Moving at the Speed of Creativity

This is a podcast session from a SITE 2006 presentation by a distinguished panel on the topic, “Lessons Learned from 1-to-1 Laptop Initiatives: Reflections on the Critical Components.” The session panelists included Mike Muir, University of Maine at Farmington, USA; Gerald Knezek, Rhonda Christensen, University of North Texas, USA; Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan, USA; Cathie Norris, University of North Texas, USA; Peter Albion, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; Ian Gibson, Macquarie University, Australia. The session description was: More and more jurisdictions are exploring and implementing ubiquitous learning environments. The Ubiquitous Computing Evaluation Consortium identifies at least 14 large-scale learning with laptop and 16 district initiatives. Other jurisdictions are implementing handheld initiatives. MIT has announced a $100 laptop intended to bring technology to the world’s poor countries, but will be piloted in Massachusetts. Such initiatives have enormous implications for both inservice and preservice teacher education. This panel will bring together panelists representing five learning with laptop initiatives, including Irving (TX) Independent School District, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, the New Bedford Global Learning Charter School (MA), and various handheld initiatives. The panel presentations will conclude with a long-term view of 1-to-1 initiatives, including comparisons and contrasts between Australia and the USA.

Program Length: 1 hour, 03 min, 14 sec
File size: 15.2 MB

(Click here to listen to this podcast)

Show notes for this podcast include:

1. The 1-to-1 Stories Project
2. SITE 2006 conference blog
3. SITE Early Career Mentoring Network
4. SITE Digital Storytelling
5. SITE Blog posts and Flickr posts

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Technorati Tags: education, site2006

This is a podcast session from a SITE 2006 presentation by a distinguished panel on the topic, “Facilitating Effective Technology Research in the Core Content Areas .” The session description was: The editors of several leading educational technology journals are collectively initiating a dialog to identify productive directions for research in the core content areas. An overview will be provided of the overall goals and objectives of this initiative. An update will be provided on events and activities since the SITE 2005 session on this topic, including outcomes of subsequent presentations and interdisciplinary discussions on this topic at AERA, NECC, NTLS VII, and other conferences and meetings. A description of planned future efforts, such as development of an “Exemplary Research Article” series, and development of a “platinum standard” research conducted in school settings, will be provided. The remaining time will be allocated for discussion and dialogue with the audience to secure input, feedback, and suggestions for enhancing the effectiveness of this effort in the future.

Program Length: 56 min, 19 sec
File size: 13.8 MB

(Click here to listen to this podcast)

Show notes for this podcast include:

1. SITE 2006 conference blog
2. SITE Early Career Mentoring Network
3. SITE Digital Storytelling
4. SITE Blog posts and Flickr posts

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!

Dr. Janet Swenson shared the keynote address on March 21st, 2006 at the SITE conference in Orlando on the topic, “Can you hear me now? Composing Connections between Classrooms and
Communities.” Dr. Swenson passionately challenged educators at all levels to engage in advocacy for children in an era where high stakes testing and federally mandated accountability measures are encouraging people to view students as data in testing graphs rather than human beings with unique needs and desires. She challenged educators to get mad and take action: to engage a variety of educational stakeholders not only with ideas about educational reform that appeal to logos (reason) but also those which appeal to pathos (emotion.) According to Dr. Swenson, we cannot look the other way, we must speak out and take action for the sake of our children, their educational present and future. Dr. Swenson also modeled innovative uses of live web streaming and keynote session blogging during her session as well.

Program Length: 57 min, 34 sec
File size: 13.8 MB

(Click here to listen to this podcast)

Show notes for this podcast include:

1. If you have feedback for Janet on her ideas, you can contact her directly by emailing jswenson at msu dot edu.
2. SITE 2006 conference blog
3. Blog for Dr. Swenson’s SITE 2006 Keynote
4. “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki
5. SITE Early Career Mentoring Network
6. SITE Digital Storytelling
7. SITE Blog posts and Flickr posts

Subscribe to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” weekly podcasts!

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Technorati Tags: education, site2006

Fireside Chat — Transitions to Academia: Research, Scholarship, and the Professoriate
Lynne Schrum, University of Utah, USA
A SITE 2006 presentation

Are the things that are good for us professionally toxic for us professionally? (Tom Hammond quoting Glen Bull and Chris Dede)
- what habits of mind for graduate students do you recommend to avoid toxicity?

We all want the cap and gown at the end, but if you don’t learn through the process you won’t have be truly successful
- at Univ of Georgia, each doc student had to spend 5 hours per week doing something related to doctoral work, legitimate peripheral participation
- ask if you are always moving toward the center of the circle (doing your own research, on your own)
- saying no is really hard
– think if something is more a temporary high, or if it really supports your research

HMMM: MY THOUGHT, IS BLOGGING A “SIDE JOURNEY” NOT MOVING ME TOWARD THE CENTER OF MY JOURNEY (DOING DOCTORAL RESEARCH) OR A CONSTRUCTIVE, INSTRUMENTAL TOOL THAT CAN SUPPORT THAT GOAL
- I THINK BLOGGING IS PART OF THE WAY I PROCESS MY WORLD AND THE IDEAS WHICH MATTER TO ME

Finding balance in one’s personal and professional work is the great challenge
- you can be “sucked dry” through professional work, you have to learn to say “no” even with good opportunities
- you have to say no to get done at some point

Example: creating a website at the current time at George Mason does not count for tenure
- that is not part of evaluation
- we tend to do what gets rewarded, gets us promoted

You don’t want to follow around someone in academe ready to retire, you want to find grad students who are a little ahead of you

Smart money is building on what you have done: When you have defended that dissertation, you have become an expert on that area
- build on the research agenda you suggest at the end of your dissertation
- our search committees want clear lines of research
- looking for a research agenda that fits together, so as you are doing research you want to think how this will or will not add to your personal “corpus” of work and research

Before submitting, make sure you have read lots of articles from the journal!
- you need to do your homework about the journal, see what sorts of things are being published there
- read their website to read what sorts of things
- also look for an evaluation rubric used by reviewers (will include research base, strong literature review, all the pieces you’d find in traditional research article)
- this is true for JTRE

As I said this morning, I love it when people email to ask what your acceptance rate is, how long it will take to get an answer, etc.
- the latter is very important because you
- Journal of Teacher Education takes something like a year and a half to hear back from a journal

Tenure and review: not just important that you publish, it is also WHERE you publish
- acceptance rates are very important for tenure and review
- if more than 50% of the articles are accepted, that journal tends to be respected less
- new term is “top tiered” research journal
- if you have published 20 articles but they are in journals that are not respected by your institution, those may not bbe valued

JTATE just republished article by Dale Niederhauser on publishing articles in edtech journals
- figure out where you want to go: do you want to be in a teaching college or a research 1 institution?
- everyone who just interviewed at an institution represented by a participant had presented at conferences and published

“From Manuscript to Article: Publishing Educational Technology Research” by D.S. Niederhauser, K. Wetzel, & D. L. Lindstrom.

Lynn: one of the things you should legitimately ask of your institution is for an opportunity to participate in research, teaching and service before you leave

Organization: Preparing Future Faculty is active on many campuses
- www.preparing-faculty.org

If you are teaching, get someone to evaluate your teaching so you have some EVIDENCE of the quality of that teaching

Pick those who write your letters very carefully: select some who can speak to your research, someone who can speak to your teaching, etc.

You need to be continually purposeful: thinking about what you want to do, where you want to go

When negotiating your first job, ask for protection from committee assignments or too many committee assignments
- committees can eat you up, each class you teach is a new prep
- you want to finish your first year with at least something written besides the laundry list

Keep reading, read everything, take notes on everything: you have to know the literature!

Randomized, quantitative, outcomes based are all keywords for educational research that the federal government has asked for
- the Feds are not interested in anything that smacks of mixed methods
- the questions I am interested in always lead to qualitative research
- for the journal: I am interested in good studies, have published articles with all types of methodologies

Big issues
- it’s hard to randomize kids
- if I think X is a good way to teach mathematics, is it ethical to withhold from another group of students that strategy? (like medicine: withholding a cure for some disease)

It is really important that colleges of education get involved in tracking their graduates and where they go, what they do, etc.

Lessons Learned from 1-to-1 Laptop Initiatives: Reflections on the Critical Components
A SITE 2006 presentation

[I AM RECORDING THIS SESSION AND WILL POST AS A PODCAST LATER]

Presenters: Mike Muir, University of Maine at Farmington, USA; Alice Owen, Irving Independent School District, USA; Gerald Knezek, Rhonda Christensen, University of North Texas, USA; Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan, USA; Cathie Norris, University of North Texas, USA; Peter Albion, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; Ian Gibson, Macquarie University, Australia

Mike Muir starting
- we have a collection of folks involved in 1:1 and ubiquitous computing initiatives, both laptop and handhelds
- this includes a lot of diverse perspectives
- goal is to save the last half hour for Q&A

Mike is representing MLTI and a pilot initiative in Massachusetts
http://www.mcmel.org/

Ian is representing a high school in Syndey, Australia and a school near
Cathy Norris: emphasis should be on the learning, not the device
Elliot will talk about learning environments as opposed to

MLTI
- 39K laptops to 7th and 8th grade teachers and students
- just completed 4th year, 5th if you count pilot year
- spring 02: exploration sites
- fall 02: computers for 7th
- fall 03: computers for 8th

Funding didn’t hold up for high schools, about 40 are moving that direction, many others are looking at carts
- Middle grade program has been fully integrated with the state education budget

Article in Fall 2004 (Nov) of Learning and Leading with Technology

Have tried to stay focused on teaching and learning
- Maine is local control state: so districts decided if kids would take laptops home
- using UNT measures, found students with access with home had better attitudes toward school, self concept, etc.

Model for evaluating 1:1 learning with laptop initiatives
- 2 critical parts: teacher practice and leadership
- these elements make or break success

4 supporting but necessary components
- professional development
- tech access
- funding
- partnerships

New Bedford Global Learning Charter School (MA)
- Horace Mann Charter School
- 2002: grade
- global connections are a part of their charter, along with using technology

Irving TX 1:1 laptop project
- Irving was about one third the size of all Maine
- phased in over 3 years
- 9600 laptops deployed at all 4 high schools
- program evaluation conducated for baseline data
– spring 2004
Research design
- online teacher and student surveys
- focused group interviews with teachers
- classroom observations
See L&L article

Major findings so far
- laptop program is strongest factor in attracting new teachers
- guided/facilitated instruction has replaced direct instruction as most common mode (guide on the side is REAL in Irving now)
- many students (>1000) assist siblings and parents on use of laptop at home
- classroom management is the greatest problem

Impact on Teacher Skills, Student Discipline at end of year 1
- found treatment teachers are higher with technology skills, but Irving teachers HAVE had laptops for many years
- fewer discipline referrals have gone down more

Elementary teachers seem to be a lot more embracing of the technology than secondary teachers
- Irving is the only vertical integration project

Australian Case Study: Methodist Ladies College, Sydney, Australia
- building a School for the Future
- very select, elite school
- there is a strong feel and rhetoric here to “create a school of the future”

Methodist Ladies College
- fast access to the internet, MLC secure intranet, by airport wireless, online anywhere, anytime
- use of internet site and links as direct teaching resources and instant info

What is going on?
- school based research-variety research strategies
- trying to integrate studies at school with community issues and work

Has been very little change in traditional pedagogy, despite the large intrusion of technology

MY THOUGHT: THIS COMMENT ABOVE MAY BE ONE OF THE MOST PROVOCATIVE

not a situation where the kids are fully owning the learning experience and environment

Ian: next example, Sedgwick High School, Kansas
- building a culture of learning, if you give a kid an iBook
- big emphasis on giving the kids control
- less ordered environment, a lot messier

Questions they are asking at Sedgwick High School:
- does it really make a difference?
- do students really want to come to school?
- do teachers teach differently?
- are students excited about learning?
- does it help to install the love of lifelong learning?
- does discipline go down?
- do test scores and attendance go up?

The answers are all YES

Keys seem to be bringing the kids in through an environment of responsibility and ownership

comments from Peter Albion:

Long Term view of 1:1
- back to 10 years ago in Queenstown
- is the driving factor ownership v loanership?
- how much of the enthusiasm is marketing by schools or providers?
- access to data and processing is key
- will ubiquitous access obsolete 1:1?

Same advantages seemed to be the same as the ACOT program, no one seemed to see a particular advantage to the LAPTOPS
- so this begs the question of whether access was the issue: whether it is a laptop or desktop

Effect will be there if you have the access and the pedagogy

Now from Cathie Norris: what we are talking about IS THE LEARNING

Convergent Learning: Addressing the Mainstream
- now the technology use is moving in the last 6 months through access, this is moving from the early adopters to the early majority
- how do you care and feed the early majority, versus the early adopters

Schools don’t want technology, schools want learning
- technology can be the means to that learning
- the technology is not and should not be the focus

term convergent learning: Susan McLester saw this in 2001
- being practiced today: Team teaching, project-based learning
- this is happening in many places WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY
- CL is opportunities, for learning, that are multi-source, modal, task, day, person

outcome: essential elements (simple) but also deep understanding (a deeper and better understanding on the part of children)
- to get this type of learning, we (in fact) need technology

Example of using technology for CL
- early focus on smaller screens (Palms) because laptop model couldn’t scale across the country
- TCO was the factor, over multiple years
- anything sub-XP
- example is a project page with many different types of files (concept mapping, word processing, drawings and animations, etc)
– focus is on a main project, all are multiple representations of learnings
– some will excel in drawing, some in writing

Good news: the technology we need to do this is readily available

Now from Elliot Solloway
- Book Crossing the Chasm: Addressing the Needs of the Mainstream
- tech over the past 30 years have remained in the early adopter portion of the curve (early adapters, mainstream, conservatives, laggards)
- The genie is out of the bottle
- SBIR

Learning solution is not technology

First go at this
- audience: early adopters, need was access, how was 1:1, what was clerical apps (not really productivity apps: clerical apps are getting

W. Penuel’s report in 2005 from SRI
- quotation indicating that students are using clerical apps, basic stuff

What we need to do now to get to the convergence level, go get to the next level, we need to avoid being overwhelmed with technological gobbletygook

handhelds are PentiumIII level machines!

task appropriate, low cost, learner centered, integrated, 3rd party friendly, an OS for learners

issue of having the technology available

if you really deal with the kids, it is TOTALLY ABOUT OWNERSHIP
- I really disagree with Peter on this, it is completely different when it is
- we can’t go back to the carts, if we can’t do 1:1, then we have to figure out how to do 1:1

Mike: most of the time, people don’t need information, they need stories
- Mike has started this project: the 1:1 Stories Project

http://1to1stories.org/

Elliot: with handheld projects, you absolutely have to have keyboards for students, it is still
- The moment you have moving parts or XP or Mac OS running, you have enormous drain on batteries
- there is new device coming out, if you boot to XP you have 2 hours, in Windows CE you have 8 hours

Carrolton-Farmer’s branch has taken opposite approach to Irving’s 1:1, ubiquitous computing

Michigan’s freedom to learn project: schools chose platforms, about 1/3 chose handhelds
- the platform was the biggest factor
- students and teachers had less positive responses on handheld campuses compared to handhelds

PD has to be in the context of using the device for teaching
- NOT teaching technology skills

Elliot: applications running on handhelds are learning environments, not clerical applications

Mike: Chris DeDe has created simulation software working with GPS, that works best on handhelds
- iMovie doesn’t really run on any handhelds currently

Teresa has been following a 1:1 project since 1997
- first effects they saw did not sustain
- professional learning committee was strong through 3 years, but faded away
- problems in the regular classrooms have overwhelmed
- constant effect: students lose their motivation eventually with laptops, but they lose it less
- fewer dropouts is another strong finding

See what Johnson and Maddox call type 1 and type 2 of learning
- automating is type 1: business has found there is not much bang for the buck (adaptation)
- type 2 is what you couldn’t do without tech (MY THOUGHT: THIS IS WHAT ALAN NOVEMBER HAS CALLED INFOMATION VS AUTOMATION)

Stories:
- students from MIT designing place based games using GPS, GPS gives different content from a location to come up
- people from Swiss technical institute built an orientation game for new students, the wireless LAN of buildings sent out info about where you are, and who was close to you and what they knew, you had to construct knowledge based on that info
- these moved use of technologies along
- Korean study: on handheld, you are the learner and talk to a decisionmaker on the content (SOUNDS LIKE A CHOOSE YOUR OWN STORY BOOK ON A WIRELESS HANDHELD)

Knezek: will present at AERA study shows through PD and content oriented instruction

Literature does not seem to reflect learning as demonstrated through formative as well as summative assessment

Mike: really important thing to remember is it is not a technology initiative, it is a learning initiative
- Maine answer to “does it improve learning” is now “No, teachers improve learning”

Elliot: talk about evolution, not revolution
- we learned not to preach revolution and BASIC programming of content
- we are finding ACOT 3-5 years of adaption is half the time in handheld schools

Question: how are you getting critical thinking, collaborative environments, higher order thinking, etc

Mike: we decided initial training would not be nuts and bolts
- rest was: how do you teach data collection and analysis with spreadsheets
- now we have regional content meetings
- we get people early to share their issues and concerns, and then shape the presentations by the end of the day focused on those issues
- are working with the principals to make more embedded training as part of the staff day (quick skill shops)

Other contexts: have mentor teachers to provide just-in-time support to balance pullout training
- this seems to balance training well
- having 1 mentor teacher per school

Ian: developing a professional learning community is preferable to the more “traditional” drive by professional development model
- size does NOT MATTER, it is what you do with it
- we need access to space and communication potentials

MY QUESTION I DID NOT ASK: TO WHAT DEGREE HAVE IT DEPARTMENT LOCKDOWNS OF NETWORKS, FIREWALLS, ETC HAMPERED TEACHER ABILITIES TO USE POTENTIALLY DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES LIKE IM, VIDEOCONFERENCING, ETC?

Facilitating Effective Technology Research in the Core Content Areas
by Lynn Bell, Glen Bull, Cleb Maddux, Anita McAnear, Debra Sprague, Ann Thompson, and Lynne Schrum
a SITE 2006 presentation

[I AM RECORDING THIS SESSION AND WILL SHARE AS A PODCAST LATER PENDING PERMISSION FROM PARTICIPANTS]

Overview and background / context:
- for 18 months discussions among editors and others (NTLS, SITE, AERA, NECC)
- goal to identify research agenda; further to explore tech in content areas
- requested assistance of content organizations

Why editors?
- editors read many articles
- editors get asked for information
- already established: mentoring through 3 institutions and blog for all
- Panels at SITE 05, NECC 05, AERA 05, NTLS here and AERA 06, several editories

Now involves Univ of VA, Univ of Florida, Univ of Iowa
Soon will add George Mason (Debbie)
- expand dialog to involve more
- goal is to expand this conversation

like Janet said, we shouldn’t allow others to define our agenda for us

one important aspect
- TPCK: Technology Pedagogy Content Knowledge

Leigh Shulman’s message about teacher education at another conference (?)
- point was: we need evidence of the effects of teacher education programs
- teacher education is under fire, we are seeing lots of challenges
- we tend to not do that, gather that evidence
- need compelling evidence about the effects of teacher education

How do teacher education programs affect teacher and student use of Geometer sketchpad is one example

Glenn’s metaphor about carpenters in relation to qualitative and quantitative research (paradigm debates)
- carpenters don’t come to a situation and say, “wait, I am a saw carpenter” or “I am just a hammer carpenter”

This is the opportunity for collaboration: to talk with others who have different strengths and build on them

Longitudinal studies are very important and needed, but hard / not doable in many cases for grants and those in a tenure process

Observations from Gerald Knezek

Keynote speaker for Sunday PT3 grant pointed out big problem with federal funding now is that everything is just 3 years, hard to

We have a crisis in universities now: they don’t recognize that it takes that long to do a good job
- you can be doubly punished, even if you do a good grant and get baseline, it can be 5 years until
- quantitative studies can tell us what is going on, but qualitative studies can be shown to show us WHY things are going
- policymaker mentalities (not just politicians, but also legislators)

Other observations:

IRB can be a huge barrier to get over, and can inhibit abilities of educational researchers to get connected to the schools

Drs Knezek and Christensen will be having a related followup session at 2:15 on Thursday here at SITE.

Lynn says she loves emails about article ideas, and getting feedback on whether that might be appropriate for her journal
- get your stuff out there, we all get rejected
- quick story from doctoral student days at Univ of Oregon, spent summer in Russia in 1988, sent article to Ed Leadership
- look for encouragement and other notes at the bottom of letters you receive from journal editors!

Technorati Tags: site2006

More feedback on Janet Swenson’s keynote

These are notes I’m making from an interactive dialog with Janet following her SITE keynote.

Maxine Green’s work on creativity is relevant here
- Janet’s interests and focus in educational reform

Michael Apple’s view: we have to learn from neo-liberals and neo-conservatives, they have infiltrated the system and put themselves in positions of power

South China Morning post is reporting that students in Hong Kong are among the most dissatisfied students in global education system
- this was reported recently in the press

We are reducing kids to multiple choice tests

Concern of what to do is something we need to talk about
- how can we organize this information
- keynote speech at Janet’s disciplinary conference last year (NCTE I think) focused on the stories of children, sharing the lived experiences of children

Janet: 1 book to read: George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate–The Essential Guide for Progressives”
- there is a free CD/video you can get with this
- author explains the last US Presidential election what happened when Kerry was defending his medals against GW’s allegations, he was reinforcing GW’s frame
- when we defend NCLB, we are stepping into that same frame
- so instead, we need to proactively think about constructing and reinforcing our own frame

Accumulations of additional bodies of research is probably not what is going to win the hearts of minds of the broader audience
- it is appeals to ethos that will win it
- right now people believe that teachers are not doing their job, and we have to reverse that through FRAMING

I am most interested in how pictures and sound connected together in terms of the reading of the text impacts me with ethos (feeling differently) not logos impact
- Jonathan Kozal’s videotape, “America’s Schools” is great, visits to Ohio schools in same athletic conference
- in one school that have ubiquitous computing, in the other the kids brought umbrella’s to school because of leaking pipes

How are schools funded in communities is really the bottom line to a lot of this
- HOW is the textbook used
- in Iowa, about 95% of kids go to school, by and large it is a middle class society

One issue: everyone is an expert in education and so everyone speaks out on it

My question: Where is the window? How do we help people understand education as conversations and relationships being important to the education

Janet’s answer: so many districts now have pacing guides, teachers don’t have latitude to go off those guides
- had conversation about teachers doing podcasting and innovative things
- teachers that report they don’t have TIME to fit anything new or innovative into the day
- a Michigan dissertation coming out: “The 41st minute” (The 41st minute the teachers get to start teaching what they really feel they should be

For one group: work with parents, parents need to make demands on behalf of teachers
- teachers are being put in ethically compromised positions, with curriculum pacing, etc.
- keeps teachers from doing what they think and know is ethically right for children
- cast the positive side of that: Story for teachers to tell, “the things I want to do with your children”

MY IDEA, THIS IS A GREAT TOPIC FOR DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Educators when they testify before the legislature are seen as just defending their jobs
- when parents go to the legislature and talk about their children, it becomes a bill and action is taken
- legislators respond to the stories of parents

How many of you are part of Chambers of Commerce, Councils for Economic Development?
- I was involved in driver education, found when we went to legislature, parents who lost children on the road went out, children went out, and spoke up– then it had a different response

Legislature doesn’t want to hear it from us: they want to hear from parents, from student groups like student government

Janet’s comment on national writing project success: This has bipartisan support
- Thad Cochran (Mississippi conservative) - his best friend’s daughter directs the National Writing Project, so his support of this is very relevant to personal, relational connections

We need to ask people, do any of you know legislators?
- this is the 7 degrees of separation, getting others to come listen

When we start talking about thinks like “framing” we have to ask ourselves about ethics
- are we getting into gamesmanship?
- my courses are in critical literacy, language use, I look at how language works with people
- I view this as using language strategically

Lakoff’s point: we want people to stop thinking about NCLB
- instead we want people to think of a technologically rich environment where engagement is an essential element
- continuing to describe the space we want to be in, rather than focusing on the attacker’s ideas and just defending ourselves

What is produced by the marketplace is for the pedagogy of the 20th century
- it is a real challenge to think about education now, how educators should learn in interdisciplinary teams, using technology within it in clever ways
- what is on the market today is pedagogical nonsense, based

I’VE HEARD PEOPLE HERE SHARE 2 DIFFERENT IDEAS FOR COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL STORYTELLING PROJECTS
- FOR STUDENTS, WHAT IS THE CLASSROOM YOU WANT TO BE IN? WHAT KIND OF SCHOOL DO YOU WANT TO BE IN?
- FOR TEACHERS, WHAT ARE THE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO WITH STUDENTS THAT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO DO TODAY?

Where are the models?
- High Tech High?
- GLEF examples?
- What are the commonalities between islands of excellence

What are alternative structures for SITE
- just “sit and get?”
- those are generally not very effective models of professional development
- rather than throwing that away, can we integrate some of those things into the conference
- models of excellence?

I find students we are getting are increasingly conservative (in Dublin)
- students want school safer, controlled by the teacher

Janet: one of my primary teachers is my 25 year old son, who is so ethical
- is a vegetarian, has thought through his place in the world and what his role is
- he apologized after the last political election for remaining in an echo-chamber and not speaking out in the world among people who

Many kids can’t wait to get out of school so their education can really begin

We need to recognize that we have lots of diversity, we often disagree on our goals
- some people think we have to have agreement first before we start a dialog
- maybe we need to have a dialog to try and sketch out our goals and move toward consensus

We have an export-ready mentality for education, thinking we can come up with the one best educational model and export it to everyone
- there is not A WAY, there are multiple ways

Talking about the conference: where are the kids? where are the preservice teachers?
- we are good with coming up with theory, but how do we test it if we don’t have the people we are trying to benefit here at the conference?
- spring break is a great time to bring in kids, undergrads, etc– who doesn’t want to come to Orlando for Spring Break?

Janet’s closing thought:
- these ARE scary times we are living in: who can pick up a newspaper and not wonder about the future?
- when we get afraid, do we try to make things simpler so we feel like we have a handle on it?
- maybe the approach we should take is to understand others and their fears, and their desire to move us forward, but let’s recognize and embrace the complexities of human beings
- breaking us down into component pieces and trying to make us all fit into the same mold is really not the best/constructive thing we need to be doing at this point.

Technorati Tags: site2006

SITE 2006 keynote by Janet Swenson (3/21/2006 in Orlando, Florida)
- Can you hear me now? Composing Connections Between Classrooms and Communities
- professor at Michigan State Univ, directs the writing center

[This presentation is also available as a podcast, with Janet's generous permission]

Janet came to the attention of SITE leaders because of her innovative uses of technologies
- is Chair of SITE English Education committee
- and VP of SITE Teacher Education Council

At the National Writing Project, Janet and collegues succeeded in getting a several million dollar increase for the NWP while other programs were getting cut

Janet has wanted a participatory keynote, so we have people

Much of my work is done now in workshops, rather than talks
- important to hear rebuttals, confirmations, and extensions
- important to hear the views of those who are marginalized, who can’t be here today
- our era is one of restricted travel and restricted travel budgets
- voices that are not here are still critical for us to hear
- we can have more dialogic and responsive keynotes using new technologies

Blogs may not be the best way to have a dialogic keynote
- need a way to have threaded conversations
- this move to have interactive keynotes matches with what many others have said we should be doing with “generative professional development coaching
- grounded in inquiry and reflection
- participant driven
- sustained, ongoing and intensive
- connnected to and derived from teacher’s ongoing work with their students

Nietzsche and Thoreau thought it was folly to have decisions made by groups, “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki provides evidence that groups can make better decisions than individuals
- to do that, there are 4 criteria that they should meet
1- their members are diverse and use different sources of info to make decisions
2- members are independent and not reliant on one another
3- members are decentralized and unable to use coercion to influence decision-making
4- someone should periodically summarize the group’s diverse points of view

We are not sure at this point if an interactive keynote will be too disruptive and lead to too fragmented

Those willing to engage our our pioneers
- debate is an innate part of living in freedom
- disagreeing should be a high complement
- it means an idea was expressed that is worthy of comment
- we SHOULD challenge one another’s ideas and understandings

We can process 500 words per minute, even if I go real fast I won’t be going faster than 150 WPM
- so check out the blog!

A second beginning, with a short personal anecdote
- 68-72 was my undergraduate experience
- listening to 11 o’clock news was a highlight of my day each day
- I disagreed about almost everything with my dad, who is a staunch Republican

I didn’t want to hang out exclusively with people who agree with me

We are living in an era of vitriolic epitaphs where things are hurled at one another without a lot of reflection
- a lot of horrible things are happening worldwide
- people are suffering injustices because they don’t have the power or willingness to protect themselves
- we need to ask what our role and responsibility in that situation
- what is the role of a teacher educator in our society: different from the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker
- since the
- we need to shake off complacentcy, we need to identify educational missteps and RAIL against them in the press, in the offices of those who represent us, when educational policymakers are developing policy

We need to rail about them to the people who send their children to us, and to our students and our students’ students
- we need stronger connections between the communities that intersect

WHAT ARE YOU MAD ABOUT?
- what is being done today in education
- what do we share and where do we differ on educational policies and practices

Video clip, you have got to get mad first
- from AmericanRhetoric.com

If we don’t get mad, I am afraid we won’t take action
- I want you to get mad because I am afraid, that we are going to get too accustomed to one travesty after another
- if we swallow hard and look the other way instead of holding our government accountable for the mistreatment of children, then it will become in

What should we become mad about?
- become passionate advocates for children, esp for those from low SES communities
- for those who have been effaced from many conversations

The world’s children deserve better than what we are giving, and as teachers

I don’t think this can count as an official educational event if I don’t ask you to take a test
- Question: Who wants to improve education?
- we are divided on so many issues, but we are united on improving education, education has become the poster child of politicians everywhere
- politicians like to assign responsiblity for problems in education and assert that if they are elected
- education has become politically charged over the past decade, work of teachers and teacher educators has been denigranted

I am mad that education has become a campaign slogan
- that many with very little experience or knowledge in education are telling others how to do it

These people are endangering all of us

Of course all of us want to improve education, and are not satisfied with the status quo
- I have strong feelings about how we should move the educational reform agenda forward, based on 34 years of teaching, 9 years of postgraduate work
- I am insulted to be told that I don’t know how to do my job by people outside my field

NEXT question: who is your favorite educational theorists

From Harvard Educational Review, Volume 75, Number 4
- Margaret Spellings says GW is her favorite

Next question: Who is in favor of leaving children behind?
- the naming of NCLB is brilliant, because it casts those against the bill as against the goal of educational improvement (actually FOR leaving children behind)

The only way to have freedom is to have free speech, to expect free speech
- my dad and I knew that naming our positions in certain ways could shut down debate
- that is the foundation on which democracies are built

To the Dept of Education I say “shame on you”
- if you care about this country and children
- do not use titles to shut down debate

Let me repeat: I am not satisfied with the work of educators, I think it is right for the public to expect more of us
- what I am opposed to are mandates that come down from people who haven’t spent a year in a classroom with children who haven’t had enough to eat, with kids who don’t see their parents part of the working poor
- I am sick and tired of people who say I am condemning students by my low expectations

My state is spending millions of dollars on testing to prove that my children

MY QUESTION: IF WE ARE MAD AND WANT TO SHOUT OUT THE WINDOW, WHERE IS THAT WINDOW? IT MUST EXTEND BEYOND THE BLOGOSPHERE.

Aristotle calls this logos: appealing to reason
- we need to remember the pathos and ethos as well
- pathos appeals to the emotion (think about “Nation at Risk,” Johnny Can’t Read, NCLB, very visual references, etc)
- message is it is that teachers are not taking care of kids

We need to be in closer conversations with those who make educational policy and fund education

colleague used to challenge me: just do the right thing and keep your eye on the prize

I have listened and nodded by head, and not done enough
- talk to me about accountability when you send all kids to
- when education is politicized it also becomes nationalized, but this is coming at a time when we are becoming globalized

Remember Lakehoff’s work on NCLB
- think about athletic races
- timers, starting lines, finish lines, prepared surfaces
- is education a race? that is what we are hearing in this country
- we are hearing this all the time, and that US children need to get back into first place
- this analogy doesn’t work for me: what is the finish line? I thought we were trying to create lifetime learners, I thought we recognize that

The race today seems to be creating the most standardized students
- the country most known for innovation is now trying to have students reach one single, uniform set of standards

I am still waiting to walk into a school that says, “Welcome to Wilson school. We’ll make sure your students conform to the standards.”

Prizes: access, equity and excellence
- providing access to authentic educational opportunities
- we will all benefit from this: this is actually very self-serving

So you care if it is a child in Africa who finds the cure for cancer versus a child in the US?
- or if a child in Denmark who figures out how to reverse global warming, someone
- we are interdependent, the world is at risk and we are an interdependent people

Many have come here to understand the power of narratives
- they can help us understand cause and effect

Next segment: a story
- when we only talk in statistics, we are not really talking about children

Story is about my first year of teaching
- to just a few paragraphs
- my first teaching city was Flint (”Roger and Me” by Michael Moore is set in Flint, several years ago a 2nd grader shot a classmate)
- when I arrived in Flint, I arrived with pedagogical knowledge: thinking I knew what to teach and how to teach
- what my students taught me is I didn’t know who I was teaching
- most students were low SES and didn’t plan to go to college, they didn’t buy what I tried to sell them in terms of a future
- b/c they didn’t care about going to college, the only collateral I had to trade with them (grades) were useless
- Congress says we need to make kids learn: that is much easier to say than do
- my recourses: call home or throw out of school
- so I had to look for other ways to get their cooperation
- my students came to school primarily to see their friends, another problem was that I replaced one of their favorite teachers
- one day I shouted, “what do you want from me?”
– kids didn’t understand this was rhetorical
- when Mrs. Hamilton was there, they got to make up plays about their lives, and write them down, and share them with each other
– from that point on there were
- I found many other ways to get them engaged in their own literacy learning, as their respect for me grew, my ability to push and challenge them further has grown

Today in flint, there is a standardized curriculum where students are expected to be on the same page on the same day, in each grade

Story of Alicia
- one of my students after class, who came in with a brown paper bag
- her mom had moved away while she was at school and left her belongings on the front porch
- so she came back to school to ask her teacher what she should do
- In our schools there are far more Alicias than we admit
- half a million children in Michigan live in poverty

Family income level is the #1 predictor of academic achievement
- are Michigan teachers not doing their jobs?
- how would we know?
- same strategies use to denigrate K-12 teachers are now being used to attack university professors

Detroit News, March 12, 2006 ran article “Professors paid not to teach”
- article cited millions of dollars wasted by the state on sabbaticals

Whose job is it to let people know about “our job”
- are we going to wait till our reputations have been as compromised as those of K-12 teachers before we get involved

Margaret Spellings now has a 19 member commission looking at whether we need new NCLB legislation is needed for higher education

NEXT QUESTION: We believe effective tech integration and PD can improve student learning, yet…
- PT3 not funded, FIPSE gutted, E2G2 zeroed out

I want you to get mad and take action
- what do we do?
- we need to think about how to hold ourselves accountability
- maybe one place to start is on the SITE blogs

SITE is interdisciplinary and international

We need to identify points of agreement and disagreement, and stay in respectful dialog

ETAN is EdTechActionNetwork formed by ISTE
- can easily locate and “productively challenge their thinking”
- stand up and be counted
- when we do this, we show we value freedom
- when freedom is not practiced, it atrophies

Rhetorical question from last year keynote
- are we talking to ourselves?
- Ian’s challenge last year to find ways videoconferencing can improve our practices, but also how we can be more activist

Think about how digital storytelling can support activisim

If students can experience rich educational opportunities, that will happen when educators who have spent their lives get mad and get involved

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