Dangerously Irrelevant

there will be those who say that schools without 1:1 resources just can’t engage in this sort of [textbook-less way of teaching]. And, actually, I’d agree. And I’d say to those schools: “So what are you doing to change things? What are you doing to bring 1:1 computing to your kids? Why aren’t you letting students bring the technology they already own into the classroom? And how are you changing and reallocating your resources to take advantage of technologies that prove over the long-haul to be more cost effective and less redundant than textbooks and printing?” I’d ask the English Department: “Why are you buying novels and anthologies that by-and-large are available for free online at places like Project Gutenberg, Open Library, and Google Books?” I’d ask the Math Department: “Why are you beholden to a textbook company for math questions? Use your hard-earned knowledge and post your own questions on a class blog; let the kids formulate questions; shake things up a bit.”

Shelly Blake-Plock via http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-engagement-shelly-blake-plock-teachpaperless-edchat

Ray Bradbury perhaps said it best: “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

Rethinking learning and teaching is being bothered by something important and real.

Ryan Bretag via http://www.ryanbretag.com/blog/?p=2981

A local school district here in Iowa is proposing the social media policy below for its employees. I have multiple concerns about it but am curious how others feel. What do you think is okay? What do you think is troublesome?

The school board will take another look at this policy in a few weeks, so any input that you can provide would be most welcome. I’ve given each item a letter for easy reference (e.g., E, H, X). Thanks!

—–

SCHOOL DISTRICT EMPLOYEE SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY

1. Expectations for the use of personal social media

District staff should:

1. Refrain from accepting current school district students as “friends” on personal social networking sites.
2. Refrain from providing personal contact information to students.
3. Be aware that people classified as “friends” have the ability to download and share your information with others.
4. Remember that once something is posted to a social networking site, it may remain available online even if you think it is removed, and it may be far-reaching.
5. Set and maintain social networking privacy settings at the most restrictive level.
6. Not use a social networking site to discuss students or employees.
7. Not post images that include students.

2. Expectations for the use of educational networking sites

District staff must:

8. Notify your supervisor about the use of any educational network and discuss with your supervisor the need for notification to parents and other staff.
9. Use district-supported networking tools when available.
10. Be aware that all online communications are stores and can be monitored.
11. Have a clear statement of purpose and outcomes for the use of the networking tool.
12. Establish a code of conduct for all network participants.
13. Not post images that include a student who does not have permission from a parent to have his/her image displayed.
14. Pay close attention to the site’s security settings and allow only approved participants access to the site.

3. Expectations for all networking sites

District employees should:

15. Not submit or post confidential or protected information about the district, its students, alumni or employees. You should assume that most information about a student is protected from disclosure by both federal law (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and state law (Iowa Code Section 22.7(1)). Disclosures of confidential or protected information may result in liability for invasion of privacy or defamation.
16. Report, as required by law, any information found on a social networking site that falls under the mandatory reporting guidelines.
17. Not use commentary or post pictures or video deemed to be defamatory, obscene, profane, or which promotes, fosters or perpetuates illegal discrimination of any kind. Exercise caution with regards to exaggeration, colorful language, guesswork, copyrighted materials, legal conclusions and derogatory remarks or characterizations.
18. Not identify yourself as a representative of or spokesperson for the district, unless you have been approved to do so by the superintendent or the communications coordinator. This includes using school logos, mascots, photographs or other such graphic representations or images associated with the district.
19. Not create an alias, false or anonymous identity on any social media.
20. Consider whether a particular posting puts your professional reputation and effectiveness as a district employee at risk.
21. Be cautious of security risks when using applications that work with the social networking site. (Examples of these sites are calendar programs and games).
22. Run updated malware protection to avoid infections of spyware and adware that social networking sites might place on your personal devices (a computer or other device not issued by the school district).
23. Be alert to the possibility of phishing scams that arrive by email or on your social networking site.
24. Anyone who wishes to establish a social media account for specific school district offices, initiatives, schools or programs must first contact the communications coordinator. Social media may be used for school-related purposes only with the approval of the communications coordinator. If you have questions, would like to start a social media initiative on behalf of a district entity, or have content you would like posted to the district’s Facebook page, please contact the district communications coordinator.

Dear Iowa legislators,

I am pleading with you to not pass an education reform law that includes retention of 3rd graders.

4+ decades of unanimous peer-reviewed research studies show that retention of elementary students results in short-term academic gains that disappear completely in later school years. What you get for that now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t test score bump is incredible damage to students’ self-concept, substantial increases in students’ dropout rates, and significant reductions in students’ future life success.

If you read them, the handful of recent non-peer-reviewed research studies that are being cited in favor of this proposed legislation actually reinforce – rather than rebut – all existing studies: short term test score gains that wash out in later years, accompanied by no mitigation of long-term, negative dropout rate or life success impacts.

Please realize that it doesn’t matter how many safeguards are put into place before retention occurs. The issue is the retention itself, not the procedures that lead up to it.

The proposed interventions in early grades for struggling readers are desirable and necessary. But, plain and simple, retention hurts kids. It has no proven long-term benefit and many long-term harmful consequences. If you want to ensure that students don’t leave elementary school illiterate, hire a personal tutor for academically-struggling 4th graders. It would be cheaper than paying for their repeated 3rd grade year.

Third grade retention is not a policy unknown. It’s an issue for which we have decades and decades of research and data. Please make the educationally sound decision. Please make the morally right decision.

I am hopeful that you will not sacrifice the future of Iowa students and citizens on the twin altars of short-term test score gains and political talking points. Please contact me at any time at 707-722-7853 or I am happy to talk with you about this important issue.

Thank you.

Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D.
An Ames resident (and education professor)

Image credit: Bellevue Elementary School

I want to interview principals of schools that are dedicated to problem-, inquiry-, and/or challenge-based learning. You know, schools like those in the New Tech, Expeditionary Learning, Big Picture, and other similar networks. In particular, I’m interested in how they’re balancing their hands-on, student-directed learning missions with the demands of NCLB, AYP, and other external accountability policy mechanisms.

Do they care about accountability assessments? Do they even pay attention to them? How do their students do on those exams? And so on…

We’re creating our interview protocol right now. What would YOU ask them related to implementation, instruction, curriculum, and/or assessment? Thanks for any suggestions you can provide!

Yeah, what he said. Great video from Tyler Cowen!

One of my favorite books on leadership is The Future of Management by Gary Hamel. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to do so. You can read my book review but the essential premise is that current management models, which are centered on control and efficiency, are extremely ill-suited for an era in which adaptability and creativity drive organizational success. This has major ramifications for how we think about leading schools and preparing school administrators, of course.

Like many other thinkers these days, Hamel also has created a web site, the Management Innovation eXchange, or MIX, where he and others can share ideas and have deeper, ongoing conversations about the reinvention of leadership and management. Although MIX sometimes employs buzz phrases that require deciphering, in general the MIX blog and other resources on the site leave me thinking for days at a time about critical leadership and innovation issues.

One such post was a recent one by Polly LaBarre which pertained to the concept of ‘FedEx days.’ These are days in which employees are given the opportunity to hack on their internal environment, workday processes, organizational outcomes, etc. to try and improve the lives of themselves and others. The key is that they have to ‘ship’ their ideas – e.g., present a prototype – within 24 hours. That’s where the name ‘FedEx day’ comes from. The idea of FedEx days wasn’t what has had me thinking ever since, however. Instead, it was this quote:

Innovation isn’t about structuring a process to lead to an outcome so much as it’s about creating space — both elbow room, the space to roam free of bureaucratic rules and red tape, and head room, the freedom to see differently, think wildly, and aim higher. The leaders who generate more creative energy and innovation are always wrestling with the question: How do we design in more slack? Or, how do we cultivate an environment and support work that enlists people as drivers of their own destiny and inventors of the company’s future?

The disconnects between LaBarre’s quote and our present schooling reality are brutal. In our current climate, societal and political trust in schools and educators are on the decline. Educators face increasingly stringent demands to standardize what used to be a profession and to try and make error-proof what is by definition an enterprise fraught with uncertainty. Unsurprisingly, as the recent MetLife survey results show, teacher job satisfaction is plummeting rapidly and educators’ willingness to leave the profession is 70% higher than it was just three years ago.

This is the environment in which school leaders must somehow find ways to create the elbow and head room that employees need to be adaptive and creative. We are not going to transition our schools and classrooms to technology-suffused, globally-interconnected learning environments that emphasise higher-order thinking skills without a great deal of risk taking and experimentation. And yet the policy and rhetorical climates right now emphasize exactly the opposite. I’m pretty sure that most teachers these days don’t feel that they are ‘drivers of their own destiny’ and ‘inventors of the [organization’s] future.’

As school leaders, in an era of ever-tightening restrictions and expectations and mandates, how are we making room for innovation? [and, as parents, community members, citizens, and professors of educational leadership, how are we helping them do so?]

[cross-posted at Education Recoded]

[UPDATE: We're all approved! Woo hoo!]

Just thought I’d give a quick update on our new online School Technology Leadership courses and programs.

We’ve got one last step in the University of Kentucky approval process. It should go smoothly about 2 weeks from now and then we’ll be completely and officially official. In the meantime, applications continue to come in; we have seen a great deal of interest both in America and internationally.

If you’re new to our courses, our 15-credit online graduate certificate allows educators to go deep-deep-DEEP on ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). If you’d prefer an online Master’s or Ph.D. with an emphasis in School Technology Leadership, we have those programs too. All courses are offered at in-state tuition rates. We are aiming for at least one national and one international cohort to begin this fall. The application deadline for all programs is May 15.

ISTE and others are helping us recruit so we are thankful for their assistance. If you’d like to help us spread the word (hint, hint), here’s a blurb:

The University of Kentucky has launched its new online School Technology Leadership graduate certificate, Master’s, and Ph.D. programs. Participating educators will be deeply grounded in ISTE’s . Deadline for Fall admission is May 15, 2012.

If you’re interested, see the links below. And if we’re not exactly what you’re looking for, check out options from ISTE and Johns Hopkins University, Kennesaw State University, Leading Edge Certification, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), Intel, and others. There are 200,000+ school administrators in the U.S. alone. Most of them need a lot of help when it comes to technology, so find a program that best fits their needs and get ‘em started!

Additional info about the STL programs

• Flyer
• Overview
• Graduate certificate
• Master’s (or Ed.S.)
• Ph.D. [for which we expect a VERY competitive admissions process]
• Admissions requirements and application info [Fall deadline is May 15]
• Questions? Contact Dr. Justin Bathon, CASTLE Co-Director

Here are two quotes for you:

Economically disadvantaged students, who often use the computer for remediation and basic skills, learn to do what the computer tells them, while more affluent students, who use it to learn programming and tool applications, learn to tell the computer what to do.

Neuman, D. (1991). Technology and equity. Available at http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-5/equity.htm

AND

Those who cannot claim computers as their own tool for exploring the world never grasp the power of technology… They are controlled by technology as adults – just as drill-and-practice routines controlled them as students.

Pillar, C. (1992). Separate realities: The creation of the technological underclass in America’s public schools. MacWorld, 9(9), 218-230.

Twenty years later, these quotes still ring true. What is your school doing to close the technology usage divide (not just the technology access divide)?

Hat tip: Miguel Guhlin and Solomon, Allen, & Resta

When a school leader neglects to allocate sufficient professional development time for newly-purchased classroom technologies, that’s not poor technology leadership, that’s just poor leadership.

When a school leader doesn’t provide adequate technical support personnel for a new 1:1 laptop initiative, that’s not poor technology leadership, that’s just poor leadership.

When a school leader purchases system-wide learning software with little thought given to long-term financial and instructional sustainability, that’s not poor technology leadership, that’s just poor leadership.

When a school leader fails to ensure adequate parent education and support before initiating expensive, organization-wide technology programs, that’s not poor technology leadership, that’s just poor leadership.

When a school leader refuses to remove internal policy and filtering barriers that get in the way of students and teachers actually using purchased technologies, that’s not poor technology leadership, that’s just poor leadership.

And so on…  

In other words, most of the leadership problems we run into regarding school technology implementation and integration have less to do with the technologies and more to do with failure to enact good leadership practices. It’s likely that if school leaders aren’t facilitating appropriate training or time or funding or support or policy for technology initiatives, they probably aren’t for most other, non-technology initiatives either.

Does the technology lens sometimes cast new light on traditional leadership concerns? Sure. But next time you complain about your administrators’ poor technology leadership, ask yourself first if it’s a technology-specific issue or just a general leadership issue. Most of the time I think you’ll find it’s the latter.

Image credit: Confused

[cross-posted at K-12TechDecisions]