Dangerously Irrelevant

Roger Wilcox, principal of West Cedar Elementary School in Waverly, Iowa, has a burgeoning YouTube channel that he’s using to communicate with his local community:

Here are three superintendents – Pam Moran, Phyllis Harrington, and Marcus Newsome – who also are using YouTube to get their messages out:

This stuff is easy

Given how easy it is these days to post online video (think YouTube QuickCapture and a webcam, Flip cameras, etc.), I’m baffled that more administrators aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity to speak directly to their communities on a regular basis. Forget newsletters, e-mail listservs, or blogging; just turn on the video camera and start talking!

There are numerous benefits to being in regular communication with internal and external stakeholders. The use of online video to connect, explain, build goodwill, create enthusiasm, be transparent, share student work, highlight teacher excellence, tell a story, etc. is a powerful but untapped possibility for most school leaders. Videos don’t have to be polished or professional. Simple, honest, direct communication usually is more meaningful, anyway.

Dive in! 

School leaders, take the plunge: Turn on the webcam or Flip camera and start talking from the heart. You won’t regret it.

[P.S. Teachers can do this too. Dump that paper classroom newsletter. Instead, start a weekly broadcast to your families!]

Update: Dave Meister is off to a good start with this!

Will Richardson says:

[T]his generation of kids in our schools is the first not to have a choice about technology. Most of us grew up in a time when technology was an add on, and for many of us, we still see it as a choice, especially in education. (Just the other day I was at a meeting of about 25 school leaders and teachers to discuss how social learning tools can be infused into an inquiry based curriculum and only one person was using technology to take notes…me.) I look at my own kids and I know that technology will be a huge part of their learning lives because a) they want it to be and b) they’ll be expected to be savvy users of the devices of their day to communicate, create and collaborate (among other things.) They’re not going to be able to “opt out.”

and

We may not feel comfortable in a world filled with technology. We may not like the way it’s changing things and, even more, how fast it’s changing things. We may not like the way it pushes against much of what we’ve been doing in schools for eons. But our kids don’t have a choice. And if we’re going to fulfill our roles as teachers in our kids lives, neither do we.

I added a Skribit widget to Dangerously Irrelevant yesterday that allows me to take input from blog visitors about what they’d like to see. Here’s what it looks like on the blog (widget is on left-hand side):

Here’s what it looks like on the back end (click on image to see larger version):

Will this be of use to our community? I guess it depends on how much visitors use the widget. I think it has potential but only time will tell!

Given that my primary blog themes are technology, leadership, and school reform, what would you like to see me write about?

The Education Trust has come out with a nifty little report, Gauging the Gaps: A Deeper Look at Student Achievement, that examines different ways of thinking about achievement gaps. Although EdTrust uses NAEP data to illustrate its points, this could be done with any achievement data.

EdTrust outlines four different perspectives when considering achievement gaps. Each has its own merits, but together they have more power than simply using one or two of them in isolation. At the end of the report, EdTrust includes several NAEP data tables that show the progress of each state along each of these perspectives.

Perspective 1: Simple gap narrowing

“Have absolute gaps in mean performance between groups decreased over time? Nationwide, low-income students and students of color perform, on average, below their peers. So it is imperative to evaluate whether we’re helping these young people catch up.” (p. 2)

Perspective 2: Progress for all

“Have all groups of students gained over time? Our country needs to improve achievement for all students and accelerate gains for those who lag behind. Reading performance for low-income fourth grade students nationwide inched up by four points from 2003 to 2007. This represents movement in the right direction but at far too slow a pace. Some states, however, improved much more rapidly than the nation as a whole.” (p. 3)

Perspective 3: Gap size

“What is the current size of the gap between groups? In addition to examining how far a state has come in closing the gaps and looking at whether all students are gaining, it’s important to know the extent of the gaps that remain. The current-year size of a state’s gap suggests how far we have to go until race and income no longer play a significant role in student achievement. Nationally and in every state, low-income students trail their higher income peers in reading performance. Yet a closer scrutiny of state data shows that some are closer to achieving equitable results than others.” (p. 4)

Perspective 4: Group comparisons across jurisdictions

“How does each group of students currently perform compared with their counterparts in other jurisdictions? Although many assume that certain groups of children perform about the same no matter where they attend school, comparisons of group performance across jurisdictions can reveal striking differences. In fact, dramatic variations in the achievement of similar groups of children occur across states or from one district to the next.” (p. 4)

What do you think?

How does your school organization think about achievement gaps? Does it predominantly use only one or two of these perspectives? What could be done to increase your organization’s capacity to use more or all of these perspectives? Is all of this even worthwhile?

As I’ve said many times:

If a teacher gets it, a classroom changes. If a principal gets it, the whole building begins to change. If a superintendent gets it, the whole district begins to change. [And, if state or federal policymakers get it, the statewide or nationwide climate begins to change.]

Seems obvious, right? So why are so many government / corporation / foundation educational technology reform initiatives (money, time, training, energy, vision) focused on teachers, who at best are usually informal leaders, rather than formal leaders such as principals and superintendents? Do they want systemic change or just something they can tout for public relations purposes?

I’m all for investing in students and teachers when it comes to educational technology. But if we don’t also set aside some dedicated resources for formal leaders, the kind of changes we need are never going to happen.

We all have technologies that are absolutely essential to our day-to-day lives. Here is a baker’s dozen of mine…

1. Google Reader. It took me a while, but I’ve now organized all of my feeds into category folders in Google Reader. I now can simply click on a folder name, scan the post titles for anything that grabs me (I keep Google Reader in List view, not Expanded view), star anything that I want to read and/or blog later, and then click on Mark All as Read to clear the list. I’m currently staying on top of 434 feeds and it takes no more than 30 to 45 minutes per day. If I get behind, no worries. I just clear it all out and figure that topics will come back around if they’re really important.
2. Google Chrome. Chrome is quite simply the fastest Internet browser out there, both in terms of page loading and initial startup. Google Chrome feeds my need for speed. Firefox seems to drag in comparison. Chrome’s new ability to handle extensions is rapidly eroding Firefox’s plugin advantage.
3. MiFi. I replaced my wireless broadband USB modem with a Verizon MiFi wireless hotspot. Now, rather than only one computer having Internet access through Verizon’s cell phone network, my family can connect up to five devices, including laptops, cameras, iPod Touches, etc. The coolness of this struck me when we were driving East this winter as my wife checked her e-mail on her laptop, one of my sons played an Internet game on my laptop, and my daughter downloaded new apps for the iPod Touch, all at the same time. Nice!
4. BlogJet. I don’t always have Internet connectivity when I want to work on a blog post. BlogJet is a powerful desktop blogging client that allows me to work on posts whenever I want. I like that it allows me to post to multiple blogs and it is much easier to use than TypePad, WordPress, or Movable Type. I also use BlogJet occasionally as a HTML editor.
5. iPod Touch. We have two iPod Touches in our family. When I can pry one of them out of my kids’ hands, I’m increasingly using the Touch instead of my laptop. My two favorite apps are MobileRSS (an awesome RSS reader) and Kindle for iPhone. Although I’m still buying nonfiction books, I’m purchasing and reading more fiction on the Touch rather than buying paperbacks. I don’t have an iPhone because AT&T’s coverage in Iowa is abysmal; I often pair the Touch with the MiFi if I need Web access.
6. SnagIt. There are lots of different screen capture programs out there, many of which are free. I have yet to find one with the functionality of SnagIt. I use it to capture images from the Web, Adobe Acrobat, PowerPoint, Excel, Visio, and so on.
7. PhraseExpress. If you haven’t yet used text-expanding software, I promise it will make your life easier. Once you have it set up, you simply type in an abbreviation or short phrase and - presto! - an entire sentence or paragraph appears! I use PhraseExpress for all sorts of things, including customizing my e-mail signature and replying to all of the Did You Know? (Shift Happens) inquiries that Karl Fisch and I get.
8. EverNote. I’m using EverNote more and more to take notes, capture snippets from the Web, etc. I’m sure that I’m only using a small portion of its functionality. I like that I can access my content from my laptop, the Web, and/or my Blackberry.
9. LastPass. This is a password manager and form-filler for my Internet browser. I like that LastPass keeps its files on the Web, meaning that my wife and I no longer need separate files on our respective hard drives.
10. Readability. If you haven’t yet tried the Readability bookmarklet for your Internet browser, give it a shot. I use it far more than I expected to. It’s been a godsend to one of my older relatives whose vision is not what it used to be.
11. Notepad++. Notepad++ is my favorite Notepad replacement software. I use it to get rid of unwanted text formatting, do basic HTML editing, etc.
12. Readtwit. I stumbled upon Readtwit because of a tweet from Will Richardson. Readtwit turns your Twitter stream into a clean RSS feed. If there’s a hyperlink in the tweet, it also shows you the first 2000 characters of the target web page; this is incredibly useful. Try Readtwit for a week in your favorite RSS reader. You’ll be hooked too.
13. Launchy. I’m much faster on the keyboard than on the mouse. Launchy allows me to launch programs, files, etc. with a few keystrokes. My wife: “How did you open that program so fast?” Me: “I can’t tell you all my computer secrets. Then you won’t need me any more!”

I use every one of these technologies nearly every day. They make my life easier, more efficient, and more effective. What are you using that improves your day-to-day productivity and well-being?

Related posts

• 8 indispensable items for presenters
• My computer setup

For those who are interested in what I’m reading online, here are is a number of the RSS channels in my Google Reader account (some blogs are in multiple channels):

• 1 to 1 schools
• Blogs that deserve a bigger audience (DABA)
• CASTLE blogs
• CASTLE’s list of great blogs for busy administrators
• Education
• Educational leadership
• Educational technology
• Higher education
• Iowa
• Law
• Marketing
• Miscellaneous
• School law
• Technology

You too can subscribe to these channels by using the RSS feed at each link. These channels are fluid; I add and remove individual blogs all the time!

So here’s a crazy idea…

• Ask teachers in your building to bring a recent quiz or test to the next staff meeting. Make sure their names are on the assessments they bring.
• Mix up all of the assessments in a big pile and hand them back out. Each teacher gets one. No one is allowed to get a test that’s in his or her subject area (i.e., no English teacher is allowed to take any other English teacher’s test).
• They spend 20 minutes taking the test that they have in hand.
• Return the test to the teacher that created it. That teacher then grades it and returns it to the one who took it.

What would this do?

• It would allow educators to see how others are assessing.
• I’m guessing that many teachers are going to miss a bunch of stuff, at least in secondary schools. Which then leads, of course, to the issue of:

  Most of us would consider ourselves successful adults and yet we couldn’t answer a lot of this. What does that mean for our teaching and our students’ learning? 

  Follow-up questions might include How important is the stuff we’re teaching? and If this stuff is important, why did we miss so many? and If this stuff is not important, why are we teaching it?

I think this could prompt some good internal discussion for a teaching staff. Thoughts? Anyone done something like this?

Note: A few years back, the College of Education and Human Development booth at the Minnesota State Fair had ten sample questions from the 8th grade state assessment. Those of us staffing the booth tried to get fair attendees to answer the questions to see how they’d do compared to what the state expected middle schoolers to know. We couldn’t get anyone to do it; the number of takers was extremely low. There were lots of nervous laughter and comments, though…

Related posts

• “Knowing the parts of a neuron isn’t really that important.”
• 4 tales out of school (see Thutmose III)

I recently had the conversation below with a high school science teacher (and, yes, I did it respectfully for those of you who are wondering)…

Teacher

I want my students to learn the parts of a neuron.

Me

In an era of near-instant Internet search, it’s possible that knowing the parts of a neuron isn’t really that important. For example, if I don’t know what the parts of a neuron are, I probably can find a couple dozen images of neurons - with parts labeled - in about 5 seconds using an online image search engine. It seems to me that what’s more important is generally knowing what neurons are, how they work, why I should care about them, how they impact my health and well-being, how current cutting-edge neurological research may impact me in the future, and so on. 

Will I need to learn the parts of a neuron in the short term so that I can understand these bigger issues? Yes, most likely. Six weeks from now, will it be important if I still remember the parts of a neuron? Probably not, because I always can look it up again. But the bigger-picture understandings about neurons and how they impact me? That’s what I need to remember six weeks from now - and six years from now. That’s the stuff that’s important. Assess on what’s important.

Your turn

What do you think? Would you have responded differently than I did?

ISTE’s Top Ten in ‘10 list of educational technology priorities for this year is a worthwhile read (hat tip to THE Journal). Some of its items are more vague than others. For example:

2. Leverage education technology as a gateway for college and career readiness. Last year, President Obama established a national goal of producing the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by the year 2020. To achieve this goal in the next 10 years, we must embrace new instructional approaches that both increase the college-going rates and the high school graduation rates. By effectively engaging learning through technology, teachers can demonstrate the relevance of 21st century education, keeping more children in the pipeline as they pursue a rigorous, interesting and pertinent PK-12 public education.

6. Leverage technology to scale improvement. Through federal initiatives such as i3 grants, school districts across the nation are being asked to scale up current school improvement efforts to maximize reach and impact. School districts that have successfully led school turnaround and improvement efforts recognize that education technology is one of the best ways to accelerate reform, providing the immediate tools to ensure that all teachers and students have access to the latest innovative instructional pathways. If we are serious about school improvement, we must be serious about education technology.

10. Promote global digital citizenship. In recent years, we have seen the walls that divide nations and economies come down and, of necessity, we’ve become focused on an increasingly competitive and flat world. Education technology is the great equalizer in this environment, breaking down artificial barriers to effective teaching and learning, and providing new reasons and opportunities for collaboration. Our children are held to greater scrutiny when it comes to learning and achievement compared to their fellow students overseas. We in turn must ensure that all students have access to the best learning technologies.

Those all sound great to me, but I confess that I need to think further about what these would look like in terms of specific legislation or policy initiatives that would be implemented. In other words, for what would we ask legislators and policymakers in order to make these happen?

Ask your legislator

Here in Iowa we’ve been having our own conversations about legislative and policy initiatives for which educators, school board members, business leaders, and others should be advocating. We may not know what the future of schooling is going to look like, but I think we can already identify at least some of what the key building blocks and policy levers are going to be. Here’s a quick list, in no particular order, of some things that we’ve been discussing:

1. Get every kid/home connected (universal broadband access, preferably wireless) [this also is an economic development priority, not just a schooling priority]
2. A computing device (probably a laptop) for every teacher
3. A computing device (probably a laptop) for every student (maybe start at the secondary level?)
4. Statewide curricula that emphasize critical policy needs (e.g., STEM, global awareness) and higher-order thinking skills (e.g., critical thinking; problem solving; synthesis and analysis of complex data to make meaning; creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship; reading, writing, and multimedia creation in digital, online, hyperconnected information spaces) rather than factual recall and low-level procedural knowledge [the Iowa Core initiative is intended to do this for our state]
5. Additional and/or different professional development initiatives that help educators (teachers AND administrators) implement the curricula described in Item 4
6. More online coursework options for students (e.g., a statewide virtual high school; the ability of districts to provide courses for others’ students) [Iowa students’ options in this area are anemic right now]
7. Different statewide assessments that better assess higher-order thinking skills rather than fact regurgitation
8. The creation of and/or permission to use low-cost or no-cost electronic textbooks and other online learning materials instead of paper texts
9. Greater flexibility for schools to repurpose existing funding streams (e.g., the ability to use textbook monies for computing equipment and learning software; removal of Iowa’s $500 minimum for equipment purchases)
10. Repeal or revise Dillon’s Rule here in Iowa, which is getting in the way of school district innovation (by essentially saying that if you don’t have express authority to do it, you can’t)
11. Ramp up the understanding of educators and citizens about needs and issues pertaining to 21st century teaching and learning, workforce development, and a globalized economy (e.g., a statewide publicity / visibility initiative aimed at educators, school board members, citizens and community members, business leaders, the press, and so on)
12. Utilize professional development, funding, accreditation, and/or promotion and tenure policies to make preservice educator preparation (teachers AND administrators) more relevant to new curricular and instructional paradigms

Okay, your turn

You’ve seen our list and ISTE’s. What would you add / change / delete? Contribute your ideas by January 20 and I’ll make a new list that we can collectively rank order in Part 2 of this series. Thanks for participating!