November 2, 2012 3 Comments

Blame the Technology. Or the Students.

From the New York Times

There is a widespread belief among teachers that students’ constant use of digital technology is hampering their attention spans and ability to persevere in the face of challenging tasks, according to two surveys of teachers being released on Thursday.

An English teacher quoted in the story complained “I’m an entertainer. I have to do a song and dance to capture their attention.” and later asked “What’s going to happen when they don’t have constant entertainment?”.

However, is technology the problem? Or what it’s “doing to” kids?

Although I can sympathize to some degree, the English teacher’s statement and the opinions of a majority in the survey are a little disturbing. The whole foundation on which these studies are based* assumes that whatever is being done in the classroom is right and the kids are “wrong” in some way, due, of course, to their “constant use of digital technology”.

I wonder if anyone – researchers or subjects – seriously questioned whether what the students were asked to learn, the assignments they were given, the instructional methods might, just might, be a major factor in their “shorter attention spans”.

Is technology to blame?

Or is a large part of the problem that our education system is largely unwilling to take a reflective look at itself, to reevaluate what today’s students need to know and how to best help them learn it?

*Admittedly I haven’t read either report so it’s possible I’m completely wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.

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May 1, 2012 Leave a Comment

What Does “Tech Savvy Student” Mean?

Ok, how many of you “older” folks out there are tired of the whole “digital natives” vs. “digital immigrants” concept? As someone who didn’t grow up using computers but who is now very comfortable with networks, social media, mobile devices and the rest, I know I am.

It’s hard, however, to convince some of my colleagues that kids are not born with some magic innate technological talent. I try to tell them that, more than anything, their students simply have more time to spend playing with various electronic devices and absorbing all the little tricks that seem like genius to those who don’t. Invoke the 10,000 hour rule.

However, knowing how to trick out a smart phone or understanding the complexities of Facebook doesn’t mean those students also have any clue how to use all that power to advance their learning. Or even the basics of common programs you use like PowerPoint.

A little research to back up this idea comes from a new study conducted by the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC). The subjects were college students in the UK so maybe the findings don’t directly apply to the kids in US classrooms, but I doubt some of what they found is far off from those in our overly-large school district and other similar parts of the country.

  • 97.8 percent of students owned a mobile phone;
  • Just over three quarters — 77.4 percent — owned a laptop and 38.1 percent owned a desktop computer.
  • 70.1 percent felt their access to computers was sufficient to meet their computing needs.
  • The mobile phone was chosen by 83.2 percent as the device students would miss the most if it was taken away.
  • A small minority of students don’t use email or have access to mobile phones.

Students 20 years old or younger reported being more engaged in instant messaging, texting, social networks and downloading video media than students who were aged 25 years or more. Only 4.3 percent of those 20 or younger never used social networking sites, and for those 35 or older this rose to 78.5 percent.

In other words, they’re coming to your classroom understanding IM, texting, social networks, video downloads and carrying some powerful tools that involve reading, writing, collaboration.

So, what are we doing to leverage those communications skills and the devices in their pockets to improve their learning?

Sorry, I forgot it’s May. Testing season. No time to worry about all that learning stuff.

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October 27, 2011 Leave a Comment

The Legacy of Steve Jobs

This is exactly it.

One of the best things about Steve Jobs’ return to Apple — which will live on and benefit society long after Jobs’ death — is how he basically spent the last 14 years teaching thousands of Apple employees to have incredibly high standards and to build amazing products.

Perhaps more importantly, through Apple’s products, Steve also taught hundreds of millions of consumers to expect and demand amazing things.

For now, many of those Apple colleagues — especially the ones who worked most closely with Steve — still work there. But over time, more will leave to start their own companies or launch new projects. And some of those companies will make some really cool things completely outside the consumer electronics industry, reflecting both the work of their founders and also a little bit of Steve Jobs.

When do we apply Jobs kind of thinking, which has nothing remotely to do with scores on standardized tests, to public education? When do millions of consumers (aka students) begin demanding amazing things?

Soon, I hope.

And, by the way, that thermostat is very cool!

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May 8, 2011 3 Comments

Not What It Says on the Door

According to the title of the office in which I work here in the overly-large school district, we do instructional technology integration.  Which is good, something I really want to do.

Except that much of what we actually do has nothing with either “instructional technology” or instruction.

The major project that involves the most people and time in our office is an “assessment resource tool”, basically a large database of questions that teachers use to create tests for their students.

But none of that is “instructional” technology.

We also have a parallel database that is being loaded with “curriculum and resources for planning and delivering instruction”, allowing teachers to search for and download activities and lessons create under the auspices of our curriculum specialists. It’s the kind of stuff that used to be packaged in large binders (or in more recent years on CD) and shipped to schools.

And that’s still not instructional technology.

We are also involved with the multi-year rollout of a new student information system, another big database which will include an online gradebook, attendance records, and other information teachers need.

Not instructional technology.

Online standardized tests? Data analysis? IWBs? Student response systems (aka clickers)?

No. Nope. Normally not. Hell no.

So what is my definition of instructional technology?

Simple. It’s anything that students use to develop and enhance their learning.  Or, in the words of our school board, students should “use technology to access, communicate, and apply knowledge and to foster creativity”.

Whatever the specific language, the key point here is that to be instructional, all this technology we’ve spent tens of millions on over the past decade – the hardware, software, networks – should be in the hands of, and to some degree controlled by, the kids to build their knowledge and experience.

Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening around here, certainly not this time of year when every resource (including technology) for almost every student in almost every school is completely focused on getting the right bubbles in the right places.

And it’s not just the six to eight weeks around the SOLs (gotta practice, remember). All of that stuff above, especially that “assessment resource tool”, is sucking up all of the available computing devices in many schools during most of the year.

Which means students have fewer and fewer tools for all that creating, communicating, and collaborating we say we want the kids to be doing.

However, I’m not saying those resources that are the primary focus of our office aren’t important.* Teachers and schools certainly need good administrative tools to better manage the increasingly complicated learning process.

Just don’t call any of it “instructional” unless it’s in the hands of kids.

*I would argue that clickers and IWBs, however you classify them, are a waste of money… but that’s another post.

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January 5, 2011 3 Comments

It’s Got Star Power!

Reading or watching a story in the popular media about how technology is being used in schools usually makes me cringe.  Take for example a recent article in the New York Times about schools embracing iPads.

The two digital pages include several extremely superficial examples of classroom use that include over-the-top quotes like “I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector.” from a principal.

And this observation, “It has brought individual technology into the classroom without changing the classroom atmosphere”, which is rather scary since a truly successful 1-1 program should change the classroom in some very significant ways.

Plus the incredible instance of the school that “converted an empty classroom into a lab with 36 iPads — named the iMaginarium — that has become the centerpiece of the school because, as the principal put it, “of all the devices out there, the iPad has the most star power with kids.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think the iPad and other touch tablets have a lot of potential as learning tools and, if we are ever going to break out of the teacher-centered, lecture/demo, traditional classroom, students will need to have some kind of easy to use, always connected, personal communication device.

However, until that potential is better realized, I wish reporters at the Times and elsewhere would pay closer attention to people like Larry Cuban who very correctly observes “There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines.”

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July 31, 2010 Leave a Comment

One More Thing…

Following up on the previous post about leadership, during the interview with Steve Jobs he discussed Apple’s approach to business.

And he made this observation about the difference between producing computing devices for consumers, in which Apple has been very successful over the past decade, and the business market.

What I love about the consumer market that I always hated about the enterprise market is that we come up with a product, we try to tell everybody about it, and every person decides for themselves.  They vote yes or no.  And if enough of them say yes, we get to come to work tomorrow.  That’s how it works.  It’s really simple.

As for the enterprise market, it’s not so simple.  The people who use the products don’t decide for themselves.  And the people who make those decisions sometimes are confused.

Confused indeed!

Here in the overly-large school district, we are regularly reminded that we are not really a school system.

We work for an “enterprise” (and that we are all “clients”).

And that last part of Jobs’ remarks may offer a clue as to why the use of instructional technology is not what it should be here in the overly-large enterprise.

Picture from Wikipedia and I’m only guessing that it’s legal to link to it and not get sued by Paramount. :-)

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July 12, 2010 Leave a Comment

Why Are We Buying This Stuff?

In parts one and two of a multipart post, Larry Cuban looks at why school districts buy new technologies when there is little or no evidence they do anything to improve student learning, especially when most are having major budget problems.

From part one, he notes that consumer spending on electronics in the US is up despite the continuing recession.

At the same time schools are purchasing more technology products while also laying off teachers, increasing class size, and cutting program.

Economists can probably tell you why families are devoting scarce resources to new and better technology devices but why are schools doing the same thing?

The reasons public officials most often give for these purchases, past and present, is that the electronic devices will transform classroom practices, student learning, and prepare students for jobs in a competitive global economy. So, school boards need to back up these reasons with solid evidence for spending public dollars on new (and replacement) technologies that promise significant changes in teaching, learning, and administrative practice.

Where is that “solid evidence”?

The evidence for these electronic devices doing what is expected both in the U.S. and abroad is—as I read the research–at best, spotty—at worst, weak. Few careful and impartial observers of U.S., Europe, and Asia where governments have committed themselves to infusing technology into schools can say with confidence that the use of new technologies has led to increases in student academic achievement (as measured on either U.S. or international tests), altered substantially how teachers teach, or prepared students for to compete in an ever-changing labor market.

In part two, Cuban offers two reasons for this blind devotion to tech “solutions” that solve nothing: political and psychological.

This political explanation helps to make sense of why policymakers effortlessly skip over the lack of evidence to support major high tech expenditures. They figure that media photos of students happily clicking away on laptops–visible symbols–will trump the few research studies or critics who question purchases.

Turning from a political to a psychological explanation, districts buy technology because they suffer from “inattentional blindness”: They are too focused on a specific problem and lose sight of the big picture.

Or they suffer from some kind of blindness caused by salespeople promising tech-based “solutions” to whatever problem their schools might be facing without seeing if it fits in that big picture.

Of course, if the stuff looks good when photographed next to the superintendent, mayor, governor, and/or congressional candidate, so much the better.

Cuban, as always, makes some excellent points about our educational obsession with gimmicks.  Take the time to read both posts.

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