Dangerously Irrelevant

A recent New York Times story said:

[Joel] Klein, the former chancellor of New York City schools and the current chief executive of Amplify, News Corporation’s fledgling education division, will take the stage for a surprising announcement. Amplify will not sell just its curriculum on existing tablets, but will also offer the Amplify Tablet, its own 10-inch Android tablet for K-12 schoolchildren.

In addition to tablets and curriculum, Amplify will also provide schools with infrastructure to store students’ data.

An early look at the Amplify tablet revealed a sleek touch screen with material floating against a simple background. If a child’s attention wanders, a stern “eyes on teacher” prompt pops up. A quiz uses emoticons of smiley and sad faces so teachers can instantly gauge which students understand the lesson and which need help.

“We wanted to use the language of the Web,” said Stephen Smyth, president of Amplify Access, the division that produces the tablet, which is manufactured by Asus.

…

Outside the classroom, children can use it to play games, like one in which Tom Sawyer battles the Brontë sisters.

I predict (hope) this whole venture will be a complete bust. Not just because the market isn’t exactly clamoring for another Android tablet. Not just because the Android apps ecosystem isn’t as robust for P-12 students as Apple’s. Not just because having historical literary characters battle each other is both educationally dubious and less than engaging to today’s students. The ‘eyes on teacher’ announcements, the built-in ability to monitor students’ screens at all time, the student response system features, extensive back-end ‘data’ collection and analysis, the push-out from the teacher to all students’ screens, pre-loaded tools, filtering software, teacher-created content playlists, one-button device tracking / locking / erasure … nearly everything about this initiative screams replication and amplification of traditional instructional techniques in which teachers are the focal point and students are passive recipients. All of the features touted by Amplify are ones that amplify control over students’ learning with computers. Need further evidence? Here’s a quote from Klein:

The teacher can personalize (the tablet.)  A teacher can also click on and see what skills (the student) has mastered.

Notice who’s ‘personalizing’ the device. Notice who’s using data analytics to monitor skill mastery. Not the student, that’s for sure.

Who’s going to buy these devices? My guess is probably some large, vulnerable urban districts with deep pockets who 1) are susceptible to the big-time sell from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, 2) think that Joel Klein’s work in New York City somehow was successful and worth adopting (despite lots of evidence to the contrary), and 3) think that a desirable feature for student technologies is the ability to lock them down and control them as much as possible. That means even more instances where poor kids will yet again experience being programmed by computers rather than having the ability to use technology in meaningful, authentic, relevant, and powerful ways.

Here are some quotes from the most recent issue of Educational Researcher regarding text complexity in the early grades, one of the hallmark pushes of the Common Core State Standards:

the CCSS text complexity standards for Grade 3 appear to be aspirational, much like the No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress targets (Shepard, 2008). The small set of studies that have examined text complexity over time does not show that text complexity at Grade 3 has deteriorated. Neither is there evidence that the accelerated targets in the primary grades are necessary for high school graduates to read the texts of college and careers. (p. 47)

AND

Another potential indirect effect on students may be their motivation and engagement. The engagement of reading among American students is already low, as indicated by a 2001 nationally representative sample of fourth graders from 35 countries that ranked the United States 33rd in an index of students’ motivations for reading (Mullis, Martin, Gonzalez, & Kennedy, 2003) and 35th out of 35 countries in the revised index of attitudes toward reading (Twist, Gnaldi, Schagen, & Morrison, 2004). At present, there is research indicating that motivation decreases when tasks become too challenging and none that indicates that increasing challenge (and potential levels of failure) earlier in students’ careers will change this dismal national pattern of disengagement with literacy (Guthrie, Wigfield, & You, 2012). (p. 48)

AND

Will the intended outcomes of higher levels of literacy for all students be realized by setting the bar arbitrarily at third grade? Our review suggests that the unintended negative consequences could well outweigh the intended positive outcomes. (p. 49)

AND

Increasing the pressure on the primary grades – without careful work that indicates why the necessary levels are not attained by many more students – may have consequences that could widen a gap that is already too large for the students who, at present, are left out of many careers and higher education. How sadly ironic it would be if an effort intended to support these very students limited their readiness for college and careers. (p. 49)

Hiebert, E. H., & Mesmer, H. A. E. (2013). Upping the ante of text complexity in the Common Core State Standards: Examining its potential impact on young readers. Educational Researcher, 42(1), 44-51.

Image credit: “Cozy” reading spot

Something’s seriously wrong with our system when ye olde Google search brings up this:

via http://cheezburger.com/7111711232

But maybe I get those results because I want schools to change and that’s reflected in my online surfing. Anyone get anything substantially different?

—

March 11 addendum. We just asked 5 students at New Tech High in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to complete this phrase. They said…

• enjoy school
• have fun
• be ready to be someone
• proficient
• feel like it’s one big family and I can talk to anyone

Did you know that…

• Google Apps can help you ‘launch a stress-free implementation of the Common Core’s required technology components?’
• these 5 apps will help your kids meet the new Common Core standards?
• FASTT Math is ‘the only fact fluency program to extend beyond math fact fluency practice into more rigorous Common Core objectives?’
• ‘Great Books programs meet Common Core standards?’
• these student center activities are ‘aligned to the Common Core?’
• all of these Pinterest resources are ‘aligned with specific Common Core standards?’
• every one of McGraw-Hill’s ‘core math, reading, and language arts programs fully align with the Common Core?’
• you can watch video clips of ‘Common Core-aligned teaching and learning?’
• NWEA ‘has developed a set of MAP assessments aligned to the Common Core?’
• you can get access to ‘the world’s first and only on-demand, comprehensive training on the Common Core standards?’
• all of these software programs are ‘aligned to the Common Core,’ even Timez Attack?
• you can ‘become a Common Core Black Belt?’
• the new SimCity video game will ‘conform with the Common Core?’

As expected, with the advent of the Common Core we are seeing a lot of labeling and re-labeling of instructional materials, resources, and activities. Publishers are adding the Common Core designation to existing textbooks, resources, assessments, and professional development opportunities just as fast as they can. Educators are unpacking the Common Core and affirming to themselves that they’re already doing what the standards expect. Lots of Common Core hoopla. Lots of Common Core assurances. Lots of old educational wine in new Common Core bottles…

Plus, of course, lots of gratuitous Common Core labeling and hucksterism. Because if it’s not stamped ‘Common Core’ these days, hardly anyone’s going to look at it. 

We have the standards. And publishers’ criteria. And state and school district certification efforts. But we also have lots of confusion, including whether or not teachers are prepared or unprepared to implement the standards.

As we sort out that confusion – and as we work together to become better prepared for implementation of the Common Core juggernaut – we need to be critical consumers of both our own lessons and the vendor pitches that accompany the standards. Because if there’s anything that policy-level folks agree on, it’s usually that the Common Core is supposed to be different. Very different.

• If the math in a ‘Common Core aligned’ textbook looks like the math you experienced as a student, put it down.
• the traditional US mathematics curriculum must become substantially more coherent and focused
• “I’m scared of rewarding bullsh*t,” Coleman told me…. “I don’t think it’s costless at all.” By bullsh*t, Coleman means the sort of watered-down curriculum that has become the norm in many American classrooms. [statement censored by me so as to better enable passage through draconian school Internet filters]

Of course if we absorb the Common Core into what we’ve always done without substantially changing anything – and this is extremely likely given our history – then things won’t be different at all. We know from past experience that standards usually don’t change instruction much. Neither do they change the day-to-day learning experiences of most children. Implementation always trumps wishes. Regardless of the rhetoric accompanying the Common Core, our historically high rates of reform assimilation indicate that what kids do in school on a daily basis is unlikely to be very different in most places. As Richard Elmore notes,

Internal accountability precedes external accountability and is a precondition for any process of improvement.

What does it mean to you for things to be ‘Common Core aligned℠?’ [Although Common Core chief architect / circus barker David Coleman believes that "people really don't give a sh*t about what you feel or what you think", I do.] Perhaps more importantly, what are you and your fellow educators doing to avoid old wine in new bottles?

P.S. Never fear. This blog post is Common Core-aligned℠. See ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.8.

The more I work with administrators and teachers, the more I’m convinced that, for the most part, the answers we seek lie within us.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of fabulous educators in recent months. We’ve been talking about facilitating deeper learning, fostering better technology infusion, and increasing student agency and ownership of the learning process.

While I’ve been sharing resources and trying to spark some ‘urgency’ to move forward faster, much of the time I’ve been asking questions. Questions like:

• How can we get more problem-based learning into our classrooms?
• What are some ways that we can make students’ learning experiences more global?
• In two minutes, can you come up with five ways that you could increase student voice online?
• How could you put your students to work to make something that benefited others?

Invariably, the educator pairs or small groups come up with a wealth of possibilities. In many cases, the ideas come pouring out as if from a firehose, as if they were bottled up just waiting for someone to ask the questions so that they could be released.

As leaders, we have to continually remember that there’s an incredible wealth of untapped talent, expertise, experience, and wisdom in our faculty. In our search for solutions, we need to turn less to outside experts – at least at first – and instead uncover what lies dormant within. If we ask the right questions – questions that are tightly focused and solution-oriented – most of the time we will generate numerous options that can be thrown out for more discussion and explored in more depth.

What are the specific, progress-oriented questions that we could be asking our faculty but haven’t? What untapped possibilities are lying dormant within our school organizations? As principals and superintendents, how can we better utilize targeted questioning to open up new lines of innovation? Once we generate some exciting new conversations, then the challenge is for us to facilitate and support those ideas so that they translate into sustainable changes in practice. That’s difficult work, of course, but it’s also energizing, movement-oriented work. And buy-in is inherently better because it came from the group, not from us or an outsider.

Ask your faculty some new questions. They’ll probably amaze you.

[Of course everything I said here also could (should) be done with students. It no longer should be an epiphany for educators that we should be doing less to students and doing more with them.]

Image credit: 007 The Answer 12|12

Meira Levinson says:

Many schools, especially those that serve predominantly low-income children of color, model civic disrespect and demand that their students practice submissive obedience rather than empowered engagement. They enact a continuous series of civic microaggressions against their students. These regular but unacknowledged mini-invalidations of children as civic persons worthy of respect are often barely noticeable to their victims – and usually totally invisible to their perpetrators. Together, however, they can cumulatively erode the self-confidence and self-image of those at the receiving end. Urban students’ experiences of these civic microassaults may profoundly influence their civic skills and identity development.

Levinson, M. (2012, March). School culture and the civic empowerment gap. Harvard Education Letter, 28(2), 6-8.

David Warlick says:

The fallacy of competitive education is its obsession with remembered right answers. The fallacy of right answers is that today success depends less on right answers and more on finding good answers and using them to accomplish meaningful goals. What does the game of school do to children who are more inclined to find and invent good answers than memorize correct answers?

….

As long as we race [to the top], scoring points by teaching the same answers for the same tests to every child, then we’re perfectly preparing a generation for its own history.

via http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=3967

It’s hard to look back over the last four decades and find ways that education technology has made deep, lasting changes on schooling. It’s also hard to imagine a future where we don’t depend upon emerging technologies to shape learning across our lifetimes.

Justin Reich via http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/edtechresearcher/2013/02/ten_tough_questions_for_digital_learning_day.html

Gary Stager says:

There are three competing visions of educational computing. Each bestows agency on an actor in the educational enterprise. We can use classroom computers to benefit the system, the teacher, or the student. Data collection, drill-and-practice test-prep, computerized assessment, or monitoring Common Core compliance are examples of the computer benefitting the system. “Interactive” white boards, presenting information or managing whole-class simulations are examples of computing for the teacher. In this scenario, the teacher is the actor, the classroom a theatre, the students the audience and the computer is a prop.

The third vision is a progressive one. The personal computer is used to amplify human potential. It is an intellectual laboratory and vehicle for self-expression that allows each child to not only learn what we’ve always taught, perhaps with greater efficacy, efficiency or comprehension. The computer makes it possible for students to learn and do in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. This vision of computing democratizes educational opportunity and supports what Papert and Turkle call epistemological pluralism. The learner is at the center of the educational experience and learns in their own way.

Too many educators make the mistake of assuming a false equivalence between “technology” and its use. Technology is not neutral. It is always designed to influence behavior. Sure, you might point to an anecdote in which a clever teacher figures out a way to use a white board in a learner-centered fashion or a teacher finds the diagnostic data collected by the management system useful. These are the exception to the rule.

While flexible high-quality hardware is critical, educational computing is about software because software determines what you can do and what you do determines what you can learn. In my opinion the lowest ROI comes from granting agency to the system and the most from empowering each learner. You might think of the a continuum that runs from drill/testing at the bottom; through information access, productivity, simulation and modeling; with the computer as a computational material for knowledge construction representing not only the greatest ROI, but the most potential benefit for the learner.

Piaget reminds us,“To understand is to invent,” while our mutual colleague Seymour Papert said, “If you can use technology to make things, you can make more interesting things and you can learn a lot more by making them.”

….

kindergarteners could build, program and choreograph their own robot ballerinas by utilizing mathematical concepts and engineering principles never before accessible to young children. Kids express themselves through filmmaking, animation, music composition and collaborations with peers or experts across the globe. 5th graders write computer programs to represent fractions in a variety of ways while understanding not only fractions, but also a host of other mathematics and computer science concepts used in service of that understanding. An incarcerated 17 year-old dropout saddled with a host of learning disabilities is able to use computer programming and robotics to create “gopher-cam,” an intelligent vehicle for exploring beneath the earth, or launch his own probe into space for aerial reconnaissance. Little boys and girls can now make and program wearable computers with circuitry sewn with conductive thread while 10th grade English students can bring Lady Macbeth to life by composing a symphony. Soon, you be able to email and print a bicycle. Computing as a verb is the game-changer.

Used well, the computer extends the breadth, depth and complexity of potential projects. This in turn affords kids with the opportunity to, in the words of David Perkins, “play the whole game.” Thanks to the computer, children today have the opportunity to be mathematicians, novelists, engineers, composers, geneticists, composers, filmmakers, etc… But, only if our vision of computing is sufficiently imaginative.

via http://www.joebower.org/2013/02/technology-is-not-neutral.html

we are often forced to ask students to put their learning on hold … if not stop it all together while they compete for resources.

That is a topic for next year.  STOP

Today’s lesson is on page 43.  Turn to that page and do only questions 4 and 5.  STOP

We will not have time for you to explore that.  STOP

If you want to borrow that book, put your name on the request list and when it is free you can borrow it.  STOP

You will have to wait until I have time to come sit with you.  STOP

As long as student knowledge acquisition is limited to books, and the one teacher in the classroom, there will always be a need for learning to STOP.  Students will need to stop while they wait for the attention of the teacher. They will need to stop while they wait for the book. They will need to stop when they get to the end of the book. They will need to stop because learning is too big of a job for students to do completely on their own.

Jennifer Brokofsky via http://jenniferbrokofsky.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/does-learning-have-to-stop