Dangerously Irrelevant

Jim Gates points out that Pennsylvania legislators have introduced a bill to ban cellphones and ‘other portable electronic devices that record or play audio or video material.’ The language of the bill seems very broad. Wouldn’t digital camcorders, digital voice recorders, boomboxes, laptop computers, portable media players, and other non-cellphone-type devices also fall under its very inclusive verbiage? Note that schools only are able to make two narrow exceptions. Nowhere in the bill does it allow schools to permit students to use ‘portable electronic devices that record or play audio or video material‘ for pedagogical purposes.

Principal Lehmann, sorry. If this bill passes, you’re going to have to shut down Philadelphia’s Science Leadership Academy. Microsoft, thanks for trying. Unless the language in this bill becomes less inclusive, say goodbye to Philadelphia’s School of the Future. One-to-one laptop programs? Steer clear of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania!

Was there widespread abuse of cellphones in Pennsylvania, maybe worse than in other states, that prompted this bill? Or is this just another example of the lock-it-down mentality held by so many policymakers? Ugh. First New York City. Now Pennsylvania.

Oh, by the way, State Representative Angel Cruz, Democrat from Philadelphia, invites your input on this proposed bill. So go ahead, let him know what you think.

I just ran across this Alan November post on the ‘laptop lashback.’ Here’s a great quote:

Teachers have not changed the way they teach. We are using $2,000 pencils.

Also, check out Comment 3…

Random musings. Half-finished (and quite possibly half-baked) thoughts.
Things that have caught my eye…

Interesting perspectives on the infamous software study

• "We now have educational software that is just as effective as live teachers"
• "The Education Dept. has missed an opportunity to truly analyze what works in education"
• "How
  can a technology that is transforming the way we acquire information
  throughout the economy – revolutionizing businesses from games to
  banking – fail to benefit education?"
• "The
  news media at large were gullible, incurious, and downright lazy …
  The ill effects of their sloth likely will undermine education efforts
  for years to come"

Are we infantilizing adolescents?

• Robert Epstein says yes, and we pay the price.

The digital Taliban?

• Harsh analogy, or spot on?

Attendance, technology, and placing blame

• Profs want to hold students ‘accountable’ too.

It’s all about the leadership …

• Wesley Fryer reminds us, yet again, of the importance of leadership when it comes to technology integration and implementation in K-12 schools. That’s why CASTLE exists and that’s why we keep banging the drum: pay attention to the leaders!

… but we have to give them some decision-making power

• NASSP highlights a recent study finding that principals have little autonomy in the things that matter most to them. Remember this before we start casting stones at principals? I wish this study had involved more than 33 principals…

Wiki wiki wa, wiki wa, wiki wiki wa

• Check out the WikiMatrix. I wish JotSpot was listed.

Halo

• The future of videoconferencing, not video gaming.

Unconscious racism

• The NBA referee study has gotten a lot of press, Harvard University’s Project Implicit not so much. Read the Washington Post’s excellent article on the project. Try it yourself. Implications for school hiring and/or discipline issues?

The way data-driven decision-making ought to be

• Kudos to the Montgomery County (MD) Schools.

Global challenge

• A cool example of students collaborating with others across the globe on matters of importance.

Accountability for teacher prep programs

• Louisiana paves the way?

Violence in schools

• If you were worried about violence in American schools, check out this UNESCO report.

A national platform for an anti-evolution Kansan?

• In the last 8 years, Kansas has twice had an anti-evolution state
  board of education and twice replaced it with a pro-evolution state
  board of education. The latest news from the whipsawed state is that
  one of the remaining anti-evolution board members is running unopposed for the presidency of the National Association of State Boards of Education.

When standards shift

• The St. Petersburg Times explains what happened in Florida when it got harder to pass the state test.

Annie has the final word

If we stop using the tools of the real world at the school door, then what does school have to do with the world of the student? [at the FPS Technology Focus Blog]

Kimberly Moritz publicly challenged her superintendent to start a blog. He made a very sensible reply. And yet… I wonder what other superintendents who ARE blogging would say to him. So I’ve asked thirteen superintendent bloggers to respond to this post in the comments area. Hopefully some will find the time to share what value they get from blogging, how they handle some of the concerns Kimberly’s superintendent expressed, etc.

I know what I’d say…

Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year is smart. Not just because of his last name, but because he started a blog to chronicle his adventures. What a great idea. He’s off to a good start, that Mike Smart…

There was a time not so long ago that I would cart along a laptop and a Palm device, in my case a Tungsten T3, wherever I went, whether on the road or even to a local school.  If I was making a presentation I would bring an LCD projector, which as we all know back in the day was about the size of a Pullman suitcase.  Needless to say, the equipment I lugged around was bulky, weighty, and it was all somewhat inconvenient.  But it was necessary.  As time went by, though, everything got smaller, faster, and more powerful (and often cheaper).  So I’ve been able to shed much of what I previously carried.  But there is a bigger question.  What does a person really need to maintain optimal productivity and connectivity when outside the office?  One of my goals in life is to travel light (another one is that I don’t wait in lines if at all possible, but we’ll save that for another day).  It never ceases to amaze me what I see people cramming on board airplanes in the guise of “personal carry-ons.”  It just makes me more determined to stay connected, productive, and most of all, LEAN.  Anyway, all I carry these days are (1) a cell phone; and (2) a U3 4GB Cruzer.  No more laptops, no more LCDs, no more Palm devices.  The key that makes it all work is the Cruzer.  It is more than a flash drive on which you can store and transport files.  In fact, given online storage sites, even GMail as a good example, you hardly need thumb drives.  The beauty of Cruzer is that you can load your commonly used applications (for me, Firefox and OpenOffice are the main ones) and launch them directly from the Cruzer, a USB drive.  This allows much better security and utility when using a computer away from home or office.  And there is hardly a place anymore where you can’t find an online computer to use—that’s why I dropped the laptop.  Anywhere I present I call to make sure they have a decent projector setup but they all do these days … no more Pullman-size LCD gear.  The Palm device is basically redundant with cell phone features and web-based storage and applications.  So, my advice is:  Travel light!

In the blogosphere we pay a lot of attention to the folks who blog. We rarely, if ever, recognize those folks who comment. But of course the power of blogs would be greatly diminished if folks weren’t willing to add their commentary to others’ posts.

Do you know someone who always leaves great comments? Please recognize him or her with this badge (or make your own!). [Note: you must be given this award by someone else. You can't just recognize yourself!]

Fantastic Commenter badge

• 150 pixels wide
• 125 pixels wide
• 100 pixels wide

I’d like to recognize the following folks (who can now post this badge with pride!):

• Carolyn Foote
• Alice Mercer
• Dennis Harter

Go ahead. Recognize someone. You know he/she deserves it!

How much technology does a school need and how does a school leader ensure that the right technology is in place?   Well, those are a couple of tough questions but since administrators are paid to make the tough decisions, allow me to offer a few thoughts on the process.   As I mentioned yesterday, my motto that I pass on to my graduate students in the school principalship program here at Central Michigan University is “technology cannot be stopped and youth will be served.”  As we all know, it is a never ending challenge to stay on top of technology developments, even just a “slice of the pie,” such as those that impact teaching and learning.  No one person can do it, let alone a principal who has myriad other duties.  But, again, that’s part of what we are paid to do, so how does one tackle this issue?  Here are a few ideas.

1) Cozy up to your technology director.  Like a lot of other aspects of leadership, trust and delegation are going to be key.  A tech director should be a bountiful source of information that you can filter through your leadership lens and apply to your school.

2) Remember that newest is seldom best in a school setting.  The “latest” technology (e.g., Vista) is going to cost more and not be compatible with a lot of your current hardware and software.  That is something of a blessing in that dollars are so tight to begin with, at least here is one reason to hold off on buying new hardware & software.

3) Even though we may delegate some of the work in this area to others there is no excuse not to stay on top of it.  Resources that are helpful include: The International Society for Technology in Education; my local favorite, the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning; and, of course my national favorite, School Tech Leadership.

Tomorrow I will talk about personal productivity in technology for school leaders.

A few years ago there was a prototype appliance that merged
a refrigerator and the Internet. It had a computer
monitor in the door and the cooler was online. As I recall, the idea was to have instant access to thousands of
recipes; the online tie-in was to increase access to databases of cooking and
recipe Web sites and even notify someone who is mobile to pick up a dozen eggs
on the way home in order to have a complete set of ingredients. My memory is a bit hazier on this next one,
but I believe the same general idea was applied to a microwave oven. As far as I know, this idea never took off and
I haven’t heard about it for a few years. But I was reminded of it again this past weekend while browsing through PC Today, a freebie left in my Atlanta
hotel room. An article discussed a
service called E.V.A., an “electronic virtual assistant.” For a minimum of about $60.00 a month the
busy professional can call (or e-mail) E.V.A. and a real live person will take
a message and in turn e-mail the message to the intended recipient. This made me wonder, how much is enough? Wouldn’t it be just as easy to call the
person, or e-mail her yourself? My two
teenage daughters both bought new phones recently that have Web and e-mail
capability. As with everything in the
cellular world, these sorts of add-ons to phoning capabilities will be
ubiquitous soon enough. Why would
someone pay $60/month for a third-person party to do what either voice-mail,
e-mail, or a phone call would do? My
point is there is a time when we reach saturation with technology. More is not
always better.  I’m not a curmudgeon on
such things and I do realize that pioneers in any field are going to miss a few
before they hit a home run. In fact, I
rather like experimenting with new technology. I dived into Vista probably before it was prudent and have been updating
hardware and drivers left and right since. Of course, the flood of technology is not likely to slow. I tell my graduate students in their
educational technology for school leaders that my motto is “technology cannot
be stopped and youth will be served.” So
the question becomes, how does one separate the wheat from the chaff,
especially in a school setting? More on
that tomorrow.