Moving at the Speed of Creativity

This is an audio version of a video podcast recorded from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on April 20, 2007, following the Connecting and Collaborating Conference sponsored by Ottawa Intermediate Schools in Holland, Michigan. In this podcast I reflect on the nature of global collaboration, metaphors of waterways to digital highways, and the importance of leadership in identifying needs and marshalling resources to achieve shared goals. A participant from my afternoon workshop on podcasting in the classroom also shared his thoughts about how a visionary superintendent should lead their constituents into the 21st century, and that recording is also included at the end.

SHOWNOTES:

1. A video version of this podcast is also available.
2. Wiki from the Connecting and Collaborating Conference in Holland, Michigan) (20 April 2007)
3. Google Earth KMZ file with links to Holland, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, and other sights I visited on this trip up north!
4. Welcome to the Global Education Conversation (my keynote address for the Connecting and Collaborating Conference)
5. The K-12 Online Conference
6. eMINTS National Center
7. Dr. Monica Beglau’s keynote presentation at the K-12 Educators Market Symposium at MacWorld 2007: Building a Better Mousetrap: How Technology WILL Improve Achievement

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Technorati Tags: holland, leadership, education, michigan, collaboration, schoolreform

 

 Podcast 149: Reflections on Global Collaboration from Lake Michigan [17:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (920)

This video podcast was recorded from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on April 20, 2007, following the Connecting and Collaborating Conference sponsored by Ottawa Intermediate Schools in Holland, Michigan. In this podcast I reflect on the nature of global collaboration, metaphors of waterways to digital highways, and the importance of leadership in identifying needs and marshalling resources to achieve shared goals. A participant from my afternoon workshop on podcasting in the classroom also shared his thoughts about how a visionary superintendent should lead their constituents into the 21st century, and that recording is also included at the end.

SHOWNOTES:

1. An audio-only version of this podcast is also available.
2. Wiki from the Connecting and Collaborating Conference in Holland, Michigan (20 April 2007)
3. Google Earth KMZ file with links to Holland, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, and other sights I visited on this trip up north!
4. Welcome to the Global Education Conversation (my keynote address for the Connecting and Collaborating Conference)
5. The K-12 Online Conference
6. eMINTS National Center
7. Dr. Monica Beglau’s keynote presentation at the K-12 Educators Market Symposium at MacWorld 2007: Building a Better Mousetrap: How Technology WILL Improve Achievement

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Technorati Tags: holland, leadership, education, michigan, collaboration, schoolreform

 

 Podcast 149V: Reflections on Global Collaboration from Lake Michigan [17:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2165)

I’m catching up on some photo uploading to Flickr this evening. Among the images I uploaded tonight is a series I photographed in Chicago on Saturday, April 21st following the Connecting and Collaborating conference in Holland, Michigan. What a spectacular day in the windy city!

Highlights of the day for me were definitely visiting the Apple Store:

and having an authentic “dawg” downtown!

So many people on Michigan Avenue!

Technorati Tags: chicago

If you are interested in presenting at the 2008 Texas Computer Education Association’s annual conference in Austin (scheduled for Feb 4-8, 2008) you have until tomorrow (1 May 2007) to submit your proposal! Yikes!

I submitted proposals for sessions on “Digital Music Creation: Engage, Inspire, Have Fun!” and “Welcome to the Global Education Conversation!” I hope to team up with others on a preso about “Cell Phones for Learning” and “Global Voices: Distance Learning Projects With Interactive Podcasting and VOIP Tools” as well. I first shared the session on digital music making with my then 8 year old son in Plano in October 2006. I’m sharing this in a couple of weeks at the Texas ESC Region 1 Technology Conference in South Padre Island, and again on August 3rd at the Oklahoma A+ Schools statewide conference. Having more scheduled sessions for that presentation gives me incentive to continue expanding my Garageband (and Fruity Loops) musical knowledge and skills! The session on the Global Education Conversation focuses on the K-12 Online Conference, and I shared that for the first time a couple of weeks ago in Holland, Michigan.

It’s so hard to submit presentation proposal ideas almost a year in advance! Who can predict what topics will be most relevant to discuss at an educational technology conference held 10 months down the road?! Such are the requirements of large conferences… I understand. It makes me appreciate the “just-in-time” nature of learning in the edublogosophere, that is for sure!

As I continue to share presentations and learn from educators here in the southwestern United States and elsewhere, I am increasingly convinced of two things:

1. The most important thing we can do with and for other educators is help “plug them in” to the professional learning communities thriving and growing online.
2. The most important thing we can do with our students to advance the cause of constructive educational reform is help them appropriately share their voices online via digital storytelling projects and contests.

I am SO looking forward to the 2007 K-12 Online Conference! I love meeting people face to face, and I enjoy educational technology conferences, but I have to admit my learning curve grows the most from asynchronous learning opportunities like those afforded by K-12 Online– when I’m able to time and place shift as desired, and learn as I can find/make time. I also consistently find that traditional face-to-face, “sit and get” professional development with teachers is very limited in many ways. Most significantly, when it comes to web 2.0 tools and connections, I find that teachers get overwhelmed very easily. Everyone needs to grow/develop their background knowledge/schema for new concepts over time, and that can’t happen all at once in a 45 minute presentation or even a three day conference experience.

Technorati Tags: education, tcea, tcea2008

Not everyone is going to be lucky enough to work for an innovative and wildly successful (at least in financial terms) company like Google. Despite that fact, Google’s success and the managerial philosophy of its leaders provide worthwhile object lessons to which more people in business as well as education should pay attention. The May 2007 issue of Wired Magazine includes an interesting interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. For more on Eric’s background, check out the current version of his WikiPedia article.

In the Wired interview (on page 174 if you have the analog/print version) Eric responsed to several questions which reflect the essential role COLLABORATION plays in the daily work of Google employees. He was asked:

Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?

His response:

It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. The attempt to provide order drives out the creativity. And so it’s a balance.

Note his language: “..the best model remains small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion.” This connects directly to what we need to see MORE in the classroom, but many classroom teachers (as well as building administrators) don’t feel comfortable with: The noise/hum of collaborative learning and discussion. Teachers are often not comfortable “letting go” of the sense of control they have when lecturing to a largely silent classroom of listeners. The lesson here is that the business world does not merely want to hire listeners and fact regurgitators, but rather thinkers who can collaborate, “run fast” and create innovative ideas which reflect both higher level thinking as well as creativity. Another question posted to Eric was:

Google is a global corporation. What do you do to make employees in other countries all feel like they are working here in Mountain View?

His response:

It’s a great unsolved problem. We do videoconferencing; we do a lot of visits where people are invited to one of the main campuses for a month or two. So they feel a part of a bigger entity when they go back. And that model does work. Of course, we do all the normal meetings - the sales meetings and training meetings, and all that. More and more of our time is being spent on that.

From this response, we can identify some key activities which can and should be ubiquitous in our classrooms. Prominent among these activities is global collaboration. (Think K-12 Online Conference 2007.) As Scott Mcleod documented effectively in graphical form in December 2006, the vast majority of schools in the United States are wired for broadband Internet access. Unlike the mid to late 1990s, getting our schools “wired” is no longer a challenge. Getting the learners inside our schools to USE those wired connections for actual COLLABORATION rather than just information consumption (Internet research and other non-publishing activities) is the continuing challenge.

In a flat world, the biggest financial rewards will increasingly go to those who collaborate effectively, as well as those who innovate. This is a key theme of Tom Friedman’s book “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.” I do not view education as purely a means to provide for economic development and vocational opportunities, but I certainly acknowledge the important role education plays in opening up (or closing) doors of economic opportunity for individuals as well as communities.

My dad has recently been involved in discussions with groups in Kansas as well as Nebraska related to the HomeTown Competitiveness Initiative. There are multiple facets to the project, but an essential focus is how we can revitalize rural communities in the United States. This revitalization has an important economic aspect, but also has other aspects including political ones. I am particularly interested in the educational aspects. The project has four key foci:

- leadership
- charitable giving
- entrepreneurship
- youth

The Center for Rural Entrepreneurship has created the Energizing Entrepreneurs website as a companion for their book “Energizing Entrepreneurs: Charting a Course for Rural Communities” by Deborah Markley, Don Macke, and Vicki Luther. I have not read the book and am not yet well versed on their ideas and initiatives, but am intrigued by the linkages which should exist between many of the discussions we are having here in the edublogosphere regarding educational reform and school 2.0, and these groups focused on rural community revitalization. The Heartland Center for Leadership Development in Nebraska is sponsoring a conference in June focusing on entrepreneurship which sounds interesting, and there are clear connections here to educational reform as well.

Kevin Honeycutt shared last week in his presentation at KSDE 2007 his conviction that the collaborative and creative potentials latent in the flat world digital technologies now at the fingertips of every Internet user on the planet have the potential to revitalize small-town, rural America and reverse long-standing demographic trends of rural to urban population shifts. Is Kevin right? I suspect he is.

If he is, the key ingredients we need to realize these potentials are LEADERSHIP and VISION. We need leaders with the vision to understand that collaboration and project-based learning must become ubiquitous in our schools, instead of a rare occurrence which can only take place in late Spring after the statewide mandated assessments are finished. We need an educational reform agenda which discards the destructive and counter-productive focus we’ve had for too many years now on high-stakes standardized testing, and replaces it with a truly student-centered, constructivist agenda that embraces diverse modalities for learning as well as assessment. Importantly, this vision needs to reject the ridiculous idea that yet MORE standards, more requirements, and greater threats of punishment in our schools will bring about the creative and revitalized educational culture which should be the RIGHT of every learner in the 21st century. TIME remains the greatest obstacle to any educational reform proposal, and anyone serious about educational reform needs to be talking about educational deregulation instead of more tests and threats.

Is this vision present within the members of your own local school board? Among the upper echelons of leadership in your school district’s staff? Within your local PTO/PTA leadership team? In the halls of your state legislature?

I don’t know, and I don’t know if this vision is present within the “HomeTown Competitiveness Initiative” and related projects, but I sense some good opportunities here for synergy and collaboration. Every civic and community leader, regardless of the size of their town or city, should be vitally concerned about the ways schools need to change to meet the needs of the 21st century information and economic landscape. Perhaps some of these regional initiatives focused on rural revitalization and entrepreneurship will provide fertile ground for ongoing discussions about school 2.0?

Sounds like some good topics to take up at your local Rotary, Lions, or other civic club’s next meeting. Will you take on the mantle of leadership for your local area and encourage these types of conversations to take place? If they don’t start with you in your local community, with whom will they start? Will those needed conversations take place at all? You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to be able to ask some good questions. Here are some suggestions to possibly get you started:

1. How are our schools encouraging students and teachers to regularly collaborate with other learners around the globe every week of the school year?
2. How are we providing more time for our teachers to obtain continuing professional development training and support each other in the innovative uses of technologies to improve learning and make global connections?
3. How are we seeking to foster educational cultures of creativity, innovation, and flat-world thinking in our schools?
4. How many project-based learning challenges and opportunities did your own children or grandchildren in our public schools have this month? This school year? (Think of Eric Schmidt’s words about small groups “moving fast” in this context.)
5. Who are the educational leaders in our community who are advancing a vision of ubiquitous global collaboration for learning inside and outside of our schools? How can this vision become a transparent part of how we “do school” every day?

Technorati Tags: economicdevelopment, economics, education, educationreform, leadership, learning, politics, ruralrevitalization, school2.0, schoolreform

Life is generally lived as an “open note” experience. Schools need to focus on preparing students for life, not just for academic tests conducted under artificial conditions that bear little resemblance to the real world outside academia. In line with this idea, rather than banning iPods, cell phones, laptops, and other types of technologies schools need to embrace them and find ways to adopt new assessments which can be taken by students with “open notes.”

The most challenging assessments and tests I took in graduate school classes were “open note.” The reason they were so challenging is they required thinking and analysis that went far beyond the knowledge and comprehension level. Many schools are fighting against digital culture in banning cell phones and iPods because they remain rooted in 19th century paradigms of education and assessment.

Today’s AP article “Schools banning iPods to thwart cheaters” is a case in point. According to the article:

Mountain View [Idaho] recently enacted a ban on digital media players after school officials realized some students were downloading formulas and other material onto the players. “A teacher overheard a couple of kids talking about it,” said Maybon. Shana Kemp, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said she does not have hard statistics on the phenomenon but said it is not unusual for schools to ban digital media players. “I think it is becoming a national trend,” she said. “We hope that each district will have a policy in place for technology — it keeps a lot of the problems down.”

Rather than adopting policies about technologies that are banned, school districts would be better advised to have their teachers craft new assessments. Our goal should not be, “How can we maintain our instructional and assessment paradigms from the 19th century today in our 21st century digital culture?” but rather “How can we craft authentic assessments our students cannot fake and they can take with open notes?” Open notes should include “open devices” like cell phones and iPods.

The problem with this proposal is that it is very challenging to write and use authentic assessments. It is much easier to test at the knowledge and comprehension level, and that is why we see so many teachers doing it. When you want to have statistical reliability and validity with an assessment, it becomes much more difficult to assess higher order thinking skills with “messy assessments” that include rubrics and subjective analysis. NCLB also encourages this simplified look at assessment, encouraging school districts, administrators and teachers around the United States to focus almost exclusively on multiple-choice, black and white forms of assessment that can be graded via a scantron.

Why should students have to memorize formulas? Let’s take on an example from mathematics. How many times have you had to use the quadratic formula in “real life” outside of school? If you have, were you prohibited by someone from being able to look up the formula?

Do you think oral communication skills are important in life? If you do (and you should) then why do some schools hardly emphasize assessments which include oral communication? Again, the reason is that many schools are still focused on maintaining their 19th century pedagogic culture rather than preparing students for real life.

Let’s put an end to useless memorization and tradition in schools, and instead ask students to actually apply and use the knowledge and skills they are supposed to be learning in real contexts. That is what we do out here in the business world. It’s time schools stopped acting like the calendar still reads “1899.”

For more on this line of thinking, listen to what Roger Shank shared at the SITE conference several weeks ago. (Thanks to AHF for this link!)

This podcast features a recording of Kevin Honeycutt’s presentation on April 26, 2007, at the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) annual conference, “Know the Child, Optimize Learning” in Wichita, Kansas. The title of Kevin’s session was “Building 21st Century Achievers.” The conference program description was: We all teach kids and try to prepare them for a successful future, but what does that mean today? Join as we delve into the specifics of what it will mean to have the tools for success in the 21st Century. We’ll explore digital tools and their seamless use in our classrooms. It’s time to stop trying to teach technology and begin to teach with technology. Visit Kevin’s website at http://kevinhoneycutt.org.

SHOWNOTES:

1. Kevin Honeycut’s website
2. ESSDACK: The Educational Services and Staff Development Association of Central Kansas

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Technorati Tags: ksde07, leadership, education, cyberbullying, myspace, schoolreform

 

 Podcast148: Building 21st Century Achievers (Kevin Honeycutt) [58:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1329)

This podcast features a recording of my spotlight presentation on April 26, 2007, at the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) annual conference, “Know the Child, Optimize Learning” in Wichita, Kansas. The title of my session was “Copyright, Liability, Cyberbullying and Social Networking.” The conference program description was: Legal issues relating to technology are not strictly the domain of lawyers: Educational administrators, practitioners, and students need to be aware of copyright issues including fair use and Creative Commons use/licensing of derivative works. Students want to remix and mash up digital content, and there are legal media sources and methods for them to do this! Schools are very concerned with liability issues relating to student use of social networking websites at school and from other locations. This session will address tools and strategies to address these issues, as well as cyberbullying. Educators, parents, and students need to communicate and collaborate to ensure Internet use is not only legal, but also safe and effective for all concerned. Access presentation slides and links from http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com. (Click on Conversations and then the link for Safe Digital Social Networking.)

SHOWNOTES:

1. My presentation slides (PDF)
2. More links from this session (including “headlines your school doesn’t want”) and referenced resources/videos from the presentation are available.
3. Think.com
4. Imbee.com

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Technorati Tags: ksde07, leadership, education, cyberbullying, myspace, imbee

 

 Podcast147: Copyright, Liability, Cyberbullying and Social Networking [71:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (859)

This podcast features a recording of the keynote address by Dr. Lorraine Monroe on April 26, 2007, at the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) annual conference, “Know the Child, Optimize Learning” in Wichita, Kansas. The conference program description of her session is: Dr. Lorraine Monroe, President and CEO of The Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute (LMLI) was the founding principal of the renowned Frederick Douglass Academy in Central Harlem. Dr. Monroe translates her extensive experiences in New York City public schools—as teacher, dean, assistant principal, principal, and Deputy Chancellor for Curriculum and Instruction—into the guiding set of leadership principles that define the work of The Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute. Dr. Monroe is a national and international consultant whose groundbreaking work has been featured on 60 Minutes, Tony Brown’s Journal, the McCreary Report with Bill McCreary, the Tom Snyder Show, and in Ebony magazine, the New York Times, the Reader’s Digest, Fast Company business magazine and the nationally syndicated Parade Magazine. Her book, Nothing’s Impossible: Leadership Lessons from Inside and Outside the Classroom, has been translated into Swedish, Finnish, and Taiwanese. Dr. Monroe’s second book, The Monroe Doctrine: An ABC Guide to What Great Bosses Do, offers educators, administrators, and business folk simple, fundamental lessons on becoming and remaining a truly great boss. For additional information about Dr. Monroe and LMLI, visit www.lorrainemonroe.org.

SHOWNOTES:

1. Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute
2. Kansas State Department of Education’s Annual Conference
3. My notes from Dr. Monroe’s keynote address

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Technorati Tags: ksde07, leadership, education

 

 Podcast146: The Monroe Doctrine: Effective Practices that Create Excellent Schools (Dr. Lorraine Monroe) [88:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1306)

These are my notes from Kevin Honeycutt’s presentation at KSDE2007. Kevin is one of the most creative, enthusiastic, dynamic and inspirational educators I have ever met. I’m recording his presentation for subsequent publication here as a podcast. Check out his website on http://kevinhoneycutt.org.

If you are looking for a dynamite conference presenter that has more potential than anyone else (at least that I know personally) two of your best possible choices would be Kevin Honeycut and Marco Torres. (It’s amazing to get to hang out and learn from people like Kevin and Marco. The are two of my “yodas.”)

ToySight is one of Kevin’s favorite programs to use with kids and iSight cameras.

I realized it wasn’t my job to teach technology, it was my job to teach art
- relax, get out of the way
- and learn along with the kids

My fear is there are too many parents who say about technology, “I can’t help them, that’s not my thing”
- we have got to play where kids play, even if we are not entirely comfortable there

Clint Eastwood moment with my 13 year old

People who can’t use digital technologies ubiquitously in the future will be the new illiterate
- whatever it takes, we need to help the kids
- I can’t take the laptop away from my kid because I know

Success
- age 4: not peeing in your pants
- age 12: having friends
- age: 17: having a driver’s license
- age 35: having money
- age 50….

What does learning really look like in a brain

Jeff Hawkins’ book on the brain and learning:
“On Intelligence” (Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee)

How do I teach a brain, what does it look like?
- that has been my quest for the last 3 years

Smart lightning: neurons holding hands
- starting to cross correlate, build neural connections

Einstein and Da Vinci
- Da Vinci was a free associater
- I think those brains that can connect learning to learning

Great book: “Discover Your Genius: How to Think Like History’s Ten Most Revolutionary Minds” (Michael J. Gelb)

Home movie of Brain remodeling itself
- if we are just teaching kids thing, I’m afraid we’ve just got middle management (if kids are waiting for instruction to do the right thing)

If all we are doing is helping kids is pre

Young minds need rich experiences…

Madden Football and the Tree-House

Today’s kids have no fear
- look at their games
- our game cartridges looked like the games today, but we really had just a dot to move on the screen

Kids an make fast decisions. How many do they make in classrooms?

The military loves these kids, they are flying the predator drone
Robert Ballard

Kids are wired by their future because
- they have no fear
- they are wired for speed

Our kids snack on learning
- we’ve got to stand by them on the buffet and help them eat what they need, because they will just browse

Story of real/virtual theft in Webkins

In classrooms kids get asked a question on average once every nine hours
- in a video game kids make a decision every 1.5 seconds (from Marc Prensky)

Why they still need us
- they have to develop the filter between their ears
- The quest for executive function

Are kids touching the computer? Then start talking to them about Internet safety
- online neighborhood watches: this needs to happen on MySpace
- we can look out for each other’s kids

Do you ever wonder why your teenager makes the decision they made?
- they say “I don’t know”
- research from Harvard points to executive function
- lives in the frontal lobe: the air traffic controller of the brain

If kids get hurt when they are playing alone on the playground

Girls develop frontal lobe around age 16, and men marry one

We can’t make all learning into a first-person video game
- but how can we steal some of their magic?
- building a guantlet of experiences that kids are going to run through and trip over the curriculum

This was an adventure, a story that kids remember!

It’s a worldwide workforce!
- kids need seamless technology and collaboration skills to compete
- “The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century” (Thomas L. Friedman)

I’m afraid kids don’t see this coming
- outsourcing and the death of location
- fungible and non-fungible careers: if they can outsource the drive through

You play video games, can you make one? You listen to music, can you make some?
- “good enough” is no longer “good enough”
- great thing about the Internet: you can work from anywhere and do anything

Example: Jet Blue

I think this potential can save our small towns

Vivismo

Next lesson: Emotions cement learning, passion makes permanent
- Model-T Product
- all about measurement, collaboration, and comunication
- 3 classrooms: 3 different roles

Learning In Context

Temporal learning: learning over time: how we naturally learn
- this is why project-based, story-based and real life learning methods are so effective
- because things get written into your brain over time

That is the way the brain wants to learn

How do we blend technology into that experience in appropriate ways
- we used to think we’d become cyborgs: 6 Million Dollar Man
- Here’s what has happened instead: it has become part of our centralized nervous system, like a limb

But what do we do in school?
- we take off / cut off our limbs

Story of Nathalee, friend who has arguments with Kevin about

Learning is now more of a partnership between brain and machine

Story of the Hunley
- I get to decide how I learn, while some people are being forced to learn through a keyhole
- kids can configure their learning if we let them do that

If what you are doing extends the experience we are working on together, you can do it

Use Google Alerts
- put your kids’ name

I put the word “arborization” into Google Alerts

I tell kids, never do anything that would embarrass yourself it came back to get you
- that will stop some of your cyberbullying

I don’t blame the kids, they are “out there” alone

Go to my website and grab some of these ideas for collaborative projects with kids, and do them!

Conclusions!
- we teach brains
- use technology to grow dense forests in kids’ minds
- they will make bad decisions and they need us!
- operationalize learning (otherwise it is just stuff you were told, it doesn’t have a context to stick in the brain)
- we must allow kids to problem solve and collaborate using technology

Lots of tools on my website

Story about SecondLife
- video of a kid who made a guitar in SL
- a kid who made a laser pistol and paid for his college with the money he made

The new assembly line is going to be your couch
- what happens when you are disabled and don’t have hands, but you can create in this environment

My brother is a preacher and preaches at a church in SL
- the new version of SL is out and you talk into it, intereact with others via your voice

Kevin has bought some land in SL, and invites others to join them

New website: there.com
- lots like second life

balance between analog and real world

my question: do you know who you are talking to online?
- I don’t want my kid to get groomed by a predator
- like The Sims but everyone is online at the same time

I won’t pretend that I know what all this means, but I do think that if we are not there

Kevin has a danceclub in SL and there are a lot of teachers there

Even good people do dumb things when they think no one is looking

Our kids need us NOW!
- story of Kevin using tweezers as a toddler

Books recommended:
- Intelligence Jeff Hawkins
- A Mind at a Time: Mel Levine
- The World is Flat
- Discover Your Genius
- Brain-based learning
- Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot

Technorati Tags: bloomstaxonomy, creativity, curriculum, differentiation, education, educational law, entrepreneur, google, internetsafety, kansas, ksde07, millennials, school2.0, schoolreform, secondlife

My notes from Dr. Lorraine Monroe’s keynote at the KSDE conference on 4-26-2007 in Wichita, Kansas.

That is what we are all about in this room: The cultivation of children

Never ask me to follow a kids’ act. It is too hard!

Good morning, I’ve already run out of time.

Thank you for having me here today, and listening to the focus that we have in our profession

I like the title of your conference: “Know the child, Optimize Learning”
- what else can we add to that, but the experiences that change children’s lives and deepen the way we live their lives

Some readings first from “A Guide to Prayer” from “The Upper Room”
- I really don’t we can do this work without a recognition that this is holy work
- there is no work greater than what we do
- as a young woman I thought I wanted to be a medical doctor
- as a young teacher, however, I came to know that teaching is about the heart, the mind, and the soul of the body: I saved lives

Story of Brother Leo and trip to visit to study at his feet
- one was tired of running to get water, another tired of getting food, another tired of running ahead
- came upon another traveler on the road, who came with them

The servant first, and the leader first are two different types of individuals
- difference between the two comes from taking care of the needs of others first
- best test and one most difficult to admini
- do those we serve grow as persons as a result of what we do each day?
- do people change for the better because of what you do, what you cause to happen?
- as a result of your serv healther, wiser, more autonomous, and more likely themselves to become servants as a result of watching us, working with us?
- what is the effect of our service on the least privelidged in society? The special education children? The kids you might hope are absent some days? The ones with difficult parents? The ones who don’t believe you when you describe their children?
- There is no one here who can’t remember the name of a teacher who was “a destroyer of children,” who said unkind things, made some kids sit in the back
- what is the effect on the least priveledged?

Next part of the reading:
- if we know all that, we know this is holy work, then what do we do?
- the real training of service and leadership is an often painful process of self-emptying
- getting rid of the stuff in your head that says “not these kids”
- the thoughts that say “this kid can’t make it, can’t do it”

We can each turn to each other and share a story about a teacher who told us what we cannot be, who

The main purpose of all this: be the way without getting in the way
- we are teaching even when we are not speaking
- how we speak to the least of these
- how we dress

First thing we have to do: plow the field
- get ready to plant
- stand before the children with a plan

you cannot ad-lib excellence
- I owe you that much, to plan
- to get ready, turn over the soil

Then: To cut the branches, get rid of the things that are in the way of children’s growth and development
- there are often things that are in the way
- our job is to help get rid of those things

Last step and most painful: a child can keep their sanity in the building if there is at least ONE PERSON who knows the children, and wait for the children
- in some buildings, that is the custodian
- if there is at least 1 person in the building waiting for the child
- if there is NO ONE waiting for the child, s/he has virtually no chance to survive

I stand here because I had great teachers
- what I am going to do for your today is teach through stories, and remind you through stories

People ask: how did you get to be so crazy
- neither of my parents graduated from high school
- my parents insisted that we kids go to school and respect the process
- I am here because I had

Grew up in Central Harlem
- by the time I was 15 it would take a sledgehammer to my skull to get me NOT to succeed

I want you to think wh

I didn’t go to kindergarten for some reason
- I went right away to 1st grade
- met Mrs. Katz, and learned to read with “Dick and Jane”
- no one in America had a family like that: corny
- I learned how to read

Gift of Mrs Katz: she saw me sitting there idle and asked me, “Why aren’t you working”
- I said I finished the book
- in some schools, the teacher would accuse someone, “Who told you to finish the book?!”
- instead Mrs Katz asked me to go to the back of the school
- when I became an English teacher, I said you
- you want to develop eclectic readers: what you do what is that they LOVE to read, that they EAT books

Gifts of Mrs. Wife in 3rd grade
- if you don’t get reading by 3rd grade then you are catching up
- Mrs. White had yard duty (anyone requesting that?)
- One day after lunch I attached

Sometimes kids need to be with you
- you are giving them something that they can’t even articulate that they need at that moment
- I remember when I taught senior Engish, the kid who would pack his

Get out of this profession if you don’t understand that “you are on” 24/7
- when you go to sleep, you are planning
- my husband would hear me talking

Fast forward to 6th grade
- Mrs White wrote when I was in the 6th grade, “Dear Lorraine: Hitch your wagon to a star, and you will go far”
- when I was failing quantitative analysis, I thought the college
- teachers have to watch what they say
- you can designate genius, or you can designate failure”
- teachers will say unbelievably crushing things to children, when their job is to be UPLIFTERS
- you are the magicians, you are the change makers
- too often we hear about teachers being the destroyers of children

That’s why I stopped going to the teacher’s lounge
- if you are doing a count down to retirement, you should be counted out of the profession
- what you do to these kids, they will somehow do it at home and it will rub off
- what you do with them and to them they will do to their children

teachers are predictors of hell or heaven

I finished the 6th grade with Mr Cooper
- very handsome
- learned Robert’s rules of order in elementary school, learned how to talk with others the way I am talking to you now
- at that school, expectations were held high

Then I went to middle school
- I had had a taste of leadership
- the school patrol was the leadership opportunity there
- by the 9th grade I ascended to be something obnoxious called “head of heads” of school patrol
- so full of myself, parading before them, pontificating in front of the others

By the time I left 9th grade, I had deepened by love of literature and learned to love foreign language
- I studied the principle and learned how to inspire fear and awe
- people don’t have assemblies any more
- you can’t have a school if you don’t have an assembly
- that’s like a family that never sits down together at the dinner table
- kids CAN behave: it’s called TRAINING
- we were recognized in that school
- you could get 5 certificates
- kids need to be recognized by their peers
- the principal had 5 areas we could earn certificates
– excellent attendance, punctuality, citizenship, service to school, scholarship

My parents expected me to earn 5 certificates
- I found the fine lingerie I had bought for my mother when I went to Paris, and those 5 certificates
- when you think of recognizing children, think of what that means not only to them but also their parents

What does it mean, what does it cost?
- to get kids up on the stage, to be applauded, I can change his/her opinion of themselves, who they are, and where they can go

Many teachers today don’t believe that kids coming from your schools
- you can’t change the history of the child
- you teach the child as they come to you

WE ARE THE CHANGE AGENTS
- we are the people who make the difference
- we are the ones who dress for success so the children will know what grown men and women are supposed to look like when they dress up for work

We read Shakespeare, famous speeches
- how many kids go through our schools and don’t know their parts of speech

Then I learned Spanish: Book “El Camino Real”
- we had to memorize it
- and we learned Spanish songs
- I went to Spain the same year I went to France

When you don’t know the langauge you say it louder and slower

real gift from my Spanish teacher, she took us to watch a foreign film
- “Don Quiote de la Mancha”
- I didn’t even know there were foreign films before that
- I sat next to my teacher as she cried in this film, and didn’t understand [HAD SOME COGNITIVE DISSONANCE]
- later in life when I saw that musical, I realized that my teacher understood her mission

you tilt at the windmills of degredation and poverty
- that is your mission

In those days girls had courses like “housekeeping” and “millionary” (making hats) in 8th grade
- had a fearsome teacher for that class, Mrs. Graves
- one day the teacher told the students she was going to invite some of us to her house for high tea
- story of high tea with her teacher asking us what we were going to do when we graduated from college
- came
- we had the her intentionality and staying power, so we all graduated
- have to have intense and over time, wear them down

I’m telling you these stories because I want to remind you of how powerful you are in the lives of children
- you are not God, but you put it out there and see who gets it, but you pitch it high

My 9th grade English teacher
- the librarian
- what a gift to have Engish in the library, the wonderful smell of all those old books
- sentence diagramming
- taught us that, so we knew the structure of our language
- introed us to Dickens

I didn’t get into either high school because of my math scores
- I never had good math teachers: they just taught the 3 kids in their class who didn’t need them
- one of my teachers told me about Lincoln Park High School, where Lincoln Center is now
- I got into the school, got into student government right away, graduated most likely to succeed

Key was a teacher taking the time to move outside her “job”
- seeing a kid that was in need of counseling
- that is someting I am promoting
- what does a great teacher do, EVERYTHING
- what does a great school do, WHATEVER IT TAKES

I am a certifiable life long learner, lover of reading, arts, and music
- in college, however, no one cared I was failing the math classes
- finally a counselor took me aside, and encouraged me to be an English teacher

I loved it, worked hard with kids, after 10 years I went out of middle school to teach high school
- there was a test you had to take

At Hunter they taught you how to dress for interviews
- I scored 2nd highest in the school

So I was sent to the worst high school in NYC, Benjamin Franklin
- the school wast totally dysfunctional
- I came from high structure, high expectations: that school was crazy
- they gave me the kids who had failed the

I said: “You have met the interrupter. You bring you body in here every day, and I will teach you how to pass that test.”
- all 15 of those kids passed the test at the end of the year

So then people asked me, how did you do it?

In NYC, all the kids stay in their neighborhoods
- I told those kids because you have done so well, I am going to take you all downtown
- we went to the Queen Elizabeth ship
- what I want you to know, is if you stay in school and do well, you can go anywhere your American Express card can take you
- I took them downtown on 5th Avenue at Christmastime, because they had never been there

You want to change children, you get them out of the mindset that “this is where my family has always lived, this is how we have always lived”
- show them a wider world
- took the kids to FAO Shwartz
- we were 15 african-american and
- my job as a teaher is to give children the world, to expose them to everything that they have a RIGHT to

it is about experiences and exposures
- yes it is about math, english, reading, etc
- they can still remain encapsulated by a mindset of poverty
- they can live next to a

The world belongs to you. Be prepared to be in it. That means to be literate. That means to have pieces of paper that tells the world you are qualified. We train them to use the forks, the knives, etc. so students are not self-conscioius when they leave the building

Schools does EVERYTHING to prepare the children for living, for life
- otherwise we are just joking when we say we have a great school
- all the kids get it, because you never can tell

I never dreamed I would live the life I have and am living
- I am here because of people like you

Then I left that school and went to

A good school needs to have teachers who know their subjects
- I have been appauled

A good school has teachers who love children

Has a principal who has the ability to make people weep, both in fear and in admiration

A good principal chooses good assistants

A good principal loves to observe
- the children need to know who s/he is

My mentor told me, “If you don’t go, you won’t know”
- you won’t know who the great teachers are, and who should be packing groceries in the store
- there are some teachers in our classrooms that should never be there
- some of them are killers of children’s dreams, the collect checks and kill dreams
- I rolled them out of my building as a principal
- If they wanted to know how to teach, I taught them, but if not I showed them the door

A good teacher is looking to cultivate good people who could replace them

Then I had a chance to run my own school, that was a gift from God
- you have to be crazy to be a principal
- got a phone call from a superintendent: Taft High School in The Bronx

LOTS of challenges at this school, but I was prepared, knew my strengths
- school had 3,200 kids, I had 11 assistant principals
- assistants said the problems ere: kids don’t want to come to school, there is chaos in the halls, kids won’t

I know how to bring order, we will lock the bathrooms
We made a new rule, if the kids don’t have a large notebook they can’t come into the school

When you are a principal the first day, you put your body where you want the action to be

The kids were waiting for someone to say cut the nonsense, what goes down in the street doesn’t go down in this building

We had a “Do Now” at the start of each lesson
- 3-4 min pen to paper work that required no moving or talking
- so that is how the school sounded
- it is called “universal compliance or I will kill you”
- kids respond to routine

A kid put a note on my desk, and said thanks for giving us back our school

Great school when the teachers say: NOT UNDER MY WATCH WILL I ALLOW YOU TO BE DESTROYED

We didn’t tolerate “swivel teachers”
- how can you teach 45 minutes sitting down?
- how can you reach those kids back in the Siberia row
- you know the whole room belongs to the teacher
- it wasn’t rocket science, it was being prepared for 45 minutes
- teach, practice, test
- you are striking fire
- when I stand up and look fierce, you better be ready to get started

Bell to bell teaching
- that is what I teach teachers
- there is no administrivia in a faculty meeting
- put that stuff on a piece of paper
-all faculty meetings are about instruction and improving instruction
- let gym be much more than throw out the balls, and lean against the walls
- in some places the PE teacher just wears the outfit, but doesn’t do anything
- PE teacher says “do you want to see my plan” and I say “no, I want to see that plan in action”

I love to observe
- I want every experience in school to help improve children’s lives
- So under this leadership, the teachers focused on teaching except a few who were “counseled out of the profession”

If you don’t have assemblies you really don’t have a school
- you have to train them, one class at a time
- the children always wanted order
- chaos is very scary for kids
- there are not going to say “please bring order” because that is not in their constitution
- but chaos makes them crazy

I increased the numbers of clubs and teams
- that allows kids to be fastened to someone who does not give them grades
- we had a fencing team that outfenced all the schools, who didn’t think black and Latino kids could outfence them

When you are a principal you are supposed to protect your kids
- if there is any job I would

YOU DO WHATEVER IT TAKES
- you want to create a great school, that’s what you do even if it means

What’s good for the best is good for the rest
- and if you give me the rest then we’re going to kick your butts
- the #2 pencil doesn’t know what color you are, where you came from, where you live, it just knows if you know the answer

UNDER MY WATCH, YOU ARE GOING TO KILL THE TESTS

Story of school in Harlem
- our school was 179th out of 179 in reading and math
- had to spend a lot of time putting that school together, it had had 6 principals in 6 years
- the kids had pretty much destroyed the school, all in frustration: the principals they had didn’t know how to run a school and were afraid of kids and teachers
- I felt it was very important we wore uniforms
- I said you bring your body here every day and do what I say, and you will go to college
- I interviewed and hired all the teachers, and with about 2 exceptions we got great teachers

We had planned this place so well, we had gone away and dreamed this school
- I handpicked my people,
- had 12 non-negotiable rules and regulations
- because were

You give me this, I give you college

So we had the blackbelt…. (her recommendations for leadership)
- putting instruction on the board

I wanted every kid by the end of September to be attached to someone who did not give them a grade
- all our faculty meetings about instruction
- I was highly visible and observed every day
- “teach don’t talk to me”
- community service for all the kids, because they had to know you had to give back

We did deep test prep
- we started right after Christmas
- so people came early, gave up lunch, stayed late, came on Saturday for test prep
- worked with schools that were going to be closed (on SUR list

We went from #179 to #11 in 1 year, 100% of the kids passed the writing test
- next year we went up to #4
- almost 97% of the first graduating class were accepted to college
- I don’t play
- We decided to give to poor kids what rich parents pay for: academic rigor, all the clubs and teams

Our kids traveled all over, nationally and internationally
- because people were amazed and came to

Monroe Definition of the purpose of school:
- “The purpose of school is to teach ALL the children, not some of them, to read, write, think, compute, speak well, love the arts, behave in socially acceptable ways, in order to become economically independent, contributing members of society.”

[MY THOUGHT: THIS IS A GREAT DEFINITION]

Technorati Tags: ksde07, leadership, learning

I’m attending and presenting at the KSDE Conference in Wichita, Kansas again today. This morning the opening comments were shared by Dale Dennis, the Interim Commissioner of Education for the state of Kansas. Here are some of my notes from his commentary:

Kansas education has never been better.

Our graduation rate is around 90%.

Our teachers are working harder than ever, and our students are doing better than ever. In the business world you’d say that’s as good as you can get.

I wish we could figure out some way to reward the great people in the classroom more than we are.

The stress levels in our classrooms has never been higher.

Never underestimate the power of your actions. One small gesture has the potential to change someone’s life.

END OF NOTES, START OF MY COMMENTS

It is not unusual to hear someone in political office proclaim “things have never been better.” I question that assertion in the context of education, however, not just here in Kansas but elsewhere in these great United States of ours.

Mr. Dennis cited NAEP test scores as evidence of how great education is doing in Kansas. He is well-informed to use NAEP rather than state-level test scores to compare the performance of students, since it is nationally administered and isn’t something school districts prepare for directly like they prepare for their own state assessments.

Now we are hearing an introduction to an arts performance group out of Kansas City, which is going to preform a short skit for everyone before our general session with Dr. Lorraine Monroe begins. The lady introducing the theater team has noted how their research shows that students in their arts program perform better on standardized assessments / tests than other students.

My immediate thought on the comments shared by both these individuals is: How sad that much of society seems to have bought the lie that educational quality can be defined just by test scores. Educational quality is much more complex than a test score. I understand the reasons everyone feels they need to justify what they do by citing test scores, but IMHO I don’t think anyone helping students develop their theatrical performance skills needs to share a justification about the arts helping test scores. Every child need to learn to love the arts, experience the arts, and live the arts via their own creative expression.

It was a bit of cognitive dissonance to focus at the state public school’s conference on the work of an arts group that, by the lead teacher’s introduction, is entirely grant funded. Still, it was a GREAT intro, and the high school kids did SUPER.

We need to have more theater performance opportunities in our schools, practiced during the regular school day, funded by regular education funds.

Technorati Tags: education, kansas, ksde, ksde07, puppy

I spent most of the day both Monday and Tuesday this week teaching and learning from about 150 5th and 6th grade students at Winding Creek Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma, which is just south of Oklahoma City. Our topic was Internet safety and guidelines for being safe online. I shared a couple videos with them (the National Ad Council video on cyberbullying and the “Predator” video from iSafe) and they brainstormed all the websites they know about where they or their friends “go for fun.” We then created an Inspiration concept map of the results.

We then colored all the sites that permit interaction / social networking a different color (blue.) Last night I took that Inspiration concept map and linked most of the website names to their actual URLs. Check out the results. We used that product to discuss social networking in today’s full-day workshop about “safe digital social networking” for the State of Kansas Department of Education’s annual conference in Wichita. This was my first opportunity to do a full day, six hour workshop on safe digital social networking. We had a lot of fun (at least I did) and the workshop evaluations were very positive. Lots to discuss and learn about on this topic.

Working with the elementary students earlier this week, we actually created 8 different versions of this same document. The one I linked is the version created by the last group of sixth graders. There was some variance (of course) in the websites the students shared and brainstormed, but this version was the most comprehensive.

In addition to discussing Internet safety, we also recorded different students sharing tips about Internet safety for an audio-only podcast. Unfortunately, it appears I may have deleted most of that podcast accidentally….. So I may have to see if I can return to the school at some point and re-record the students’ ideas. They were VERY fired up to share their thoughts about being safe online via a podcast, and came up with some very good suggestions for their peers. They also really enjoyed hearing what their peers had shared, and were quick to identify the voices of their classmates even though they did not state their names in the podcast recording.

This was a LOT of fun for me, since I generally work directly with teachers rather than students now. I hope it was also beneficial for the students. It’s an eye opener to see how many of their self-identified “fun websites” permit digital social networking. We need to be having more conversations with kids, parents, teachers and others about these issues.

Technorati Tags: cyberbullying, dsn, internetsafety, isafe

Yes, it’s coming again in October 2007 - another outstanding professional development opportunity that can go on and on… The K-12 Online Conference! Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach posted a great summary of the conference and review of what took place last year on her blog, I’d encourage you to read it. Note that Frost and Sullivan just published an article focusing on what a tremendous professional learning event K-12 Online 2006 was!

Most importantly, please share your thoughts and input about what K-12 Online 2007 should include as topics, and how it should change and evolve from last year’s conference. I’m thrilled to again be working with Sheryl, Darren and Lani to help convene the conference. I think we are in the process of reinventing professional development for teachers. What the Trussville, Alabama school district did with K-12 Online last year can and should be done by MANY more school districts in 2007-2008. Whether or not your district embraces mixed online and face-to-face learning or not, you certainly can! Our conversations continue! Please share your input to help make K-12 Online 2007 even better, and mark your calendars now to participate!

• 8-12 October 2007 Pre-Conference
• 15-19 October 2007 Week 1 (Strands 1 and 2)
• 22-26 October 2007 Week 2 (Strands 3 and 4)
• 27 October 2007 When Night Falls

Our call for presentations will be released in upcoming weeks. Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: digitaldivide, distancelearning, distributedlearning, education, k12online, k12online07

Eric Langhorst has posted a great video to TeacherTube explaining his book blog project on “Guerrilla Season.” We need more teachers modeling and sharing their best practices with teaching via TeacherTube like Eric has done! I think we’re only getting glimpses of the power of these digital teaching resources. Great work Eric and students in Liberty! And wonderful work Pat Hughes, the author of “Guerrilla Season!”