on classroom instruction. Not because they don’t have interesting things to say, but because there simply are too many of them and because my focus is leadership. I started blogging at Dangerously Irrelevant because I wanted to try out blogging and because I felt there was a leadership orientation that often was missing from what I read in the education blogosphere. I have come to the pleasant realization that there are more leadership types out there than I originally believed, and I tend to read them and others that are dealing with school-, district-, state-, or federal-level leadership and policy issues.
2. I stick with blogs that regularly cause me to think. We blog for different reasons. I’m attracted to those bloggers that are regularly wrestling with ideas and issues. I don’t care if they’re re-hashing old stuff; for them that stuff may be new and they may cause me to rethink something. I’m interested in the thoughtful, reflective interplay of personality with problem. If someone causes my brain to say "Huh!" or "Wow, that was good." or "I’m not sure I quite get that. Let me think on that a while." on a regular basis, he or she has a dedicated spot in my aggregator.
3. I gravitate toward bloggers who create resources that are helpful and add value. Many of us blog. Few of us create resources that can be used by others. I am grateful for those who do.
4. I appreciate cleverness and passion. If you are witty, write distinctively or passionately, make me laugh, or are good for a memorable quote now and then, I’m yours.
5. I like bloggers who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo. Some of educators’ most-cherished beliefs and practices are up for reconsideration in this new technological era. I like bloggers who are willing and interested in at least rethinking, if not always revising, what we’re doing.
6. I follow interesting comments. One of the best ways I find new voices is by clicking on the names of folks who have left an interesting comment on my own blog or someone else’s. I’ll peruse their blogs and, if I like what I see, I’ll add them to the area in my aggregator that’s reserved for folks I’m trying out. After a month or two, I’ll either move them to a more permanent area or replace them with someone new.
7. I track links from those I trust. If a blogger I respect links to someone, I’ll usually follow the trail. If that person is reading you, chances are I might like you too.
8. I don’t filter by ideology, but I rarely read bloggers who are grumpy. I try to expose myself to different perspectives and viewpoints, but I don’t have time to waste on people who have a tendency to complain or bring down others. I believe in the old saw that one should ‘criticize ideas, not people.’ If bloggers frequently use personally-insulting language, denigrate others, and/or grouse about stuff, I’m not going to read them much. I try really hard to stick with those folks when I think their content is good, but in the end their delivery gets in the way of their message.

There was a thread floating around a while ago about how we think about our writing. At the risk of maybe starting another such chain, it would be fun to hear from others about how they choose who and what they read.

I am deeply honored that so many of you feel I am a voice worth hearing. Thank you for dedicating some of your precious time and aggregator space to Dangerously Irrelevant.

Here are some thoughts that are running through my head as we head into the weekend. They’re either half-finished or half-baked. I’m not sure which…

Silence (or else)!

I found a sad Tom Turner post through Alice Mercer (thanks, Alice!). Here’s a blurb from the original story:

A Roman Catholic elementary school adopted new lunchroom rules this week requiring students to remain silent while eating. The move comes after three recent choking incidents in the cafeteria. No one was hurt, but the principal of St. Rose of Lima School explained in a letter to parents that if the lunchroom is loud, staff members cannot hear a child choking.

Does anyone else think the school could have handled this differently?

Not so flat yet

As George Siemens reminds us, the world isn’t so flat yet. Karl Fisch’s presentation, Did You Know?, highlights that China, India, and others are up-and-coming, but the reality is that their gross domestic product per capita is still way below that of other countries.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

The quest for readers and subscribers is as old as printing itself. Lifehacker recently profiled some suggestions for bloggers who wish to increase their number of RSS subscriptions. Of course Lifehacker’s suggestion is the best of all:

Of course, our favorite method here at Lifehacker is to provide awesome content (ahem).

Speaking of half-baked ideas?

• Pennsylvania governor targets school administrators

Just in case we take our 2.0 selves too seriously

• Still in beta!

Dewey (or don’t we?)

I’ll conclude with this wonderful quote from Chris Lehmann, which I was reminded about by a recent post from Carolyn Foote:

It's really not about the computers. School 2.0 is older than that. School 2.0 is the tradition of Dewey. School 2.0 is born out of the idea that active, engaged, constructivist learning will lead to active, engaged students and people.

Is the difference this time that the ‘progressive’ approaches that Dewey advocated are increasingly being recognized by corporations and others as having economic value, as being essential economic drivers?

Have a great weekend, everyone.