How To Make Schools Matter To Students

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” John Dewey

Schools are supposed to be about learning. They are supposed to be about inspiring students and supporting them so they can develop the skills and knowledge they need to live their best life.

But the world has changed, quickly, and schools and teachers are struggling to keep up. Learning, like many aspects of our lives, is becoming democratized and decentralized. Students are increasingly finding schools irrelevant when it comes to learning and are using cheap and easy technology to take matters into their own hands.

Here’s three stories to illustrate:

1. Martha Payne: On April 30th, 2012, Martha Payne was a nine-year old school girl in Lochgilphead, Scotland. She thought the food provided to students at her school wasn’t very good so she decided to blog about it. Her first entry on May 8th, 2012 included a picture of her pizza lunch with the comment “The good thing about this blog is Dad understands why I am hungry when I get home”.  The blog quickly got local and national headlines, a comment from food advocate Jamie Oliver, and by June 15th Martha had three million hits. The story developed a few twists and turns along the way (the school board tried to shut her down) but as a result of Martha’s blog the quality and quantity of food at her school (and others) has improved, and along the way she’s raised over $150,000 to improve the quality of food at schools in Africa.
2. Ann Makosinski: Since grade 6 Ann Makosinski, of Victoria, British Columbia, has had an interest in harvesting surplus energy. She started exploring this interest in independent science projects in grade 7 and continued to refine her ideas. In 2013 (she’s now in grade 10) Makosinski produced a flashlight that can be powered by the heat from the user’s hand. Her $26 prototype uses Peltier tiles (which she bought on Ebay) to turn heat into electricity. Makosinski is one of fifteen students in the world, and the only Canadian, presenting at the 2013 Google Science Fair in California. Makinowski did this, not in class, but independently, on her own time, between her part-time job and rehearsing for the school play.
3. Ebony Oshunrinde (aka WondaGurl): When Ebony Oshunrinde was nine years old she saw a video of rap artist Jay-Z and producer Timbaland working in the studio together. She decided it looked cool and she wanted to learn how to do it, so she downloaded music software and taught herself how to use it by watching YouTube videos. Oshunrinde is now a grade 11 student in Brampton, Ontario and made a piece of music she liked. She sent it off to a producer she’d recently met for some feedback. Her ‘beat’ was so good he shared it with Jay-Z and they decided to use it on the song “Crown” which is on Jay-Z’s just released album Magna Carta Holy Grail. Oshunrinde worked on the beat after she finished her homework.

These are just three of thousands of stories of students that are increasingly taking learning into their own hands. They’re not getting what they need in school and so are using technology to ‘go around’ school.

Schools need to facilitate and support more of this kind of independent learning, to provide a space for students to follow their passions. If we don’t, formal schooling will become increasingly irrelevant to students. Instead of a place of learning and inspiration ‘school learning’ will be another chore that students HAVE to do. Another thing on the to-do list before they live their real life.

Shhhhh!! Ontario’s “Secret” Public Consultation into Education

June 30th 2013 marks the end of the most turbulent year in Ontario Education in over a decade. The imposition of Bill 115 has, for better or worse, politicized education in Ontario. Parents, students, educators and members of the general public are discussing education issues with passion and conviction.

Now would be a perfect time to tap into that engagement and open a dialogue about what Ontarians really want from their education system. What do we value? How should it be working? Coincidentally there WILL be a public consultation about Ontario education, but if the Ministry of Education really wants to hear from all Ontarians they have a funny way of showing it.

On May 30th Liz Sandals, The Minister of Education, “announced” that there will be a consultation into ‘building the next phase in Ontario’s education strategy’. Announced is an overstatement, because news of this ‘public consultation’ wasn’t widely shared. Whispered is more apt. There was no press conference and no press release. A search on the Ministry of Education’s website will not uncover any mention. However some Ontarians got personal invitations to participate (hint: not me).

On June 1st I got the digital equivalent of a brown manilla envelope stuffed into my e-mail box directing me to a dusty page on the Ministry of Education’s website that lists ministry policy memos. Posted there is a letter from the minister to ‘education stakeholders’ and a document titled “Building The Next Phase in Ontario’s Education Strategy” that explains what a great job the government is doing with the education system, how the public consultation process will take place and giving seven ‘key questions’ to guide the discussion. Stakeholders are encouraged to ponder these questions over the summer and be ready to discuss in the Fall.

I was confused. As an educator, a parent of three children in the education system and a writer about education don’t I count as a ‘stakeholder’? If not me, who does count and why?

After reading the document a few questions and reflections coalesced:

• Why The Secrecy? If the ministry is truly interested in “…feedback from a broad range of individuals and groups…” why wasn’t the process publicly announced? I understand the document was sent to trustees and directors of education. Why? What about everybody else?

• What is an “education stakeholder”? I see everyone as an education stakeholder. Our collective future depends on our public education system so isn’t it in everyone’s best interest to have the best possible system? Apparently the ministry sees education stakeholders as a few select people on their mailing list. If only there was some sort of mass information system they could use to inform everyone about the consultation process. Hmmm…

• Why Do We Have EQAO? For anyone who asked me this question over the past month, you need wonder no more. The main function of EQAO is to allow the ministry to make statements like this:

“Ten years ago, only 68% of our students were graduating, and only 54% of children in grades 3 and 6 were achieving at the provincial standard in literacy and numeracy. Today, those numbers stand at 83% and 70% respectively, and they continue to climb.”

• Any discussions about using EQAO to improve learning is merely window dressing. EQAO is a tool that allows the government to show how well (or in the case of the Mike Harris government how badly) public education is doing. EQAO scores are the primary evidence of how Ontario’s public education system has improved. And we know how accurate and reliable EQAO scores are.

• The Process: The document discusses wanting to hear from “…education stakeholders, parents, students and members of the business, research and innovation, not-for-profit and Aboriginal communities…” and mentions “groups and individuals”. However later it mentions the minister will be holding consultations in Toronto for provincially focussed groups and regionally for regionally focussed groups. It also mentions that there will be some ‘digital only’ sessions and an opportunity to participate via e-mail. It seems as if the minister is really only interested in meeting with groups. That’s too bad. Groups homogenize opinion and reduce the breadth of possible input. There’s many individuals who want to make their voice heard and not have to funnel it through an organization to give it legitimacy.

The Seven Questions:

Here are the seven guiding questions for the public consultation with my initial reflections:

1) What are the skills, knowledge and characteristics students need to succeed after they have completed school, and how do we better support all learners in their development?

The first question in our education strategy is about preparing students to be workers. It could be reworded as “Are we producing good future employees?”. Is this really where we should be starting? Is this the first thing we should be considering about our education system? Not maximizing students’ potential or helping them to fulfill their dreams but will they meet the province’s economic needs. I’m disappointed.

2) What does student well-being mean to you, and what is the role of the school in supporting it?

I’m glad to see this as part of the discussion. We need to better address student’s mental and physical health needs and understand their impact on learning. We don’t educate children in isolation and an unhealthy child is not able to learn well.

 3) From your perspective, what further opportunities exist to close gaps and increase equity to support all children and students in reaching their full potential?

 Another critical discussion we need to be having. We must move away from a system of equality to one of equity. In an education system where resources are limited, why are we directing the same resources to all students regardless of need? Students aren’t equal so why do we fund them that way? A student from a middle or high income family doesn’t need the same level of support as one from a low-income family. We need to address this on a provincial, systemic basis. I’d like to see the introduction of a weighted funding formula for education in Ontario.

4) How does the education system need to evolve as a result of changes to child care and the implementation of full-day kindergarten?

This confuses me. I assumed that given the commitment and money spent on Full Day Kindergarten there was some sort of long-term plan in place. This suggests a sort of “Oh, we’ve got FDK, now what?” approach. That’s concerning.

5) What more can we all do to keep students engaged, foster their curiosity and creativity, and help them develop a love of life-long learning?

This should be the first question, not the fifth. This is the mission statement of a progressive education system. A foundational idea. If we can accomplish this, everything else will fall into place. Bravo!!

6) How can we use technology more effectively in teaching and learning?

This is the mandatory Ed Tech question. It is now illegal to discuss education unless you mention technology once. I suspect this is something The OPSBA pushed hard for at the round table seeing as they’d spent money on their new report. I support the vision presented but ask the same question as when the report was published. Who is going to pay for it? Digital technology should be an essential part of our education system but it requires an investment and nobody seems willing to make that investment. If you want to put tech in schools you’ve got to show me the money.

7) What are the various opportunities for partnership that can enhance the student experience, and how can they benefit parents, educators and our partners too?

Not sure what this really is but it feels like a discussion of how can we involve private enterprise more in public education. The reason we seek partnerships is that we want to do things but don’t have the necessary resources. We must remember that, as the old saying goes, “There’s no free lunch”. Enterprises we enter into partnership with aren’t primarily interested in students or their learning. They’re interested in making money. Effective partnerships result from an exchange of value. Let’s be clear and aware of what we’re giving up and what we’re getting in return and remember it’s our job to put students first.

What’s Missing?

Some questions I’m surprised not to see there:

• What is the role of standardized testing in Ontario’s education system?
• What is the role of school boards and trustees in Ontario’s education system?
• What is a fair and effective system of collective bargaining in Ontario’s education system?
• What role should faith play in Ontario’s public education system?

Those are my first, off the cuff, reactions and responses. I’ll keep discussing and pontificating and prepare myself to participate fully in the government’s “public consultation”. I urge all Ontarians to do likewise. It’s time for an “Education Spring” in Ontario. This may be our opening.

High School Facebook Confession Pages: Problem or Symptom?

Anonymous online confession pages for students are nothing new. Juicycampus launched in 2007 with the goal of enabling “online anonymous free speech on college campuses”. They were joined in 2008 by College ACB.com which peaked with over 900,000 views in a single day in 2010. Even then, these services were controversial as schools tried to ban them because many of the posted confessions hurt the school’s image while proponents promoted their positive benefits. What no one can deny is that the need to share anonymously is deep-seated.

Why Do Students Use Them?

We’re willing to be more open and honest when we’re assured anonymity and that honesty helps uncover and solve difficult problems. Most adults have at some time read newspaper advice columns where readers anonymously submit problems and an “Agony Aunt” responds with advice so that others with similar problems benefit. Anonymity is an important and useful tool in many situations. Voting is usually done anonymously to allow freedom of expression and governments protect anonymous whistleblowers with legislation. Kids Help Phone encourages teens and children to phone in and share their problems anonymously because this helps teens and children to address problems they can’t in other ways. And police “Tips” phone services assure anonymity as a way of getting people to share others’ misdeeds.

College ACB closed down in October 2011 but anonymous online confession sites didn’t go away. Earlier that summer US college students began using a combination of Facebook pages and anonymous forms such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey to create school based Facebook Confession Pages.

How Do They Work?

Facebook Confession Pages are simply pages that allow students to anonymously submit their deepest secrets. The moderator of the page posts the confessions on the Facebook page. Students who ‘like’ the page can see each confession and can ‘like’ each confession and comment. The moderators of the page are often unknown to the students, as are the contributors. Here’s a typical example from a school in Hawaii.

The Facebook Confession Page model has caught on and spread. Many US and Canadian Universities have confession pages associated with them and it’s been slowly filtering to high schools and spreading around the world. The pages are free, easy to set up and tap into this deep-seated need teens and young adults have to share what they’re really thinking and feeling without fear of adult sanctions.

What Are The Problems?

While the original intent of Facebook Confession Pages was to offer a forum for students to share problems, concerns and secrets that isn’t all students are sharing. The online disinhibition effect, a loosening of social restrictions and inhibitions that would normally be present in social interactions, means that many students want to also use the confessions pages to share stories of alcohol and drug use or sexual behaviour. In some cases the pages lead to cyberbullying or even slander.

These were the problems that schools in Thunder Bay, Ontario were dealing with this week. Facebook Confessions Pages had spread first to Lakehead University and Confederation College in Thunder Bay, and from there passed down into the high schools. Soon, school officials were fretting over stories of student drunkenness and drug use and negative comments about teaching staff. In one case the comments crossed into slander and the teacher concerned complained to Facebook, who took the page down.

Experience in other jurisdictions suggests that taking pages down won’t solve the problem. Pages are easy to set up, and often when one is taken down another pops up right away moderated by a different student. Students jealously guard their adult free space and it’s often only after the fact that educators and parents discover that students are posting in a Confession Page.

Schools and school boards that move to shut down pages may find their requests falling on deaf ears. Freedom of expression is an important principle for all citizens, students included. Student stories of drunken escapades may be unpleasant and tarnish a school’s image in the community, but they aren’t illegal. Facebook only seems to be willing to take the pages down when there is clearly something illegal being posted. In some cases they’ve asked that offensive posts be removed while the page stays up.

Facebook is in a difficult position. It has recently been losing relevance with young users, as many of them see Facebook as their parent’s social network, not theirs. Confession Pages, with their ability to make users anonymous, are making Facebook relevant again with the 13-25 year old demographic. They’re not anxious to alienate those users without good reason.

What can educators and parents to do?

One of the values of social media use by teens is it gives us a window into their lives previously unavailable. If what we see is unpleasant an appropriate response is to deal with the problem, not to insist that the widow be closed. Teens expressing depression, issues with body image or alcohol and drug use should concern us all and rather than preventing them from posting about it we should be looking at the behaviour and trying to address it.

Students clearly have a need to post anonymously about their problems, concerns and fears. Schools should embrace the opportunity and set up their own “Confessions Pages”, moderated by students but with guidelines. This would allow students to express their concerns and problems safely while giving schools an element of control and providing an important source of information to educators about potential problems in the school.

Confession Pages and their associated problems also highlight the need for greater education about digital citizenship for students. Students sending their deepest, darkest secrets to a public forum to be posted and discussed is alarming. They need to better understand the risks of posting and the permanent and public nature of digital spaces. This starts at an early age with parents talking to children about social media and modelling good online behaviour themselves.

If Facebook is Out For Teens…What’s In??

“We believe that some of our users, particularly our younger users, are aware of and actively engaging with other products and services similar to, or as a substitute for, Facebook’’ from a Facebook regulatory filing with the SEC, February 2013.

Teens and pre-teens use social media a lot. Recent figures from The Pew Institute’s Survey of Social Media Use suggest that more than 80% of teenagers and young adults are using social media, well above the internet average (67%). A 2010 study suggested that the average teen spend 110 minutes a day on social networks. Increasingly teens are using social media on mobile devices, that’s phones or iPod touches with a wi-fi connection, not sitting at the family’s computer, which makes parental supervision tougher.

But if teens and pre-teens are using social media a lot while deserting Facebook, where are they going?

Firstly, it’s important to understand that most teens continue to use Facebook, just not as much and for specific uses. Facebook is now full of adults. Can a teen really refuse a friend request from their grandparents or their aunts and uncles? In addition Facebook’s privacy record is questionable, which make teens leery. So while teens keep a Facebook account to post safe pictures and Instant Message with their families, they’re using other social media platforms to connect with friends.

Where are they going? Here are 5 of the most popular alternatives:

1. Instagram: Yup, not just for hipsters to post pictures of their food, the popular photo sharing service is also a popular teen connection social media network. It allows teens a forum to share pictures taken with mobile devices and they can chat with their friends. Proper use of the privacy setting can make it feel private. Instagram is becoming the preferred platform for tweens, those under 13 year olds who are ‘officially’ excluded from most social networks.
2. Snapchat: Launched in September 2011 and developed by 4 students from Stanford, Snapchat is a photo messaging app that allows users to take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a list of friends. Senders determine how long messages can be viewed, up to 10 seconds, after which they are deleted from the recipient’s device and the company’s servers. The recipient list and the time limit make teens feel safer when posting pictures, but Snapchat insist that this is no guarantee of privacy, as many teens have discovered.
3. Kik Messenger: Kik Messenger is a free mobile app that allows user to send and receive unlimited messages over wi-fi and cellular, bypassing a phone’s traditional text service. Being able to send and receive unlimited messages without charges is a boon for chatty teens. It also means that parents are less likely to know how much messaging is actually happening. Since a Kik account isn’t attached to a physical phone number, it’s more anonymous. It could be a fictitious username or a string of numbers and can be easily changed if needed. Users can also hold multiple accounts. All of this adds to a greater feeling of privacy for teens.
4. Twitter: Over the past two years the number of 12-17 years olds on Twitter has doubled from 8% to 16%. Teens like twitter because they can be more anonymous. They don’t need to show their real name, can hold multiple accounts with various identities and can change their handle or account easily. They can also use simple privacy settings to protect tweets and send what amounts to a ‘group text’. Add to that being able to follow The Biebs and you can see the appeal 🙂
5. Pheed: Pheed is a platform for sharing user-created content such as text, pictures, sound, video, and live broadcasts. Users subscribe to other’s channels and view uploaded content in real-time. They can ‘love’ or ‘heartache’ content, hashtag it and provide ‘pheedback,’ as well as share content from others. Pheed is popularized by endorsements from celebrities (Miley Cyrus, Paris Hilton, et al) who use it as a way to promote their content (MySpace anyone?). A huge advantage for Pheed users is they retain control of their uploaded content, unlike Facebook, and no one is allowed to use it or edit it without permission. Users also have the option to charge for their content, which Pheed hopes means the content is of higher quality.

The movement of teens and tweens away from Facebook is fueled by privacy concerns. They are gravitating towards services that will allow them develop a separate identity and connect with others on their own terms. Some of the social media platforms outlines above address some of those concerns, but don’t change the basic fact of social media. Teen users need to understand that the internet is always public all the time. There might be the appearance of privacy but that is an illusion and users must always assume that anything they post can be shared. Parents and educators need to help helps teens understand that the internet is public and never forgets .

Five Ways to Hack Your Classroom

There’s an interplay between the design of a learning space and the type of learning that happens in it. If a classroom is set up with rows of desks it makes collaborative learning harder and independent learning more likely. Many learning spaces don’t support the kind of learning we know students should be engaging in. We want students to be collaborating with each other and solving real world problems but the furniture and walls keep getting in the way.

New or renovated schools have spaces custom-built to support that kind of learning but most students learn in classrooms built decades ago for a different kind of learning. Teachers need simple ways they can modify their classrooms and facilitate collaborative learning. You can’t knock down walls, but what can you do?

Don’t worry, help is here. The following five changes will help to transform your learning space:

1. Ditch the desks: Desks are good for individual work but what about the rest of the time? Replace the desks with tables. With students clustered around tables they can more easily make eye contact with each other, collaborate and provide bigger spaces for students to safely move around in or group together as needed.
2. Break Down the Walls: Classrooms shouldn’t be figurative or literal islands. The ‘real’ world outside the classroom walls is a cool place, and we need more of it into our learning spaces. Bring it in with guest speakers, outside programs, volunteers, co-op students, whatever…just bring the outside in. Bring in the natural world with plants, fish, leaves, whatever’s out there. Use technology like Skype and twitter to reach outside the classroom in real-time. Field trips are great, but that doesn’t need to involve a school bus ride. Go for a walk around the school neighborhood or take students outside for quiet reading. Make the outside world part of your learning space.
3. Free the Tech: Digital technology is an integral part of our lives. We’ve gone from everyone watching a single screen, to one in every room, to one in every pocket. We’ve been slower in making this shift in our learning spaces and we group the tech in one area. In whatever ways you can make technology an integrated part of learning for students, not a separate subject. Personal devices (tablets, smart phones, iPod touches) are a natural way to do this so encourage students to use them in their learning. Wireless internet in schools makes this much easier. Arrange desktop computers around the room rather than clustering them so that students can easily use them for research or reference then return to group work. Break up computer labs and get those machines into classrooms where the students and the learning is.
4. Flexibility: Students don’t learn in the same way all the time, so good classrooms must account for this with flexibility. There should be areas that support independent work, pairs, triads, small groups, whole groups and spaces for students who need quiet. A classroom needs flexible arrangements, things that can easily move and be repurposed. Watch here to see how simply putting wheels on furniture allows it to be easily rearranged to support different groupings. One of my favourite flexible spaces is the floor where groups of students can stretch out and work together on chart paper or a single student can lie and read quietly to themselves.
5. Open The Doors: In many schools working in the hallway is a punishment or a management strategy. It can also be an untapped resource. There’s lots of unused, tucked away spaces that trusted, responsible students can take and use effectively. Let students use hallways and stairwells to collaborate without disrupting others. Keep students that need more support in the classroom and circulate. You can’t do this all the time, but occasionally you can spread out and make the classroom bigger and less constricting. Why not put temporary tables in the hallway, like a street cafe for learning?

What have I missed? What are some other ways to hack learning spaces? Ideas in the comments.

Why Teaching Digital Citizenship Doesn’t Work

Spend time with children and you learn that lists of rules don’t work well. Kids are too smart and love to find loopholes. No matter how long you spend crafting a list that covers all scenarios a 5-year-old will bite someone and point out that you didn’t say he couldn’t.

A better approach is positive general principles. Tell students what you want them to do. My favorite model is the four Tribes agreements that are displayed prominently in my class and discussed and practiced every day:

1. Attentive Listening– Pay close attention to what others are saying. Check for understanding
2. Appreciation Only– Treat each other kindly, don’t use put-downs.
3. Right to Pass– Choose when and how much you participate. It’s acceptable to simply observe.
4. Mutual Respect– Affirm the value and uniqueness of everyone.

These agreements cover most situations, describe behavior in positive terms and support the development of critical thinking skills.

This approach works better than long lists of rules, and so I’m confused by the common approach to encouraging good Digital Citizenship. Further, the concept of separate rules for digital behavior is quite flawed.

Digital Citizenship is often promoted by listing the many things students cannot or should not do. Schools require students to sign ‘Acceptable User Agreements’ with long lists of rules such as:

Students may not

• Use illegal downloads
• Post name, address, telephone number, etc. without permission
• Contact strangers on the Internet
• By-pass digital security systems
• Access unapproved websites
• Post inaccurate or harmful information
• Use digital technologies in an unhealthy manner (e.g. game addiction, loud music, etc.,)
• And so on…

Such lists are too narrow, quickly become outdated and don’t allow students to think critically.

More importantly the whole concept of digital citizenship is backwards. Students who behave inappropriately in digital spaces misinterpret the digital space as private, when it is, of course, public. This misunderstanding leads students to believe that the regular rules of public behavior don’t apply in digital space, and so they behave in ways online that they never would in public. The fundamental error is in thinking that digital spaces are different, with different rules from the real world. They aren’t.

Lists of ‘rules’ for online behavior reinforce the misconception that online and real life is different.  We must help students understand that social media, texting, etc. are public spaces and the same rules that apply in other public spaces also apply there.

The Brampton 9 students wouldn’t insult their teachers over the PA system at school. Students wouldn’t engage in many of the negative online behaviors that they do if they understood that they are sharing with the whole world, not just their friends. They don’t need a new set of rules, just to apply the rules they already know to their digital behavior.

We need to stop teaching Digital Citizenship with long lists of rules and instead reinforce basic Citizenship. Provide students with a set of positively framed principles to apply to all situations, digital and analog. Students don’t need more rules; they just need to apply the ones they’ve already got. The same ones they learned in kindergarten.

Digital Citizenship, Free Speech and “The Brampton 9”

On Wednesday Ontario education was dragged in the shifting debate over students, privacy, free speech and the internet.

Nine students in Brampton, Ontario were told to stay home after The Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board found out they’d “used Twitter to make inappropriate comments about teachers” the previous weekend.

This is just the latest incident in a growing trend, as educators try to navigate the minefield that students and social media has become.

Some examples:

• Austin Carroll was expelled from high school for a profanity laden tweet.
• 10 Illinois high school students were suspended over twitter comments.
• 2 students in NC were suspended over ‘joke threats’ they posted on twitter.

There are lots of new issues to consider. Here are three key ones:

1) Digital Citizenship: What responsibility do schools have to educate and prepare students for the “digital future” and how best do we do that?

Many students, used to texting, are missing the shift required when using social media. It’s easy to think that messages on twitter are part of a private conversation, when they aren’t. We need to help students understand that online communication is public and that means a different set of standards and expectations from private.

The consequences of not understanding this are significantly more than a few days suspension. People are increasingly judged personally and professionally by their digital footprint, losing jobs due to “inappropriate use of social media“, prevented from getting jobs because of past ‘digital mistakes’, or losing relationships. We need to help students understand this.

2) Free Speech: Can schools really restrict student’s free expression outside school? Should they?

In the Brampton case the comments and threats were seen as cyberbullying and so fit under the school’s responsibility to prevent such behaviour. But does it stop there? What about when a student makes statements that oppose the school or are controversial? What if students at a Catholic school tweet in support of abortion or anti-religious views? What then? What if a student’s online behaviour reflects badly on the school, but doesn’t involve the school in any way? If a student appropriately expresses support for an unpopular position does the school need to respond?

3) Deeper Causes: What does this all mean in the bigger picture?

Dana Boyd has pointed out that none of this behaviour is new. Students have “trashed” teachers and fantasized about blowing up the school for generations. The difference is that their conversations are now happening in social media, where it is recorded and displayed.

We have a window into students’ thoughts, attitudes and emotions about teachers and schools. What do we do with that? Do we ‘shoot the messenger’ and try to suppress those views? Or do we take advantage of it and ask the harder questions?

Why were these students so angry with/about their teachers? What does that mean? Will we listen when students have things to say that we don’t agree with or want to ask difficult questions? Will we honor their right to express their views while recognizing that they aren’t adults and will make many mistakes?

It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Why Khan Academy Is The Wrong Answer

“The problem with television lies not in the quality of resolution but the quality of programming”

Nicholas Negroponte “Being Digital”

Nicholas Negroponte is a genius and one of my heroes. He played a major role in creating the MIT Media Lab, Wired Magazine and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. His book “Being Digital” was transformative . Every time I turned a page I read something that blew my mind.

One revelation was Negroponte’s thoughts on the future of TV. In 1995 HDTV was on the horizon and millions of dollars were poured into increasing screen resolution. Negroponte pointed out that what stopped people from watching more TV wasn’t screen resolution, but lousy programming. They were innovating on the wrong problem.

Before we solve a problem it’s important to make sure we’re working on the right problem. We need to do the same when improving education.

Popular efforts to improve education are focusing on the wrong problem. Millions of dollars and hours of innovation are being spent on improving how we deliver content in an era when content matters less and how we interact with it matters more.

Examples:

• Salman Khan and The Khan Academy are hailed as “reinventing education” as he gets set to cash in on an over $1 trillion opportunity .
• Apple Computers are using the iPad and iBooks 2 to “elbow their way into a $10 billion textbook market“.
• The use of Interactive Whiteboards (IWB) in education has turned “the production of IWB into a $1.85 billion industry.”

What do all these all have in common? They are one-way content delivery systems and large corporations stand to make a lot of money from them.

However, the weak link in our current learning paradigm isn’t content delivery. Traditional textbooks deliver content efficiently and effectively, and access to content is cheaper and easier than at any other time in history thanks to the internet. It’s only with the guidance of a skilled teacher and interaction with other learners that content becomes relevant and engaging. That’s what makes  good teaching important. Future education is better served by  investing in and developing tools that support discussion and interaction, not improving content delivery.

New uses of the internet (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) are social. Web 2.0 is about users interacting and collaborating. The power of YouTube is that users create, share and discuss their own videos. That’s what makes it unique. Using it to show lectures so students can watch their homework while playing World of Warcraft turns it into a TV channel, nothing more.

Promoting interaction and discussion is the most effective way to use technology to support learning. Social media promotes and extends discussion, which is far more effective and transformative than putting lectures on YouTube or textbooks on tablets will ever be.

Some Examples:

• Google Hangouts facilitates face-to-face discussions when students can’t be in the same space. Use it for after school study groups or to connect remote learners working on the same topic.
• Twitter allow students to discuss learning and share insights over mobile devices or asynchronously.
• Skype can effectively and easily connect learners to experts in the field they are studying so they can ask questions and delve deeply into topics.

We need to focus on using and developing technological tools that make learning more interactive and collaborative. It’s is a more effective and innovative way of improving learning than simply finding new ways to deliver content.

The Future of Digital Textbooks

Initially, new media replicates the media it’s replacing. Early film and TV recorded theatrical performances for broadcast and early printed books mimicked handwritten manuscripts. This persists, but over time the producers of new media begin to understand it and see new possibilities. They see it as a unique medium that can be used in innovative ways.

We’re following this same progression with the transition to digital textbooks. Early digital texts are transcriptions of traditional textbooks moved to a new medium. It’s as if someone took a textbook, scanned it and put it on a tablet. The pages flip, they have leather bound graphics and other types of Skeumorphism (my favorite new word).

However, we’re now starting to see new possibilities for the digital textbook and new ways that textbooks can used.

We need to begin discussing what a digital textbook should be. What features would be useful? How can we better leverage the capabilities of devices and connectivity to make a more useful resource?

Here are some ideas:

1. Reliable Interconnected Devices: Digital textbooks have to be accessed on reliable, dependable, easy to use devices. Traditional textbooks are limited but they are 100% reliable, and if the majority of educators are going to smoothly switch to digital they have to be able to count on them. The devices need fast wireless connections to resources and should be charged wirelessly to avoid battery problems. They’re going to be handled by students so they need to be light and sturdy and should be replaced every 3 years .
2. Customizable Content: The content of digital textbooks should be open so that instructors can update and rewrite portions according to the changing needs of students. If students are studying the earth’s crust and an earthquake happens, instructors can add to existing content to give it increased relevance. In some situations students add content. Rather than being a definitive resource the digital textbook is a skeleton, a framework, with starting points that learning communities fill in as they learn. There’s a master control panel that allows teachers to adjust the reading level or content.
3. Personalized Interface: Our digital media experiences are personalized. No one’s Facebook page or Twitter feed is the same. So it will be for digital textbooks. When students login to their textbook the content is seamlessly adjusted to individual learning profiles.  Content is presented in ways that maximize a student’s learning strengths. Students with visual learning strengths get more pictures. Vocabulary is adjusted, content is “chunked” appropriately and assistive technology (e.g. text to speech) is automatically incorporated.
4. Interactive: Students comment on content and share opinions and insights on what they’ve learned. They add to and build on other’s comments, bringing in resources from other sources and posting them for others to use. Comments take multiple forms (text, podcasts, images, videos and other multimedia) and can be added remotely through mobile devices whenever or wherever students are inspired. Students “like” comments, so the best thoughts and opinions rise to the top. The most useful comments are shared with other learning communities to help their learning. Students see the best ideas from other locations and reflect and respond to them.
5. Facilitate Personal Connections: Digital textbooks facilitate connections to resources outside the device. In addition to basic internet resources textbook “publishers” provide experts that students can schedule a conference with. Students ask questions to advance their understanding or “dig deeper” into a topic quickly and easily over voice or video. A recording of the conference is instantly available to review, edit and share with others. Students easily share what they’ve learned and get feedback from other learners.
6. Integrated Assessment: Assessment is integrated into content and content adjusts based on feedback from assessment. Assessment takes many forms and is differentiated. If needed, remediation and review is automatically provided. Teachers check student progress in real-time, add observations and feedback to the student’s portfolio, and intervene and guide when needed.

That should be enough to get started with. Okay developers, let’s see some prototypes 🙂

The 5 Most Overhyped Trends in Education

For your perusal, a completely subjective list of five things happening right now in education that are getting lots of notice, energy and resources but don’t deserve it, and why I think we need to reconsider our collective love affair with them:

 

1. Flipping The Class:

What is it? “…a form of blended Learning which encompasses any use of Internet technology to leverage the learning in a classroom, so a teacher can spend more time interacting with students instead of lecturing. This is most commonly being done using teacher created videos that students view outside of class time. It is also known as backwards classroom, reverse instruction, flipping the classroom, and reverse teaching”

What’s The Problem?

The problems with flipping are well explained in “The Flip: End of a Love Affair“.

The short form is:

• It entrenches homework
• It depends on lecturing, a one way transfer of information to the student from the teacher, rather than allowing the student to construct their own understandings and meaning by interacting with the information.
• It doesn’t account for students that don’t have the resources to learn at home (e.g. technology, family support, etc.)

2. BYOD:

What is it? “…stands for “bring your own device”, and refers to students bringing their own technology like smartphones, tablets, and laptops to school for educational use.  This has been traditionally done by college students, but has now spread into K-12 education.”

What’s the problem?

I’ve written before about the problems with BYOD. I also recommend Gary Stager’s “BYOD-Worst Idea of the 21st Century”

The short form is:

• It’s inequitable. It relies on families, who don’t have equal resources, to provide devices.
• The learning possible is restricted by capabilities of the devices brought.  If one class or student has the latest devices while other students/classes have lesser devices their is a difference in what can be taught and how.
• Continues the transfer of responsibility for funding education from public to private.

3. EdTech:

What is it? “…an array of tools that might prove helpful in advancing student learning…” What I am specifically referring to here is the onslaught of electronic devices being brought into education.

What’s the problem?

The consistent message at ECOO12, from top thinkers and all corners, is that when considering using devices in education, pedagogy must come first. Too often we’re putting devices into classrooms and teachers have no idea what they are doing with them or how best to use them. We need to first ask the question “what are we trying to accomplish?”. Then select the tools that will help us and properly train teachers how to effectively use them in education. At a time when resources are precious let’s not waste them on poorly designed EdTech projects just because we feel we need to keep up with Jones Public School.

4) 1 to 1:

What is it? In “1 to 1” classrooms each student has their own machine or device to work on. Devices are not shared between students.

What’s the problem?

The “Maine Learning Technology Initiative” has raised the stakes considerably. In this program the whole state has gone 1 to 1. There are small individual pockets of 1 to 1 outside Maine but the general impression is that 1 to 1 is the current common practice and if you’re not 1 to 1 you’re falling behind. Due to declining education budgets 1 to 1 in the classroom will take a long time to become a fixture. Maine is a small and isolated example and no one has been able to come up with an effective scalable model that will allow 1 to 1 to be a reality in most classrooms. It’s the future, but it’s still a ways off.

5) Parent Engagement:

What is it? “…Study after study has shown us that student achievement improves when parents play an active role in their children’s education, and that good schools become even better schools when parents are involved. It is recognized that parent engagement is a key factor in the enhancement of student achievement and well-being.”

What’s the Problem?

It’s important, in a general sense, that parents be as involved in education as possible, but things have swung too far. If you want to get money for something in education simply justify it as something that will increase parent engagement and the world will beat a path to your door. As a result parent engagement has become very poorly defined. What is “Parent Engagement”? In some cases it’s just helping your child to do their homework. Do we really need workshops and parent groups for that? Not all parents have the resources or opportunity to become fully ‘engaged’ in their child’s education and lots of students excel in spite of low or no parent engagement. We must be careful that in pushing the doctrine of engagement we don’t end up excluding large groups of parents.