Is it hard to get your teachers excited about attending training? Do they dread PD Day in your district? Join this session to hear how Yukon Public Schools changed the face of their PD model by implementing some foundational strategies and introducing an ‘Un?Conference’ Conference Model.

I AUDIO RECORDED THIS SESSION WITH PERMISSION USING THE FREE IPAD APP CINCH, IT’S EMBEDDED BELOW:

Today we will try and communicate our evolving model of professional development

we call it the ‘un-conferenced-conference model’

the problems:
- teachers are unmotivated to attend PD
- teachers didn’t see the relevance to sessions
- negative feedback

The needs of the district and teachers need to converge
- we want to change the face of PD in Yukon (change perceptions / opinions / and offerings)
- build a relevant PD program

This is hard because the district always has new initiatives: New hardware, Baldrige training, etc…

Does Your Professional Event Suffer from Boring Conference Syndrome?

We had lots of past experience with large-group, motivational speakers
- those “touchy-feely presentations” don’t appeal to everyone
- everyone’s needs are different

Someone said: “we need to go back to site-based PD”
- team building / true colors / etc.
- we have been stuck in this rut for about 2 years

From participants:

OKCPS elementary schools are implementing a new core curriculum program, all teachers have to be trained in the next two years
- 12 trainers, training after school for 35 schools
- after school, teachers getting stipends
- many teachers are resistant
- trainers are not getting together and collaborating much since the start of term

Crescent Public Schools is continuing its ‘de-regulation model’ of PD where students get out at 2 pm on Wednesdays, and teachers stay from 2-4 for PD

Some districts having problem providing ‘just in time’ PD which is needed on Friday PD days because the schedule for the year is defined/determined at the start of the year

Self-Determination Theory by Deci and Ryan: To make something intrinsic from a motivational standpoint, we need:
- autonomy
- competence
- relatedness

This theory has driven our PD model for Yukon PS

“Have you noticed Accelerated Reader doesn’t follow this model?”

The Program… Now!
- goals: encourage ongoing learning

we had a money crunch in our district which prohibited teacher travel, so all our PD was site-based

now this semester we’ve brought in Wes Fryer as an instructional coach, working 1 on 1 and in small groups with teachers on their planning times focusing on common core integration

our individual and campus goals can’t sit outside the overall goals of the district (these goals need to be in alignment)

‘CHOICE is the main thing our teachers want when it comes to professional development’

Providing choices is a mindset change for teachers
- this changes who is responsible for PD
- we are not taking responsibility for other people’s learning in the way we’ve traditionally done it
- we encourage students to take ownership and responsibility for their own learning, we need to do the same thing with teachers and teacher PD

When we mandate training for teachers, we turn off the learning for many teachers
- by offering choice, it’s up to teachers to to build their own learning

Results: 83% (426 of 512 employees) are opting out of the PD day coming up in February because they already got training through different ways
- teachers can go work in their room that day instead of going to PD that day

We are not paying teachers for PD choice, but it is

It makes us sad when teachers don’t want to go to PD
- We know everyone doesn’t feel that way
- so we have to get our message out, and the ‘carrot’ was important for this

Another key: we don’t keep track of teachers’ points
- teachers are professionals
- “I am a professional, treat me like one”
- we are working on modeling this

We now encourage our principals to make faculty meets into PD, several are doing book studies
- they are not reading announcements anymore
- this also means PD for the administration
- we highly encourage our administrators to participate in PD

Next: we are working on focusing on pedagogy, practice and process
- what are the qualities and processes of good educational process

We need to move away, as much as we can as schools, from the model of ‘we bought a new product, now lets to get trained on it’
- teachers need training on how these different things ‘fit’ into our teaching and learning

We are already collaborating with other districts, and want to explore other possibilities for collaboration

Technorati Tags: development, oklahoma, otaem12, pd, professional, yukon, yukonps

Look at Me Now! Changing the Face of Professional Development originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 8, 2012.

Discover how easy it is to Standards Map the Common Core State Standards to lesson plans- curriculum- instruction- and learning. Why Standards Map? It documents not only WHAT standard is aligned to a specific lesson- test item- or instructional strategy- but also the specific content (nouns)- skills (verbs)- level of rigor (Bloom Level)- I?Can statement- Big Idea- and Essential Question. It’s alignment with rigor!

teachers will have to use the library in different ways under Common Core State Standards
- requires collaboration between teachers to require different kinds of collaboration

www.alcaweb.org
- curriculum threads standards

We have created a 14 foot long wall poster that is the reading common core (MY COMMENT: WHEN I ASKED GARY FOR THE LINK TO THIS MAP, HE SAID ONLY PAYING CUSTOMERS WITH REGISTRATION CODES AND LOGIN ACCOUNTS CAN ACCESS ANY OF THE RESOURCES HE’S SHARING TODAY.

Wouldn’t it be nice if students in older grade levels could create curriculum and materials for use by younger students
- wouldn’t it be nice for students to create and save artifacts of their learning which can be maintained year-to-year?

If you don’t do these things, it is going to be a LOT harder to implement the CCSS

Need to be able to assess how students can use a skill in ‘unpredictable ways’
- for the past 16 years we have been dumbing down students, because we have been focusing mostly on lower level skills

We (ALCA) have been doing research for years, we are driven purely by research, not whether we make money or create a product that sells
- “we are like Steve Jobs who built a computer in his own garage, we are doing it our own way”
- we’ve been doing this since 1997
- the problem up to this point is the system wasn’t in place for school districts, with carrots and sticks

“I can tell you this for sure, the Common Core isn’t ever going to go away”

How many reading standards in CCSS K-12?

This is the ‘traditional’ CCSS curriculum map for Algebra I in the U.S. developed by www.alcaweb.org. (MY COMMENT: I’M WONDERING WHY IT IS HELPFUL TO VIEW THIS, IN THIS ZOOMED OUT FORMAT?)

Standards mapping is two things:
1- unwrapping or unpacking: breaking standard apart so you can get all the information out of it, so kids / parents / teachers can relate to it
2- ‘wrapping it back’ around test items, a lesson plan, a website you found

MY COMMENT: THIS STEP 2 IS CONNECTING THE ‘UNWRAPPED STANDARDS’ TO LEARNING TASKS FOR STUDENTS

Whatever you do, you have to be able to unpack the standards as a teacher

MY COMMENT AND IDEA: I ASKED GARY HOW MUCH IT COSTS FOR A SCHOOL DISTRICT TO GET ACCESS TO ALL ITS ‘UNPACKED CCSS STANDARDS.’ HE SAID HE DIDN’T WANT TO GET INTO PRICING TODAY. I’M THINKING THIS IS A CRITICAL QUESTION. IT’S ALSO AN IDEA FOR A COLLABORATION AMONG OKLAHOMA DISTRICTS. AS WE HAVE TEACHERS UNPACK STANDARDS, WHY DON’T WE HAEV THOSE DOCUMENTS SHARED OPENLY AS PUBLIC GOOGLE DOCS? THEN ANYONE COULD UTILIZE AND BUILD ON THOSE PRODUCTS? I’M SEEING AN AMAZING AMOUNT OF WORK THAT ALCA HAS DONE UNPACKING THESE STANDARDS, BUT I’M THINKING THERE ARE GREAT OPPORTUNITIES HERE FOR SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO OPENLY LICENSE (WITH CREATIVE COMMONS) THEIR OWN ‘UNPACKED STANDARDS’ FOR ANYONE TO USE.

Larry Ainsworth is the ‘father of unpacking’
- no one of the planet has done this… what I am about to show you
- it takes a lot of time and work to unpack standards

Where does the vocabulary list for this come from?

Columns for the ALAWEB unwrapping:
1 Content
- relevant information
- paraphrased information
- List
2 Skills
- recall
- gather
- summarize / paraphrase
- provide
3 Learning Targets
- I can…. statements
4 Big Ideas
5 Essential Questions

You never want to show a student “the big ideas”

Teachers on the east coast particularly will put the ‘big ideas’ and ‘essential questions’ on the wall, so at the end of the day the teacher can point to them and ask students to describe/discuss how those were addressed in our activities of the day

Wiggins and others have done the research and found: If you don’t tie learning students are doing to a ‘global concept’ that a student can relate to forever, s/he is NOT going to remember it
- must tie to a global set of knowledge

Students must use all four: reading, writing, speaking, listening
- kids are using four different parts of their brain, so they have a greater opportunity to burn it to long term memory

“Measurement and Data standard goes away in CCSS math standards after grade 5″

There are about 200 school districts in OKlahoma who are members and now actively contributing to these databases of resources
- schools retain ownership over materials created from a legal standpoint
- we hope schools share their products

I’M WONDERING IF ALCA PERMITS SCHOOL DISTRICTS TO SPECIFICALLY LICENSE THEIR UNPACKED STANDARDS UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS AND SHARE THEM ON THE OPEN, VERSUS THE CLOSED WEB?

My brother is the science coordinator in Enid, now I’m going to copy a benchmark test they created
- I am using a ‘room key’ as a password to access this
“sdMev”
- use that room code to import that ‘virtual room’ in our ‘learning community management system’ (more than Moodle, you can document TLE in an assessment way, not an evaluation way – teachers can self-assess, create smart goals. Also teams can do action research on specific competencies or skills)

I’m going to show you know how you can wrap an unpacked standard around a test item
- teachers are going to have to document how they are teaching
- this process allows for documentation of teacher instruction, as well as student learning
- using rubrics for formative assessment, tests, also other strategies

Story of an Ag teacher who is using iPads with students to assess how they showed sheep at a stock show
- students can do similar things with water quality data
- in lower grades, students have to participate in research
- need to engage students up and down grade levels

Most important takeaway today was shared by
- every system there will let you connect it to a standard, and then it’s ‘magically aligned’
- the level of rigor in terms of alignments with other tools (not ours) is too shallow
- systems that just let you attach a standard create too much grey area for a principal to talk to a teacher, or teachers to talk to a teacher
- those systems are always open to interpretation when we ask, “how is this aligned?”
- “most systems just link”

With the CCSS you need to assess two or more standards in every question

Right now we are doing leadership retreats and workshops with school administrators
- working with superintendents as well as principals
- all of them have to work with TLE

We created this for Oklahoma Career Tech, we call it Professional Development
- we don’t know yet if we
- it will be a personal learning network for students

Schools start with ePASS, Dibbles, anything, our system can ingest anything
- “our system never requires help from your IT department, we do it all”
- “we prefer to do the [student test score result] importing, because Pearson isn’t known for providing ‘clean’ data”

We are going to have science institutes, and have science teachers create content
- ‘we are going to Missouri next’
- we want Oklahoma to be a national model for this

“We paid 5 or 6 people to unpack all the CCSS standards last summer. We think individual teachers should only unpack 1 or 2 standards, it’s very time consuming.”

MY CLOSING COMMENT: I ASKED GARY IF THEY LICENSE ACCESS TO THEIR SYSTEM ON A PER SEAT BASIS, AND HE SAID YES. IT LOOKS LIKE HE WANTS SCHOOLS TO EMBRACE THEIR PROPRIETARY SYSTEM AS A COMPREHENSIVE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (LMS) WHICH WOULD REPLACE MOODLE, BLACKBOARD, ETC. I AM VERY GLAD TO HEAR GARY SHARE THIS INFO, I WANT TO LEARN MORE. I’M CONCERNED THAT OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS AND TEACHERS ARE NOT BEING CURRENTLY ENCOURAGED BY ANYONE (APPARENTLY) TO OPENLY SHARE AND LICENSE UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS UNPACKED CCSS AS WELL AS LESSONS.

Sign up for the ALCA sacking [at] alcaweb [dot] org

Standards Mapping the Common Core to Everyday Instruction and Teaching originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 7, 2012.

I want to talk to you about anywhere, anytime learning

Fundamental question: What is the value of a book?
- the glue binding and paper
- books have remained unchanged for about half a millennia
- the book is a medieval business model
- I have a soft spot for books, but I”m not afraid to embrace eBooks and their power to bring positive change to education

I can bring an entire library around in an eBook reader
- our kids are being exposed to this technology every day outside of the classroom, it’s time for it to make it into the classroom

We are moving into “The Great Tech War of 2012″ (per
- Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple
- fighting for marketshare for eBook
- Facebook going public
- Apple now offering iBooks platform
- this is good news
- disruptive technology is going exponential
- what used to take years now takes months

Smartphones and tablets are now ubiquitous
- broadband is expanding
- free content is exploding
- digital natives in our classrooms have never known anything else

Tom VanderArk was our summer conference
- his new book is “Getting Smart”
- he said 10 years ago we passed a threshold in human history, now anyone can learn anything for free or cheap
- our calcified school system is giving way to a new digital world

new SDE summer conference will be Vision2020: June 12-15, 2012

Kahn Academy has had 80 million YouTube views with over 2000 free videos
- Sal Kahn is working with a California classroom on a flipped model
- Kahn Academy has sophisticated data and tracking tools
- Sal says we’re at an inflection point, it’s crazy that every other field is being revolutionized except education

MY COMMENT: I’M TIRED OF GENERALIZATIONS LIKE THAT, WE DEFINITELY HAVE SCHOOLS AND EDUCATORS IN OKLAHOMA DOING AN EXEMPLARY JOB EMBRACING THE DIGITAL LEARNING REVOLUTION, AND WE NEED TO BOTH CELEBRATE AND AMPLIFY THESE SCHOOLS AT EVENTS JUST LIKE THIS. FAILING TO DO SO PAINTS OUR STATE AS A FAILURE FOR DIGITAL LEARNING. THAT IS INACCURATE, NOT FAIR AND MISLEADING. CERTAINLY WE HAVE LOTS OF CHANGES TO MAKE, BUT WE ALSO HAVE MANY EDUCATORS, STUDENTS, AND SCHOOLS RIGHT HERE IN OKLAHOMA THAT WE NEED TO CELEBRATE. JUST AS SHE DID IN NOVEMBER 2011 AT ODLA, SUPERINTENDENT BARRESI SQUANDARED THAT OPPORTUNITY TODAY TO RECOGNIZE THE CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE EDUCATORS AMONG US.

Last week we (Oklahoma SDE) announced a partnership with SASS Curriculum Pathways to offer thousands of free lesson plans to Oklahoma students
- also with Pangea Learning Inc. to provide supplemental tutoring services to 10,000 students statewide who are struggling to learn Algebra I skills
- also offering over 1400 digital files contributed from National Archives, LOC, NPR, NASA, National Institutes for Help
- web-based resources in ELA, Math, Science, Spanish, more for grades 6-12
- audio tutorials mapped to meet OKlahoma standards
- now this SASS Curriculum is going to be available free to Oklahoma learners

Pilot project with 16 high schools and 23 middle schools with Pangea Learning Inc.
- includes free teacher training to schools
- teachers will use this program as a supplement for Algebra I

In April we will convene a digital learning summit to write a document together
- we will use Digital Learning Council’s
- 3 organization: customization/success for all students, robust offering of high quality offers, robust infrastructure

MY COMMENT: IT IS SIGNIFICANT AND REGRETTABLE THAT “TEACHERS” ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK

[end of notes]

Technorati Tags: library, media, oklahoma, otaem12, sde, technology, janet, barresi, association

Anywhere, Anytime Learning by Janet Barresi originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on February 7, 2012.

Currently, a transition to Common Core Standards is prevalent in the educational environment. This session will overview key steps in successful Common Core implementation. A focus of the presentation will be resources the Marzano Research Laboratory has developed to support teachers and administrators in this transition from state standards to Common Core Standards.

ONE OF THE PARTICPANTS NEXT TO US ASKED JAN ABOUT COMING TO THEIR DISTRICT FOR PD, SHE QUOTED $6K PER DAY AS HER PRICE

Handouts from today are linked on www.ossba.org/ocic

Effective pedagogy in “Classroom Strategies that Work” by Robert Marzano
- curriculum articulation
- instructional methodology
- encapsulating both within classroom management

The instructional methodology piece is the one we hold closest as teachers

Now lets think about the definition of college and career ready
- this should make us think about instructional practices in our classrooms

think about the term “deep understanding” carefully
- if we are to be effective in that orchestration of complex skills, deep understanding is key

Now we’re going to talk about young people growing up today

Reference April 2010 FastCompany article: “A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution”
- name things kids today have no concept of because of their generation

We need to think about skills kids need now

Take a look at the research (Wells & Croxton, pg 1)

Schools may once have done an adequate job of equipping and sifting young people to take their various places in the prevailing society, but that world is gone.

Now showing a YouTube video listing short change facts “Did You Know” style

PISA assessment
- “US students scored lowest on the problem-solving items.”

Jobs for the Future (2005) “Fore every 10 students who enter eighth grade, only seven graduate high school on time, and only three complete a postsecondary degree by age 26″

MY THOUGHTS: IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER THESE QUOTATIONS AND STATISTICS IN CONTEXT, AND THAT CONTEXT IS NOT BEING PROVIDED HERE. THIS IS A TYPICAL PRESENTATION OF “NATION AT RISK” STYLE STATS: OUR SCHOOLS SUCK, WE’RE IN A CRISIS, SO WE BETTER CHANGE. NO DISCUSSION OF POVERTY, CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS, WHAT STUDENTS TAKE THE PISA IN OTHER COUNTRIES VERSUS US SCHOOLS, ETC. THE CITATION ON THE PROBLEM SOLVING PISA RESULTS IS DARLING-HAMMOND, 2010, P. 35, BUT THE MAIN FOCUS OF HER RESEACH (FROM WHAT I’VE READ) ABOUT TEACHER QUALITY IS NOT MENTIONED AT ALL. MORE DE-CONTEXTUALIZED CITATION OF “RESEARCH SAYS.”

Two resources to recommend to focus on cognitive skills and cognitive skills
- “The Highly Engaged Classroom”
- “Teaching and Assessming 21st Century Skills”
- surveyed 10,000 teachers, asked 3 questions: top 3 challenges you face as a classroom teacher
– #1 students reading below grade level
– #2 unsupportive home environment
– #3 student not being engaged in the learning process

Cognitive Skills
- mental abilities like logic, reasoning, thinking and attention to detail
- teaching of cognitive skills is not unique to the 21st century (VERY GOOD POINT, GLAD SHE POINTED THIS OUT)
- what is new to the 21st century is the idea that cognitive skills should take a dominant role in the curriculum
- analyzing and using information, addressing complex problems and issues, creating patterns and mental models

Conative skills
- the process of combining what one knows (cognitive) with how one feels (affective) and deciding what action to take in light of both
- understanding and controlling yourself, interacting with others

identifying “faulty logic” is a key element in CCSS

What of all this would we call “securely held content”
- what pieces of content are going to remain with my students forever
- the reality is nonoe of it will (so process skills are most important, not content)

Consider the students you are preparing for the 21st century
- discuss implications for educators and critical steps for successful implications of CCSS

OCIC part 2

How do we use proficiency scales to build higher quality assessments?

We don’t know what those assessments are going to look like?
- what assessment practices to support Common Core implementation?

Need specific items that support level 2, 3 and 4 scale outcomes
- most of your assessment items shouldn’t be level 4, ht need to be distributed

Research by Jorissen 2006: “Most Tachers say they develop their assessment knowledge and practices on the job”

These are about how we prepare teachers to craft assessments

MY THOUGHT: THIS IS DEFINITELY THE KEY TO WHAT WE NEED TO BE DOING IN PD

Rick Stiggins, 2008: “We have trusted those we believe… (trusted our textbooks)

Educators must gain deep understanding of how to develop high-quality classroom assessments that inform instructional assessments

He do we build quality classroom assessments

Recommend: “Classroom Assessment and Grading that Works” by Marzano 2006
- “Formative Assessment and Standards Based Grading” by Marzano 2010
- Teacher-Made Assessments: Gareis and Grant 2008

I believe in dual coding theory, we need both words/text and non-linguistic representations

Forms of assessment
- obtrusive
- non-obtrusive
- student generated

Obtrusive assessments interrupt the normal flow of activity in the classroom

Student-generated assessments are the most underutilized form, students generate ideas about how they can show they have mastered the content, students will create something and share it
- we can’t do this kind of assessment all the time

Classroom assessment = anything a teacher does to gather information about a student’s knowledge or skill regarding a specific topic

“Purpose of assessment is to enhance the experience”

MY THOUGHT: THIS MAY BE THE MOST THOUGHT PROVOKING AND CHALLENGING THING SHE HAS SHARED ALL DAY. THIS VIEW OF ASSESSMENT IS SUCH A FAR CRY FROM HIGH STAKES TESTING…

Why should we do it?
- research reported here shows conclusively that formative assessment does improve learning

A quality test is:
- valid: accurately and appropriately measuring what is relevant
- reliable: consistent and precise
- fair: does not put any group at a disadvantage

Tests/assessments must have these three elements
- we’ll spend the most time talking about validity today (“if you build your lessons on our scales, validity will be there”)

reliability
- refers to the degree to which a test is consistent and stable in measuring what it is intended to measure, mist simply put a test is reliable if it is consistent within itself and across time

Remember the PARCC website has some sample items for assessments, but we don’t really know if those will be representative of the eventual assessments which are developed

We know the following things WILL be in the CCSS assessments:
- assessments may be perforance-based and multiple choice
- assessments may require technology skills to respond to questions
- technology skills will be required to respond to questions (this means kids will take the tests online)
- assessments may require critical thinking, for example: claim-evidence-counter-claim approach, compare and contrast tasks, cause and effect relationships
- assessments may require writing in response to text
- assessments may be timed
- a different approach to instruction may be required

HIgh quality item types:
- true/false use those sparingly (strong statements include a single idea, not multiple ideas for T/F)
- true/false need to be black/white, not shades of grey

Matching assessments
- homogenous in content
- matching set no more than 7
- uneven number of items to be matched or items
- uneven number of items to be matched OR items may be used more than once
- ordered logically (such as alphabetically)
- longer reading on the left, matching items on the right

Multiple choice
- being with question-starter (who, what, where, how, why)
- a single task is articulated in the question
- emphasize qualifiers
- all response items are plausible (no-throw away)
- written in present tense if possible
- avoid negatives (e.g., which is NOT)
- may include context: more complex questions

emphasizing qualifiers
- kids will be required to come up with the BEST answer, so give students experience with that as you craft items

there will be “none of the above” and “all of the above”
- in Nebraska we didn’t allow this on our state test, we thought it was poor test item construction
- a good friend of mine is now a high level test item developer for PARCC and she says these items will be included

Quality Constructed Response Items
- require students to justify their reasoning
- fill in the blank, short answer, essay

tips for fill-in-the-blank
- position the blank at the end of the sentence as often as possible
- limit the number of blanks in an item
- blanks should be the same length
- be sure information prior to/surrounding the blank is adequate
- may use a word bank

Use logs of analogies: those are high level thinking required

Short answer and essay items
- make the nature of the response desired clear to the reader
- develop and communicate a scoring criteria for the question
- provide adequate space for responses

Practice makes perfect
- absolutely include these types of items on your assessments
- Common Core Will!

You do NOT need to build assessments for all of the scales you will use, but you (as a classroom teacher) definitely DO need to craft and use a variety of assessments

Video shown as an exemplar: “Assessment at the Utmost”

My Favorite No
Grade 8, Math, Warm Up Routine
Common Core Standards: Math.MP.6

When I work with district I encourage them to look at the scales and determine which ones could be combined
- you can do that, your design goes into the classroom assessment process

How many items do I need to be reliable?

MY THOUGHT: I THINK WE MAY BE PLAYING FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE CONCEPT OF ‘TEST RELIABILITY’ HERE, ESP AS IT IS CONSIDERED IN ACADEMIC SETTINGS (HIGHER ED)

If an assessment is valid and reliable, inferences about learning are more appropriate

Fairness: assessment level is appropriate
- readability
- avoid types of bias: offensive content, stereotyping, unfair representation, more…

format: directions, enough space, visually appealing

MY THOUGHT: IF WE’RE ASKING ALL TEACHERS TO BECOME ASSESSMENT DESIGNERS AND EXPERTS (WHICH IS NOT AN ENTIRELY BAD IDEA) THEN WHERE ARE THE ONLINE CCSS WEBINARS (FREE BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN PAID FOR WITH TAXPAYER DOLLARS) FOR TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS TO UTILIZE ON SPECIFIC TOPICS LIKE ASSESSMENT CREATION?!

assessment format issues: the format of the test can district students taking a test

around the country I’m seeing a little bit of everything with CCSS implementation
1- year to year model
2- key leader model
3- shared resources model
4- scheduling options: early dismissal, late start, PLC meetings, PD days, summer meeting time

Consider the development of an ‘explicit development model

First and foremost: everyone must be on the same page with respect to goals
- what are our desired outcomes
- identify your implementation process

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS: I REALLY THINK WE NEED (IN OKLAHOMA) TO STOP PUTTING OUR EDUCATIONAL FAITH IN STANDARDS AND HIGH STAKES / COMMERCIAL ASSESSMENTS, AND INSTEAD INVEST OUR RESOURCES AS WELL AS FAITH IN DEVELOPING HIGH QUALITY TEACHERS. TEACHERS ARE THE KEY. I AM THINKING WE SHOULD START AN ADVOCACY GROUP WHICH PUSHES FOR 2 MAIN THINGS:
1- STOPPING THE DRIVE TO LINK STUDENT TEST SCORES TO TEACHER EVALUATION
2- WITHDRAWING FROM OUR FORMAL PLEDGES TO SPEND MILLIONS ON CCSS ASSESSMENTS, STOP STATE-LEVEL MANDATED HIGH STAKES ASSESSMENTS AND INVEST ALL THOSE DOLLARS INSTEAD INTO TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, TEACHER MERIT PAY AS NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFICATION PAY, AND IN TEACHER PAY. GOOD TEACHERS ARE THE KEY. STANDARDS AND ASSESSMENTS ARE NOT SILVER BULLETS. THIS ISN’T 1983, WE DON’T NEED A ‘NATION AT RISK’ RE-RUN. WE NEED TO TURN THE SHIP OF POLITICALLY MANDATED EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE IN OUR STATE. OUR TEACHERS, PARENTS, AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED OVER THE PAST DECADE TO BELIEVE THAT EDUCATIONAL QUALITY AND WORTHY EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT CAN ONLY BE ACCOMPLISHED THROUGH EXPENSIVE, HIGH STAKES ASSESSMENTS WHICH WE PAY COMMERCIAL COMPANIES TO DEVELOP. THAT IS A FARCE AND A LIE. WE MUST CHANGE THIS MINDSET AND THIS REALITY. THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL IS NOT TO TAKE TESTS WELL. THERE ARE FAR MORE THINGS THAN JUST ‘ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT’ WHICH MATTER IN SCHOOLS. WE MUST ALWAYS PRESENT TEST SCORES AND RESEARCH RESULTS IN CONTEXT. WE MUST TALK ABOUT POVERTY AND HELPING STUDENTS AS WELL AS FAMILIES MOVE UP AND OUT OF POVERTY. NEW ACADEMIC STANDARDS AND NEW, FANCY, ONLINE ASSESSMENTS ARE NOT THE ANSWER TO THOSE CHALLENGES. PASSIONATE, DEDICATED, HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHERS DEFINITELY ARE A KEY PART OF THAT SOLUTION. THERE ARE SOME GREAT ELEMENTS OF CCSS WHICH WE SHOULD EMBRACE AND IMPLEMENT. THERE ARE OTHER KEY PARTS OF OUR EDUCATIONAL POLITICAL LANDSCAPE, HOWEVER, WHICH WE MUST STAND UP TO OPPOSE AND CHANGE.

WE’VE GOT TO TURN THE SHIP. AFTER ALL, WE LIVE IN THE USA. IT’S TIME TO SHOW HOW WE CAN ADVOCATE FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE IN A RESPONSIVE REPUBLIC.

Technorati Tags: ccss, change, common, core, leadership, marzano, standards, transition, state, ocic, ossba, literacy

Transition to Common Core Standards by Jan Hoegh @marzanoresearch (2 of 2) #ocic12 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 24, 2012.

Currently, a transition to Common Core Standards is prevalent in the educational environment. This session will overview key steps in successful Common Core implementation. A focus of the presentation will be resources the Marzano Research Laboratory has developed to support teachers and administrators in this transition from state standards to Common Core Standards.

Handouts from today are linked on www.ossba.org/ocic

Jan is working on a book titled “Making Common Core Standards Useful” with Dr Robert Marzano

Thanks that seem little often times make a big difference
- story about her sister as a cardio-nurse about a charting error typo

Common Core implementation is monstrous, not little
- has come upon us on a quick manner
- today is pretty little in the grand scheme of things
- but today could make a significant difference in how we go about implementation

One of my favorite examples of brain research:

from Sousa, How the Brain Works, 2005

MY COMMENT: THIS ‘BRAIN RESEARCH’ IS AN URBAN LEGEND AND HAS BEEN DEBUNKED. I AM COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY THAT THIS WAS SHARED AS THE FIRST EXAMPLE OF ‘BRAIN RESEARCH’ AND ‘ACADEMIC RESEARCH’ IN TODAY’S SEMINAR. IN ADDITION, MY GOOGLE SEARCH SHOWS THIS BOOK WAS INACCURATELY CITED ON THE SLIDE, IT IS “HOW THE BRAIN LEARNS” FROM 2006. THANKS DR. JON BECKER FOR SHARING THE LINK TO HOW “The “Learning Pyramid” IS A MYTH AND NOT ACADEMICALLY SOUND RESEARCH. www.learningandteaching.info/learning/myths.htm

There is a lot to consider today with Common Core State Standards

Age = our attention span
- change of state needed
- tops out at 18-20 minutes
- adult learners need chagne also
- 3 ways we will group and regroup

Your table family (a.k.a. the people at your table)
- sorry, you don’t get to pick your family
- your are stuck with them, just like life!

Next: your close partners
- some people sitting near you but not at your table
- form groups of 2 or 3
- take 30 seconds to introduce yourselves and then return to your table…

Last one we’ll just use 1 time: an across the room partner
- agree on a place in the room where you’ll meet and work together
- intro yourself and return to your table

4 Modules for Successful Implementation of CCSS (by Marzano Research Laboratory)
1- What are the CCSS?
2- How do proficiency scales support CCSS implementation?
3- What instructional practices support CCSS implementation?
4- What assessment practices support CCSS?

We have developed scales for every CCSS standard, working with leaders around the country

CCSS require us to look at our instructional practices and determine if we’re getting to higher order thinking
- 21st century teaching and learning

Take a moment to think of a time of ‘adjustment’ or transition in your life, either professional or personal
- with your table family, list emotions you experienced

Our group’s answers: anxiety, frustration, apprehension, anger, fear, stress, uncertainty, relief, excitement, relief

“We are transitioning now as a country to CCSS”
- “although CCSS isn’t our new normal yet, it will be”

MY THOUGHT: MANY PEOPLE WOULD LIKE OUR NATION TO TRANSITION, BUT THIS ISN’T THE CASE IN TEXAS AND (I THINK) 15 OTHER STATES

We need to ‘be real’ in this transition time and express these frustrations / emotions
- we need to embrace the change and focus on improving the educational experience for our students
- that is a choice we can make
- look today for things you find exciting

#1 Educators must gain deep understanding of the purpose, organization, and content of the CCSS

“Verbatim note-taking is the least effective way to process and keep information”

Mission statement of CCSS: (focus on bold

consider the implications of these things for us as educators

You as a state [OKLAHOMA] have chosen to be part of the Park Consortium
- states could sign on to either one: PARCC has 24 states, 17 are governing board states (PARCC = Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)
- Nebraska has opted OUT of CCSS: educators in Nebraska are wondering why they are opting out of CCSS, since it’s coming down the road for everyone

as a veering board state Oklahoma has agreed to
- pilot and field test assessment system components
- administrator new assessment system during 2014-2015
- use results from PARCC assessments in state accountability system

Our state has chosen to take a leadership role, and that is to be commended

MY COMMENT: I WONDER HOW MANY ACTUAL PEOPLE WERE IN THE ROOM AND DECIDED WE WOULD JOIN PARCC AS A GOVERNING MEMBER? THIS WAS NOT SUBJECT TO PUBLIC DEBATE AND DISCUSSION AS FAR AS I KNOW. INTERESTING HOW THIS IS BEING PRESENTED AS A ‘GREAT THING’ WE SHOULD CELEBRATE AND BE PROUD OF.

“the promise of the standards…”
- “These standards are not intended to be new names for old ways of doing business… They are a call to take the next step. It is time for states to work together to build on lessons learned from two decades of standards based reforms. It is time to recognize that standards are not just promises to our children, but promises we intend to keep.”

When we talk about ‘rigor’ in this context, we are talking about “application of content knowledge and skills”

‘teachable and learnable’ = guidance for the design of curricula and instructional materials

measurable: observable and verifiable
- we give students tasks to complete in relation to the standards

coherent: progression of learning
- there are blocks upon which other blocks are learning
- a continuum of learning, you will see this in the standards so you don’t see a lot of repetition in grade levels
- some of the content we were repeating in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade is no longer repeated

grade-by-grade standards

internationally benchmarked: success in our global economy
- our environment is much different now than from when I started in education in the 1980s

What you must do as you get involved with CCSS is get the document in front of you and others you are working with
- starting at the beginning
- our intuition is to ‘just get to the meat of it’
- I was in Ohio yesterday and the teachers there didn’t want to hear about all the steps needed for successful implementation
- like “The Sound of Music” we have to start with ABC… reading the actual document

what observations can you make reading the table of contents

MY COMMENT: IT IS PRETTY UNBELIEVABLE THAT ALL THE MATERIALS FOR THIS WORKSHOP ARE NOT PROVIDED UP-FRONT IN ELECTRONIC / DIGITAL FORMAT. I DID ASK IF THESE COULD BE SHARED AND JAN SAID SHE’D EMAIL THEM TO USE IF WE INDIVIDUALLY SEND HER AN EMAIL. THE PERSON WHO INTRODUCED HER SAID THEY WOULD BE POSTED/SHARED ON THE OSSBA WEBSITE. THIS IS AS MAINSTREAM A CURRICULUM CONFERENCE AS YOU CAN GET IN OKLAHOMA, AND THE STACK OF PAPERS DISTRIBUTED AS WE CAME IN THE ROOM MAKE IT CLEAR THIS IS ‘PAPER-BASED LECTURE LEARNING AS USUAL.” IF WE ARE SERIOUS ABOUT FACILITATING STUDENT USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES APPROPRIATELY AND REGULARLY IN THE CLASSROOM, WE HAVE TO START WITH TEACHER-LEADERS. (US) WE’VE GOT TO MODEL BLENDED LEARNING, AND THAT’S NOT HAPPENING HERE TODAY.

design and organization: focus on results rather than means
- this means teachers get to do the designing
- teachers are not told how they have to teach something

integrated model of literacy means it’s an integrated approach

we have to focus on research and media skills, those are integrated throughout the document

Only 70% of high school students graduate on time with a regular diploma (Green and Winters, 2005)

MY COMMENT: THAT STATISTIC IS SEVEN YEARS OLD! WHY ARE WE USING RESEARCH FINDINGS THAT ARE SEVEN YEARS OLD WHEN WE ARE IN 2012?

Also: “Approximately 40% of high school graduates lack the literacy skills employers seek.” (Achieve, Inc. 2005)

“U.S. dropouts’ literacy skills are lower than those of dropouts in most industrialized nations.” (A Report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York)

MY COMMENT: WHERE IS THE DATE CITATION FOR THIS CARNEGIE CORP REPORT? WHERE IS THE LINK? HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FACT-CHECK AND CRITICALLY ANALYZE THE INFORMATION BEING PRESENTED TO US TODAY, WHEN QUOTATIONS LIKE THIS ARE NOT APPROPRIATELY CITED? WE NEED TO MODEL BEST PRACTICE WHEN IT COMES TO CITATIONS, AND THESE SLIDES MISS THAT BOAT.

“Our students literacy skills today are not what they need to be”

NAPE focuses on informational text use a lot, so CCSS follows suit…
- significant shift and implications

Reading Design and Organization
3 sections
1- literature
2- informational text
3- foundational skills (k-5)

Where do we go to find literary / informational text
- look at appendices A-C in the CCSS, and especially appendix B for examples of exemplary texts

What does “college and career ready” mean for students?

Content is just good, solid ELA and math content

four strands
- reading (including reading foundational skills)
- writing
- speaking and listening
- language

Numbering System of K-5 ELA Standards
- RL = reading literature
- RI = reading informational text
- W = writing
- RF –
- SL

Need to carve out time to help teachers understand the language / coding system

RST.6-8.3 = Reading, Science and Technology, grades 6-8, 3rd standard

Gaining understanding of the CCSS requires spending time with teachers ‘learning the lingo’ of abbreviations / acronyms in the CCSS

We already do a lot as teachers which is “orchestration”
- an arrangement of events to achieve a maximum effect
- the desired maximum effect is optimum levels of student achievement

MY THOUGHT: ACTUALLY THERE ARE MANY OTHER VERY IMPORTANT AND EQUALLY IMPORTANT OUTCOMES ON WHICH WE SHOULD/MUST BE FOCUSED AS PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS IN ADDITION TO STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Now we are shifting to module #2, looking at proficiency scales
- “Educators must gain keep understanding of how proficiency scales can be used to enhance CCSS processes”

Guiding Questions
- what is a proficiency scale and why is it necessary
- how does unpacking the standards support the development of scales?
- what resources does MRL have to support you regarding proficiency scales?

So what constitutes a clean refrigerator? (brainstorm)
- now discussing use of rubric to establish proficiency scales
- this creates documentation about the content of the standards and student performance

We are going to provide these scales as part of the appendix to the new book I’m writing with Dr Marzano

“the intent of CCSS was to create a national curriculum so students can move to different states and have the same learning”
- my fear is states are unpacking and unwrapping the standards so instead of having a national unpacking, we have 46 different unpackings
- so Marzano Research Labs has taken on the job of unpacking these standards as scales so these can be used as conversation pieces / starting places for conversations

On our proficiency scales, student expected performance is always at score 3 (score 3 is always explicitly taught in the classroom)
- application in real-world contexts

We want to get kids to college/career ready levels

MY THOUGHTS: I REALLY THINK WE NEED TO MORE CAREFULLY CONSIDER IF COLLEGE READY AND CAREER READY ARE THE SAME THING. THE CCSS ASSUME THEY ARE. OUR ELECTED STATE OFFICIALS ASSUME THEY ARE IN OKLAHOMA CURRENTLY (WHEN I’VE HEARD THEM TALK) BUT I’VE HEARD MEMBERS OF THE GOVERNOR’S WORKFORCE COUNCIL STRONGLY QUESTION THIS. THE CCSS ARE ASSUMING STUDENTS NEED A UNIFORM, CONSISTENT, STANDARDIZED SET OF EXPERIENCES TO PREPARE THEM FOR LIFE SUCCESS. I AM THINKING THIS IS ‘OLD WORLD’ THINKING IN MANY WAYS: 1 WAY, 1 SET OF STANDARDS, 1 PATH. THAT IS NOT DIFFERENTIATION. THAT IS FACTORY-THINKING.

Scale development
- now you’re going to create a scale for time and money
- start with level 3: what are all students expected to do? (learning goal / expectation)
- in level 2, include the vocabulary, foundational knowledge, simpler procedures, isolated details
- level 1: with help students can perform level 2 and 3
- level 0: even with help the student cannot perform expectations
- level 4: demonstrations of learning that go above and beyond what was explicitly taught

MY QUESTION: ARE WE REALLY JUST TALKING ABOUT RUBRIC DEVELOPMENT NOW?

Recommendation: Don’t have your teachers create all these scales
- have them go through the process to see what it takes
- scale captures content of the standard on the left side, the right hand shows example activities which pertain to content

Teachers get: “What does it look like in practice?”

We are in the process of posting our Scales as a bank
- access this from www.marzanoresearch.com/Free_Resources/itembank.aspx

MY COMMENT: NOTE A FREE ACCOUNT MUST BE REQUIRED TO ACCESS THE BANK

Now discussing implications: What does this mean for you in your district?

MY THOUGHTS ANSWERING THIS QUESTION:
- OUR TEACHERS NEED PD/OPPORTUNITIES TO DEVELOP CCSS-ALIGNED RUBRICS
- WE OUGHT TO DEFINE HOW MUCH OF THIS ‘UNPACKING’ OUR TEACHERS NEED TO DO, TO UNDERSTAND THE CCSS AND HOW THEY APPLY
- I’M WONDERING WHERE THE FOCUS ON LESSON PLANNING IS? WHAT ARE THE KEY ELEMENTS OF A CCSS-ALIGNED LESSON PLAN WHICH ARE DIFFERENT THAN A ‘TRADITIONAL’ MADELAINE-HUNTER STYLE LESSON PLAN? I ‘GET’ THAT THE MARZANO GROUP WANTS TEACHERS TO USE SCALES/RUBRICS TO DEFINE AND ASSESS STUDENT LEARNING TASKS.

Technorati Tags: ccss, common, core, oklahoma, school, marzano, research, jan, hough, academic, standards, transition

Transition to Common Core Standards by Jan Hoegh @marzanoresearch (1 of 2) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 24, 2012.

There are 2 parts of the proposed state evaluation model for teachers: quantitative and qualitative

Quantitative: holding teachers accountable for student test scores
- our state (Oklahoma) “has punted” and said we need more research before we can implement this
- no state in the United States has figured this out yet (tying student test scores to teacher evaluation)
- Florida is furthest along, but they are still in a pilot stage
- the original proposal was to have 50% of teacher evaluation quantitative (student test scores) and 50% to be qualitative (principal evaluations)

The 50% that is the qualitative piece will actually be 100% this year in 2011-2012 in Oklahoma
- it is what you’ve been doing for 100 years, going into the classroom and seeing how teachers are teaching
- identifying strengths and rewarding those, identifying weaknesses and working to remedy those

Every school district in Oklahoma has to pick 1 of these 3 models:
1- Tulsa Public Schools Model
2- Danielson MOdel
3- Marzano Model

Tulsa model was developed from the ground up with funding from the Gates foundation
- Danielson and Marzano are national models, the Tulsa model is local

No model will be successful if administrators and teachers can’t implement it
- if the principal doesn’t have time to implement this, it won’t be successful
- you need to pick a model which is user-friendly for principals and teachers

Now we have 20 different criteria
- Marzano model has 60 criteria
- Danielson has 76 criteria
- Tulsa model has 20 criteria (it had 37 originally)

In pilot phase, principals and teachers reduced the number of criteria from 37 to 20

These 20 dimensions of the Tulsa model are:
- preparation
- routine
- discipline
- learning environment
- establishes objectives
- stresses sequence
- relates objectives
- involves all learners
- explains content
- models
- monitors
- adjusts to monitoring
- guides practice
- independent practice
- establishes closure
- lesson plans
- student files
- grading patterns
- student mastery

TLA (Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Commission) is composed of about 20 people, OEA, AFT, POE, Legislators, PTA, Administrators, School Board Members
- they evaluated systems for 6 months and came out with the recommendation that we have 3 possible systems
- they said the Tulsa system should be the default system, but schools should have options to adopt Danielson or Marzano

State Board took that recommendation and made Tulsa Public Schools Model as the “Presumptive Default”
- also picked McREL’s Principal Evaluation System and Reeve’s Leadership Performance Matrix
- your district will have to pick between these two systems on principal evaluation systems (we won’t focus on this today, however)

For 2012-2013: you will pilot one of the system and money will be available: $1.5 to be spent, 100% to be distributed on ADA basis to help with training ad implementation of selected models

There is no guarantee of future money after 2012-2013

Implementation Flow Chart
1- SDE provides information on TLA Framework (webinars will start in start of February, Oklahoma City area has 25 slots and they are already full)
2- Vendors provide information on systems
3- Districts choose systems (Supt Barresi said by late March at COSA conference last week)
4- Districts receive training on chosen systems
5- Districts implement chosen systems
6- TLA commission Commission and State Board continually receive updates
7- TLA commission and state board select Default Qualitative System and Quantitative Measures for 2013-2014

Principals will be required to attend multi-day training for whatever system the district selects

Now hearing from Tulsa PS

Our seed grant was funded by Gates Foundation and matched with local foundation dollars
- this was a massive effort, lots of time as well as funds required
- no evaluation system is practical if you can’t implement it

MY QUESTION: HOW DO THESE EVALUATION SYSTEMS INTEGRATE COMMON CORE EXPECTATIONS?

Ours is unique because it is Oklahoma grown, it has been validated, we base it on research and best practices (we are undergoing a validation study now)

Driving gains in student achievement
- teacher and leader effectiveness
- student achievement

TLA evaluation system based on observations, evaluations, feedback/support, and conferences
- this is rubric-based

Rubric provides a support document defining professional proficiency for 5 rankings
- a minimum of 2 observations are required, which each must be at least 20 minutes long
- small pieces of evidence gathered over time are the key

“The principal’s intentional study and analysis of the teacher’s classroom performance, guided by the detailed descriptions of the rubric and recorded in the observation form, which simplifies the rubric.”

Evaluation form is a technology-enhanced tool that documents/logs patterns of effectiveness via the rubric

Conferences follow each observation and evaluation, provide teachers with “status check” and “road map” to improve effectiveness

5 tiered approach to feedback and support
- focuses on 1 (“ineffective”) and 2 (“needs improvement”) performance levels and increases in ALL effective areas

Now hearing from Linda Hendrix
- been with Tulsa Public Schools for 13 years, never envisioned my role changing so dramatically because of accountability

Good relationship between district, teachers, and the teacher’s association is critical
- I’ve been on assessment committee for TPS since day 1 when Gates started with us

TLE System Structure: dimensions for teachers and principals (number of indicators follow, and weights)

Teachers: (20)
- classroom management – 6 – 30%
- instructional effectiveness – 10 – 50%
- professional growth and continuous improvement – 2 – 10%
- interpersonal skills – 1 – 5%
- leadership – 1 – 5%

Principals: (19)
- organization and school management – 6 – 35%
- instructional leadership – 2 – 13%
- professional growth and responsibility – 13%
- interpersonal skills – 4 – 13%
- leadership – 5 – 13%
- stakeholder perceptions – 1 – 13%

We recognized we needed weights, so we assigned the rubric calculation to put more focus (80%) on classroom management and instructional effectiveness

SM 2033 was crafted after we started the Gates process
- five tiers of effectiveness
- domains mirror SB 2033 requirements
- evaluation time frames
- supports for improvement
- applies to ALL teachers and leaders

Teacher rubric in detail: “Like a dictionary, the rubric’s descriptions provide definitional clarity as to each level of effectiveness”
- we wanted everyone to perceive the rubric in the same way
- fairness and equity in the process was a big focus for our working group

5 columns going across the rubric
1- ineffective
2- needs improvement
3- effective
4- highly effective
5- superior

Most of our administrators spend far more than 20 minutes in each teacher’s classroom
- rubric provides spaces for principals to put +, -, or another symbol in each category

One example: “the teacher might not have used their smartboard in the lesson, and they need to use technology, so you would mark that on the rubric”

MY COMMENT: THIS HIGHLIGHTS THE IMPORTANCE OF FOCUSING ON EFFECTIVE LEARNING AND EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES, RATHER THAN JUST TECHNOLOGY USE (REF LARRY CUBAN)

Foundational idea: you don’t fire teachers and help them improve

5 tier approach to supporting teachers instructionally and improving leaders
1- “Push Pin” (less formal, yet documented) approaches to remedy ineffectiveness

2- Professional Development Plans (PDP)
in Tulsa PS we call this a “Personal Development Plan” to use more positive words/terms than “improvement plan”

3- Quality Experiences Supporting Teachers (QUEST)

We have Quest: intensive 24 day program, a Quest facilitator works with teachers 3 days per week, half day each time
- they model, help create lessons, lesson plan, and more

MY THOUGHT: THIS SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT PROGRAM AND I’D LOVE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IT

4- “9-week Cohort” focuses on application, reflection and critical thinking tools to support teachers to move to the next level of consistently impacting student learning”

5- “PDP Training Support Cycles” – 2 hour specific topic PD to address issues identified in PDPs, Oct through April

“our system is research based” and “we based this on reliable sources”

MY COMMENT: WHEN PEOPLE SAY THINGS LIKE THIS AND DON’T CITE AS WELL AS EXPLAIN THE ACTUAL RESEARCH BASIS, IT’S EQUIVALENT TO SOMEONE SAYING, “I HEARD THIS FROM JESUS.” THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT IN THIS ACADEMIC SETTING WE NEED MORE ELABORATION THAN THAT: A FULL ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY PLEASE.

Now hearing from last speaker

MY SUGGESTION: IT WOULD BE GREAT TO HAVE THE NAMES OF EACH PRESENTER INCLUDED ON THE PRESENTATION SLIDES

The impact:
- student achievement gains
- “great improvements in identifying and distinguishing levels of professional performance”
- teacher evaluation: rankings guided and defined by 265 performance descriptions in 2010-2011 9versus 09-10: zero)
- more support for “less than effective” teachers
- “alignment of professional development plans and evaluation findings”

We are working to have teachers evaluated consistently via our rubric
- we have grown as evaluators through collaboration and comparing notes
- leverage teacher and administrator input
- improve system based on real-world implementation
- simplicity is best
- train evaluators, and train them again
- ensure inter-rater reliability
– certification and re-certification process

teamwork, fortitude, engaging outside community was important

our vision is one thing: student achievement

MY COMMENT: OUR VISION MUST BE FAR WIDER AND DEEPER THAN MERELY STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. BILL GATES AND NCLB-STYLE HIGH STAKES ACCOUNTABILITY LOVING POLITICIANS MAY WANT US TO SAY THINGS LIKE THIS, BUT WE SHOULD NOT. THERE ARE SO MANY IMPORTANT THINGS WE DO AS TEACHERS AND IN OUR SCHOOLS THAT ARE NOT MEASURED ON STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENTS. STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR FOCUS IN OUR SCHOOLS, BUT IT SHOULD NOT AND MUST NOT BE OUR SINGULAR FOCUS. WE ARE FOCUSED ON STUDENTS, BUT WE ARE ALSO FOCUSED ON ALL ASPECTS OF THEIR DEVELOPMENT AS INDIVIDUALS AND CITIZENS: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, COLLABORATION, ETHICS, CITIZENSHIP, ETC.

From Michael Barlow:
- as this is rolled out statewide, it will be web-based so you can use an iPad or smartphone application
- Enid PS is doing this now

From : “I hate technology and will not use it, I will do this with my paper and pencil, and you can do this evaluation with paper too.”

MY COMMENT: WOW – THIS WAS QUITE AN ANTI-TECHNOLOGY STATEMENT. I WONDER IF SHE USES A CAN OPENER AT HOME?

From Michael Barlow: We are not going to use student test scores in this now, but it is coming
- merit pay is coming, but it’s not part of this bill now

MY QUESTION: SINCE STATE FUNDS AS WELL AS GRANT FUNDS ARE SUPPORTING THE CREATION OF THIS WEB-BASED TOOL, WILL IT BE MADE AVAILABLE FREE TO SCHOOLS AND EDUCATORS? IT SHOULD BE. THIS IS A MANDATORY EVALUATION SYSTEM FOR OUR SCHOOLS TO IMPLEMENT AND IT ABSOLUTELY SHOULD BE FREE ONLINE.
- I ASKED MICHAEL BARLOW ABOUT THIS AFTER THE SESSION AND HE CONFIRMED THE WEB-BASED ELEMENTS OF THIS EVALUATION SYSTEM WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FREE.

MY THOUGHTS: THE WORK TPS AND OTHERS HAVE DONE ON THIS QUALITATIVE EVALUATION IS EXCELLENT. THERE IS MUCH GOING ON HERE WHICH IS NOT GOOD, HOWEVER. WHERE IS THE CONSTITUENCY IN OKLAHOMA WHICH IS OPPOSING THE TIE OF STUDENT TEST SCORES TO TEACHER ASSESSMENT / EVALUATION AND MERIT PAY. PEOPLE LIKE MICHAEL BARLOW ARE SAYING ‘MERIT PAY IS COMING’ AS AN INEVITABILITY. WE CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT ACCEPT THIS AS PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS. THERE IS NOT SOUND ACADEMIC RESEARCH TO SUPPORT THE VALUE OF THIS PATH, AND PEOPLE SEEM TO BE RUNNING LIKE LEMMINGS TOWARD THE CLIFF WITHOUT PROTEST. WHERE IS THE PROTEST? WHERE IS THE ORGANIZED OPPOSITION TO MERIT PAY TIED TO STUDENT TEST SCORES IN OKLAHOMA? THIS IS MADNESS AND WE MUST ACT TO STOP IT.

Technorati Tags: education, oaesp, oklahoma, principal, tle, evaluation, leadership, gates, ccosa

Teacher Leader Effectiveness (TLE) and the Tulsa Model #oaesp12 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 20, 2012.

Areas the state department says we need to do:
- talk with our community stakeholders
- do professional development (do you have a plan)

MY THOUGHTS: WHERE ARE THE EXAMPLES OF COMMON CORE PD PLANS FOR OTHER OKLAHOMA SCHOOL DISTRICTS? WHERE IS THERE A SPACE TO SHARE LINKS TO DIFFERENT COMMON CORE TRANSITION PLANS IN OKLAHOMA? WHERE ARE CURRICULUM MAPS ONLINE?

How are you providing the big picture of who, what, when, where to everyone

The 6 areas are posted, we are going to do a ‘hosted carousel activity’
1- Professional Development
2- Assessment
3- Instruction
4- Curriculum
5- Stakeholders
6- Overview

What are you doing NOW to do these things?

HERE ARE THE PICTURES I TOOK OF OUR BRAINSTORMING IN THESE AREAS

Transition Timeline for Common Core

- June 2010: State Board adopts common core state standards

Transition: 2010 – 2014 teacher development, local curriculum revision, test development

Transition complete: 2014

New standards for math and language arts for Common Core
- there are literacy and other changes
- math and language arts are the only tests that will change

Very important that our students have informational texts to use

Resources
- See sde.state.ok.us
- click Common Core State Standards
- REAC3H Network

Common Core website: http://corestandards.org

CCOSA http://ccosa.org

K2 Center websites
- http://k20center.ou.edu
- http://k20alt.ou.edu

Presentations:
- K20 to the CORE

Park website (park.cc) will be in charge of questions, they are periodically publishing questions and asking for feedback

Very important that students are writing across the curriculum

Key lesson for teachers: good teaching practices and high expectations are the most important elements of Common Core

Strategies:
- Comintas (?)
- lots of focus on students discussing things and being able to communicate their ideas in both written and oral forms

Also K20 offers sessions on Core Tools and Core Design (lesson plan development)
- we are seeing teachers get really excited about these changes

MY COMMENTS: MOST OF THE IDEAS WHICH WERE SHARED TODAY, THAT I HEARD, WERE MORE AWARENESS-LEVEL THINGS. WE NEED BREAKOUT SESSIONS LIKE THIS WHICH ARE MORE FOCUSED ON IMPLEMENTATION SPECIFICS. HERE ARE QUESTIONS I HAD IN THIS SESSION WHICH WENT UNANSWERED:
- WHERE CAN WE DIGITALLY ACCESS LESSON PLAN TEMPLATES WHICH OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS ARE USING WITH TEACHERS FOR COMMON CORE ALIGNED LESSONS?
- HOW ARE TEACHERS WHO ARE TRANSITIONING TO COMMON CORE THIS YEAR (AND WE HAD ONE AT OUR TABLE) CHANGING THEIR LESSON PLANS FOR CCSS?
- WHERE CAN WE DIGITALLY ACCESS DISTRICT TRANSITION PLANS FOR CCSS IN OKLAHOMA?
- WHERE IS THE OKLAHOMA LESSON PLAN DATABASE FOR PUBLICLY SHARING (UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES) CCSS ALIGNED LESSONS?
- WHAT SHOULD WE TELL TEACHERS WHO ARE TEACHING A COURSE WITH AN EOI (END OF INSTRUCTION EXAM) WHEN IT COMES TO COMMON CORE? (IT SEEMS TO BE THE GAME HASN’T CHANGED AT ALL FOR THEM AT THIS POINT AS LONG AS EOI’S REMAIN.)
- WHERE CAN WE DIGITALLY ACCESS WALKTHROUGH RUBRICS FOR OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS WHICH ARE COMMON CORE ALIGNED?
- WHERE ARE VIDEO RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR TEACHERS TO SEE ‘BEST PRACTICE’ LESSONS FOR COMMON CORE?
- WHERE ARE SCHOOL DISTRICTS SAFELY PUBLISHING STUDENT WORK ONLINE IN AN INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT?

LOTS OF QUESTIONS. NOT MANY ANSWERS. YET.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, ccss, common, core, commoncore, oaesp, oaesp12

What’s So Common About Common Core? originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 19, 2012.

Information about Mark is listed on the Education Speakers Group website and Nuts and Bolts Symposium website. This is a PDF of the same handout we were provided for today’s keynote by Mark.

I want you to be on fire for your job, which is one of the most important jobs in the world
There are a lot of adult educators who are struggling, who need your help

it’s a great day to be an encourager and not a discourager
- it’s a great day to become a better person

Let’s take this day and embrace it to the fullest

A great day to be a positive force is a negative society

#1 thing young kids are looking for: positive adult role models
- you

I’ve been doing this full time for 8 years now
Think of this activity:
- make a list on a piece of paper of the qualities you want from the kids and adults you work with which you want to see / encourage / support

What is the #1 quality you want from your students
- #1 quality isn’t smarts: it’s a positive attitude and good behavior in the classroom
- know what I wanted from my teachers as a principal
- It was always harder

educators around the world want students to treat me with unconditional respect, and to respect each other
- to get along with each

#3 reason: students motivated to learn
- we’ve got to make sure we are motivated
- when I hire teachers, I look for teachers who are MOTIVATED to be the best they can be

The only person I have a chance to control is myself

I am beneath everyone in this room, but I do have a passion
- if you’re going to be in the teaching profession for 30 years, you might as well be on fire
- we have got to have a super positive attitude
- I didn’t have that when I started teaching

It’s ok to be in school improvement mode, but don’t just stay there
- we must always ask: can I reach one more adult, can I reach one more student
- we have a chance to embrace the day and make the world a better place

Every day we need to look in the mirror and ask if we are treating everyone with unconditional respect
- whatever has become habit in your life is what you do
- that is why we have to have the best habits

“If the butt starts getting numb, the brain is going dumb” – Marsha Tate

Most important thing to me is that the learning sticks

You have got to be willing to take a risk as a successful educational leader

You don’t learn how to teach in college
- it is all on the job training

MY THOUGHT: HERE’S A LOUD INDICTMENT OF TYPICAL TEACHER EDUCATION / TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS

Often we make things too complicated
- fear of embarrassment and fear of failure are the reasons many kids don’t participate in class, AND the reason many classroom teachers won’t try something new in the classroom

The environment for success is key
- what relationships have been developed in your school culture

if we can help create a risk-free environment where students will feel safe taking risks, they will participate far more

Best way to increase student achievement: Increase the quality of instruction
- discipline referrals will go down, test scores will go up

My handout is long, because I’d always rather give you MORE rather than less

Please write down these goals:
- help each person in this “relight your fire” (get the fire back)
- the passion to change the world, unconditional love for everyone

It’s so easy in education to lose your fire

“The Energy Bus” by Jon Jordon

No educator in the nation would tell you they started out wanting to become a screamer, be in survival mode, be an energy vampire

You can’t give away something you don’t have

Great teachers are always looking for opportunities to encourage others and build relationships (with students and other teachers)
- #1 goal is relight your fire

#2 goal: fill up an imaginary toolbox for success

In college you don’t have to have a bell activity, a bathroom plan, and more… but in public education you do
- we want you to fill up with toolbox strategies today to take back right away

bathroom procedure: Yes with a qualifier
- you can go to the restroom after you finish problems 1 through 5

#3 goal: I want educators to network and share

Some of the most effective teachers I’ve ever seen are 1st year teachers
- engagement in the classroom

#4 have fun at this conference

Most effective teachers create an environment where the students do the majority of the work

I have found the better I meet my needs in my personal life, the better I can meet my student needs: have patience

Willard Harley: “His Needs, and Her Needs”
- you have an emotional bank deposit with every person, and you’re either making deposits or withdrawals

What is your spouse’s love language?

support and appreciation = the main thing teachers want from their administrator

Do you know the #1 thing all students need? Unconditional LOVE

the key to relationships is loading up the emotional bank account deposits

with students
- go to their extracurricular activities
- recognize each student’s birthday
- give students jobs in the classroom
- positive parent contact
- verbal praise
- noticing them and commenting or questioning them about it in a supportive way
- calling them by name
- stickers

with adults:
- food
- being there
- ask about family

If you prove that you care for someone through your actions, they will be much more likely to be on board with you

Effective teachers have some signal when they want eyes-on attention from students
- a bell
- repeated claps
- time – out
- ring, ring – hello

If the kids say “oooo” because you have used disrespect or sarcasm, the kids are thinking “you’re just like us, that’s how we treat each other”
- don’t take the low road
- choose to meet disrespect with respect, anger with love… these are the decisions we must make

Learning will be on fire in your classrooms when teachers get the environment right for learning

students can make emotional bank account deposits
- often though that is not their habit

Get the “Cha Ching” going in your classroom
- I taught this to students, we brainstormed on butcher paper

If you think about it, making 100% on the state test is not as important as making deposits
- self-contained teachers particularly have this opportunity

going out of your way on purpose to make emotional deposits and build relationships with others

[THIS IS WHEN WE TOOK OUR MORNING BREAK]

Giveaways Mark used:
- bell with stickers
- tshirts

Talk with students all the time about CHOICES
- everything is a choice, plus you choose the attitude you are going to have every day

sometimes bad things just happen, and we are in a situation when we say, “I did not deserve that.”
- so sometimes we have to force ourselves to have a positive attitude

Positive relationships and the emotional bank account: these are keys in our toolbox

variety and classroom management
- if you don’t have the classroom management right, you won’t want or be able to take your kids to the lab for experiments

24 days to form a habit
- Harry Wong: first weeks of school, procedures, procedures, procedures,
- something always becomes a habit/procedure in the classroom

MY COMMENT: THIS IS ABOUT NORMALIZATION, AND BUILDING A CULTURE

You can re-teach procedures at any time of the year, but the start of the year is the best time to do that

Environment for success: all about relationships and classroom management
- always better to be proactive instead of reactive

Add the words: Room setup
- can determine if your workshop or class is effective or ineffective
- if you don’t work the room, the room will work you
- I don’t prefer round tables, scattered rectangular tables are my favorite to prevent people from keeping their backs to you all day as as presenter

Working the classroom is like working a traffic light (Henry Wong again)
- if you stay at the front of the room, automatically you will have zones or layers created in the classroom
- the farther you are from a student, the more likely they are not going to be participating

College professors don’t have to ‘work the classroom’ like we do in PK-12 education

proximity and positive words are big motivators for student engagement

you have got to monitor as you teach
- assessments must be done in the classroom

As a principal I told teachers I was doing “specific skill observation”
- I was looking for a specific skill

1st one: Traffic Light, work the room

I would be in a teacher’s classroom at least 30 times during the semester
- If I only go in there twice a year,

Do you know teachers like to

#1 motivator after the relationship is SUCCESS with both kids and adults

sometimes teachers don’t get the right strategies in college
- specific skill observation was one of the best things we ever did at my school

Effective teaching is a lifestyle
- getting the correct habits in the toolbox is the most important thing

Here are the strategies that my teachers knew how to use with students for engagement:
- evil eye
- evil eye with signal
- proximity
- proximity with touch
- proximity with note
- whisper technique
- delayed referral
- send on referral
- role play
- bell activity

Comments from participants on most important elements
- building trust within your building

Instead of just asking students “Why?” kick up short answer questions with this kind of script: “I like your answer, tell me why you chose that answer”

#1 predictor of student achievement is the teacher (it’s not the smart board, the common core standards, etc)

you’ve got to fight all disrespect with respect every time

The Five Love languages by Gary Chapman is a great book, and there are other books specifically for adults with children and teen

Love language 1: Acts of Service

Love Language 2: Words of Affirmation
- most men speak this love language

Words have SO MUCH power
- we have got to be careful, say the right words, and do the right thing so we make deposits instead of withdrawals

Love Language 3: Gifts
- if your wife’s love language is gifts, you better get her a huge diamond

Love Language 4: Quality Time
- people that want you to be their BFF
- how do you identify these students: they get to your door early each morning, they are looking for adult role models they want to be with

This is where gang membership starts I think: people are looking for something

Our relationships with everyone is key

if I don’t spend quality time with my spouse, there is a snake somewhere who will
- often when we run into problems with relationships, we are speaking the wrong love language

Love Language 5: Physical Touch

Assignment: Identify your dominant love language (how can people make the biggest deposit for you)
- there is a profile that goes with the book
- when you do the profile with the book you get a pretty good idea

Technorati Tags: relationships, pd, professional, development, classroom, management, instruction, principal

Classroom Management, Effective Instruction, and Student Motivation by Mark Mcleod originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 19, 2012.

“Kids will not always remember WHAT you teach them, but they will always remember HOW you treat them”

love affair politicians have with high stakes, standardized assessment

We advocate for:
- growth models for learning for students
- teacher and principal evaluation

pressure now is “a significant part” of teacher and principal evaluation will be based on standardized test scores
- worry is: who is going to want to teach the kids with the low test scores?

We are working on a framework document for what we think would be a fair and effective evaluation process for administrators

Doug Reeves talks about “deep evaluation”
- we think each educator should focus each year on 2 or 3 key things for improvement

Educators have to take the
- theories of change are different for schools than business

Common Core and Assessments
- Park organization is our consortium in Oklahoma
- get involved in that process of developing those assessments
- those assessments will rule your life if our educational politics continue as they have been tracking

National renewal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) for is an uncertain pathway right now
- all 3 proposals now scrap AYP but keep annual testing
- both House and Senate versions also scrap subgroup targets
- both let states decide evaluation processes for teachers and students, those without a framework will have to develop one based significantly on student test scores

NAESP’s Recommendations for ESEA Reauthorization

Low performing school models (4 of them) must be used in the waiver package: all include firing the principal first
- we continue to fight for a fair and objective evaluation for principals

There is no legislation which is perfect
- what we must do as a group across the nation is raise the volume our voices as principals in these discussions
- we need to tell our stories in different strategic ways

My advocacy team came up with 3 P’s
- protect: the critical role of principals (research tells us how important principals
- promote: our own vision for education reform (we are the professionals, we must remind ourselves
- preserve: preserve the principalship by prioritzing professional development

Last year President Obama used backdrop for education with a backdrop of 3 R’s
- responsibility, reform, results

“leading the learning” would be my backdrop
- competence, culture, and connections
- I believe accomplished principals must have competence
- provide meaningful PD, communicate effectively, differentiate support
- leader in the design of a strategic school plan
- here’s our map for where we are going…

Principals are creators of culture
- you empower your staff
- meeting diverse student needs
- setting alignment across grade levels
- may be creating a professional learning community
- formalizing expectations
- encouraging teachers to take a risk, and if they fail you will work with them

Michael Fullen: If principals are not in tune with the school culture, your culture will manage you

recruitment is key: not just among teachers but among all constituents

now is the time for us to be ruthlessly strategic about who we are and what we are about

I encourage you to always do what is right

Closing thank you: for beginning your day early, staying late, getting to that pile of reading, doing lunch duty more than you should, for early morning sub calls, for knowing when to let a parent vent, your ability to coach ineffective teachers out of the profession, for being brave enough to sometimes buck the system, remaining calm amidst many storms, knowing when to make a decision, for caring, striving for excellence (not necessarily perfection), raising the volume of the voice of our profession. and much more….

A Call to Increase the Volume of our Profession in Educational Politics originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 19, 2012.

The lottery law stipulates that the money is not supposed to supplant current education funding but is supposed to be in addition to education funding.

Megan does NOT, however, highlight the fact that lottery funds HAVE been used to supplant education funds. From what I understand, since the lottery was enacted (all ‘in the name of education’ and ‘for the kids,’ don’t know you know) education funding in Oklahoma has been flat. I’d like to see these specific numbers in an auditor’s report or research journal. Certainly our education funds have not increased statewide by $400 million in six years. The way lawmakers have done this has been to intentionally obfuscate the funding process for lottery dollars.

In the article Rolland quoted Oklahoma City Public Schools superintendent Karl Springer. She wrote:

But the money was never tracked properly, Springer said. The lottery law stipulates that the money is not supposed to supplant current education funding but is supposed to be in addition to education funding. The contribution is split with 45 percent going to prekindergarten through 12th-grade education, 45 percent going to support capitol projects for higher education, 5 percent going to the state’s school consolidation fund and the final 5 percent going to the teacher retirement system. For higher education, the money is easily tracked and there is a list of capitol improvement projects that the lottery has funded at colleges and universities across the state. But for common education the money goes directly into the state formula that distributes funding equally between school districts based on a student enrollment equation.

These statements by Springer ARE accurate. What’s confusing, however, is the quotation Rolland attributed to Springer just prior to that paragraph. Her quotation of Springer was:

It [the Oklahoma lottery] has generated $400 million that this state otherwise wouldn’t have had for schools.

This is a confusing quotation because it’s inaccurate. I wonder if it was a mis-quote. It would be true to say, “The Oklahoma lottery has generated additional revenue which would not have been otherwise brought into state coffers.” It is NOT accurate to say, “Our schools would have been $400 million poorer the past six years without the lottery.” By law state officials were supposed to use lottery funds to INCREASE (the technical word is “supplement”) education funding rather than keep it flat. Again, however, my understanding is that state officials have kept funding flat. They have used lottery funds to replace general revenue funds in direct violation of the letter of the lottery law, which prohibits supplanting education dollars with gambling profits.

If my understanding of this situation is inaccurate please enlighten and correct me. Again, I’d like to see the total amount of Oklahoma legislature allocated dollars for education for the past six years in absolute dollars, and also see those numbers adjusted for inflation. My understanding and expectation is you will NOT see in either set of statistics an increase of $400 million over the past six years. Yet if Oklahoma legislators had followed the law which was passed, that’s exactly what we SHOULD see.

According to numbers reported by sunshinereview.org, our state education budget in 2011 was $3.6 billion. It is not clear what that total number was in past years, however. According to the Oklahoma Policy Institute’s October 2011 report, “The Oklahoma Education Lottery,” lottery funds have been put into the general fund rather than put directly toward education.

[OKLAHOMA] Lottery net proceeds are divided between several education agencies as set out by the statutes. For the most part, lottery revenues have been blended with other revenues to support general operating expenses, rather than being dedicated to any distinct, ongoing, and identifiable purpose. Current year (FY ’12) appropriations includes $63.1 million of lottery revenues out of total state appropriations of $6.5 billion, or 1.0 percent

This is certainly NOT the message communicated by the official Oklahoma state lottery page for education, which paints a misleading picture that education funding in our state has increased because of the lottery. This is FALSE and misleading.

We do need accountability in Oklahoma education and politics, and this situation with lottery funds supplanting public education dollars is a perfect place to demand it as citizens. I’m confused by the way these issues of lottery funds “supplanting” rather than “supplementing” were addressed in this NewsOK article today. That is frustrating, but it’s also frustrating to see the unnecessarily complicated way our state legislators have created a funding formula which makes it impossible to “track the dollars” for K12 spending. This is a clear example of intentional, legislative, budgetary obfuscation. That’s a complex way to say, “our elected officials are cooking the books to hide illegal actions.”

If I’m wrong here, please explain why and let’s analyze the real state education budget dollar totals together. I think I’m on track, however, and it’s extremely disappointing to see how voters in Oklahoma were misled and CONTINUE to be misled when it comes to the lottery.

The Oklahoma lottery has NOT been a “win” or a “financial boon” to K12 schools. Instead, it’s been yet another case of politicians acting in ways which LOSE rather than win public trust. The lottery should have brought $400 million MORE dollars to our public schools in Oklahoma in the past six years. It hasn’t, and we should demand our legislators remedy this situation rather than continue a funding process which makes the financial details surrounding the lottery and schools murky and confusing.

When I posted the following image to my Photo 365 blog last year, I titled it, “A Legislative Obfuscation.”

This was a billboard in Oklahoma City just outside Will Rodgers airport. Reading today’s article about the lottery, we can see this billboard presents a misleading message to an all-too-often naive public. Rather than saying “more than $400 million has been contributed to Oklahoma education through the lottery,” the sign should truthfully read:

More than $400 million of funding to Oklahoma schools has been illegally supplanted by the state lottery, in violation of the promises made by lawmakers to the public and in direct violation of the letter of the law.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, lottery, funding, misleading, newsok, politics

Misleading Article About Oklahoma Lottery Funds Supplanting Education Funds originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 10, 2012.

Common Core state standards initiative
- state-led and developed common core standards for K12 in ELA and math
- initiative led by Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and National Governors Association (NGA)

What are educational standards and why do they matter?
- standards define what the outcomes will be for our students?
- the create shared understanding for our student of what they need to know and be able to do at each grade level when they leave our schools

States were in the driver’s seat
- federal government did not develop the standards or require adoption

Why do we need common standards?
- disparate standards across states
- today’s jobs require different skills
- global competition
- for many young people, a high school degree isn’t preparing them for college or a good job

Why is this important for all students, teachers and parents?
- prepares students with knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and work
- ensures consistent expectations regardless of student zip codes
- provide clear, focused guideposts
- offers economies of scale (will drive down costs for testing, we have several consortiums, we are in the Park Consortium, all states in that consortium will be using the same bank of questions to measure the outcomes)

In part this was a response to criticism that schools (not necessarily Yukon PS, however) were not preparing students adequately/well for college/work

Features of standards
- aligned with college and work expectations
- forced and coherent
- include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills
- build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards
- based on evidence and research
- internationally benchmarked
- should be read to allow the widest possible range of students to participate fully

Aligned with college and work expectations

Standards development process
- college and career readiness standards for ELA and Math developed in summer of 2009
- based on college and career readiness standards, K12 standards for each grade were developed
- continual input throughout process from states, educators, business and higher education leaders
- public commit period received almost 10,000 comments
- final standards were released in June 2010

Map of Common Core State Standards Adoption

Applications for English language learners
- learn academic content WHILE learning English

Design and organization
- intro have description of capacities of a literate student (e.g. demonstrate independence, come to understand other perspectives and cultures)

3 main sections
- K-5 cross-disciplinary
- 6-12 ELA
- 6-12 literacy

ELA Key advances

Reading
- balance of literature and informational texts
- text complexity

Writing
- emphasis on argument and informative/explanatory writing
- writing about sources

Standards for reading and writing in history / social studies, science and technical subjects
- will complement rather than replace existing content standards

Standards for mathematical practice
- carry across all grade levels to address ‘gaps’
- describe habits of mind of a mathematically expert studetn

Standards for math content
- K-8 standards presented by grade level
- high school standard presented by conceptual theme (some states call math courses math 1, math 2, math 3, etc)

Math key advances
- focus in early grades on numbers (arithmetic and operations) to build a solid foundation in math (good change, we’ve been teaching too many objectives to young children, too early)
- evened out pace across the grades
- focus on USING math and solving complex problems, similar to what we should see in the real world in high school
- emphasis on problem solving and communication

Yukon’s Plan
- implementation plan developed in 2010-2011
- building knowledge
- side by sides to current standards (PASS skills)
- deconstructing the standards
- ongoing PD for faculty and staff

CCSS should be fully implemented in our classrooms no later than 2013-2014

State department of education has developed the REACH Network
- Deer Creek is our lead, we’ve had 1 meeting so far
- they shared information from the SDE in the ‘toolkit’ they received

(no questions from the board)

Introduction to the Common Core State Standards by Karen Robertson originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 9, 2012.

The clock is ticking and here in central Oklahoma we’re about to ring in the new year. This evening my wife and I watched Cameron Herold’s outstanding TEDtalk from June 2010, “Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs.” As we consider new year’s resolutions and goals for 2012, Cameron’s suggestions for traits and skills we should nurture in our children to help them become more entrepreneurial resonate strongly with me.

I’ll share screenshots of Cameron’s slides from his TED Talk, but also share his ideas as text in case you’re in a location or using a browser which makes reading the text on those images difficult.

First, entrepreneurial traits we need to nurture in kids:

• attainment
• tenacity
• leadership
• sales
• introspection
• networking
• handling failure
• boot strapping
• customer service

Second, entrepreneurial skills we need to explicitly teach students and kids:

• problem solving
• to lead others
• to want to make money
• public speaking
• to ask questions
• to learn from mistakes
• how to sell
• to never give up
• to be creative
• how to save money
• to ask for help
• to see solutions

I agree 100% with Cameron that we need to encourage more people (not just “kids”) to become entrepreneurs. The death of Steve Jobs this year highlighted the importance of entrepreneurial attitudes and leadership styles. More than a few people have asked, “How can we encourage the traits we celebrate and recognize in Steve Jobs’ life work in the students in our schools?”

Cameron’s TED Talk is the first time I’ve heard someone identify Steve as having had bipolar disorder. Cameron is NOT encouraging people to ignore treatment recommendations for mental illnesses, but he IS encouraging people to move beyond traditional, “schooly” skills as the traits we celebrate and encourage in young people.

I definitely think many of the skills I encourage students and teachers to practice in my eBook, “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing,” fall into these categories of entrepreneurial traits and skills. When you and your students “play with media” and share your creations in digital sandboxes, you certainly can be learning:

• problem solving
• to ask questions
• to learn from mistakes
• to be creative
• to ask for help
• to see solutions

When students work in teams to create media projects, they can learn about leadership, networking, and tenacity. The best learning moments have relevant, memorable CONTEXTS. We’ve all sat through many, MANY lessons which were quickly forgotten later the same day. Lessons in which we CREATED things, SHARED things, and received sustained FEEDBACK about our ideas and work, on the other hand, are almost IMPOSSIBLE to forget.

As you make your resolutions and goals for 2012, I encourage you to PLAY WITH MEDIA, share your work, and share the work of your students on the global stage. We DO need to nurture these entrepreneurial traits and skills in our students and our children. As a classroom teacher, you have numerous opportunities to craft learning tasks which can operationalize these goals, transforming them from an ideal into a reality.

Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, school, ted, youtube, economics, leadership, creativity, talks

Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills To Nurture in 2012 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on January 1, 2012.

Dave highly recommends several books and audio/video resources in this presentation. One is “Trombone Player Wanted” by Marcus Buckingham. The first two of the six included films are available FREE on iTunes. Dave wrote on his blog about Buckingham:

“A better definition of a strength,” said Buckingham, “is an activity that makes you feel strong. And a weakness is an activity that makes you feel weak. Even if you’re good at it, if it drains you, that’s a weakness.”

I’ve added the Kindle version of Marcus Buckingham’s book, “Go Put Your Strengths to Work” to my Amazon wish list.

Dave also recommended “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. In the book Collins focuses on the importance in EVERY organization for leaders to “get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, and get the people on the bus ‘in the right seats.”‘ I’VE JUST PURCHASED THE AUDIO VERSION OF THIS BOOK WITH MY MONTHLY AUDIBLE SUBSCRIPTION AND AM GOING TO LISTEN TO IT IN 2012.

Dave says “Most of the best jobs don’t get listed: They are ‘friend of a friend’ connections.”
- only 15% of jobs are listed in the newspaper

I’VE CERTAINLY FOUND THIS TO BE TRUE THE PAST 3 YEARS AS AN INDEPENDENT, DIGITAL LEARNING CONSULTANT. FINDING WORK IS ALMOST ALL ABOUT NETWORKING AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS.

Unsolicited resumes have a 10% success rate, newspaper classified ads have a 15% success rate

Dave spends a lot of time in the lecture describing and extolling the DISC Personality Profile. The four elements of DISC are Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. This is the basis for Gary Smalley’s Personality Types Inventory which uses animals for each “temperament:’ Lion, Otter, Golden Retriever, and Beaver. I SHOULD TAKE THIS AT SOME POINT, IT’S BEEN AWHILE SINCE I’VE DONE A MYERS-BRIGGS OR SIMILAR INVENTORY. I’M PRETTY SURE I’M MOSTLY LION, AND MY WIFE IS MOSTLY GOLDEN RETRIEVER.

Make a follow-up appointment after your job interview

Write a hand-written thank you note following every interview

Your career track is vital
- it’s not straight up, but it’s the key to your long term income plan

Dave recommends the book “48 Days to the Work You Love” by Dan Miller. The Kindle version of the book is available for just $3. Dave Ramsey wrote the forward. A revised version, “48 Days to the Work You Love: Preparing for the New Normal” is $9.23 in paperback from Amazon but interestingly is not available yet for Kindle. THIS DEFINITELY IS WORTH CHECKING OUT, I ADDED IT TO MY AMAZON WISH LIST.

Dave closed with the following quotation about persistence from Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President in the United States.

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

This was Dave’s final share, a poem by Dean Alfange, “I Do Not Choose to be a Common Man.”

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon— if I can. I seek opportunity not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”

Great ideas in this lesson from Dave Ramsey. Find an opportunity to enroll in “Financial Peace University” in your community in 2012, or offer to lead a class. You won’t regret it.

Thanks Dad.

Technorati Tags: learning, university, dave, ramsey, financial, peace, strength, strengths, job, jobs, entrepreneurship, lifelong, money

Dave Ramsey on Strengths, Jobs, Entrepreneurship, Lifelong Learning & Persistence originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 30, 2011.

Lots of these photos “beg” for a blog post, and the following two are some of the loudest contenders in that category this evening. I snapped these photos this fall when my 8th grade son brought home the results of his Oklahoma standardized math and reading tests scores from 7th grade. Yes, we (his parents) were proud of his results. Yes, we posted them on the refrigerator in our kitchen. But, there are a lot more thoughts going on here besides simplistic parental pride. There’s also confusion and frustration.

Amidst the multitude of thoughts and responses I had and still have in looking at these test scores, the following statement stands out: “Standardized test results obfuscate real learning.” Obfuscate isn’t a commonly used word, so I’ll turn to Google for a definition.

Obfuscate: verb. 1. Render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
2. Bewilder (someone).

To be valuable to parents, documents sent home from school (both physical and digital ones) need to catalyze meaningful conversations between kids and adults. Standardized testing results obfuscate real learning because they FAIL this basic litmus test. The quality of conversations between my son and I after he handed me these scores was qualitatively the same as caveman Og had with his son when he brought home a deer from a hunt. “You hunt good.” “Me proud.” These are not bad things to say, but they’re not intellectually very deep.

I firmly believe the testing companies and testing psychometricians who design reports like we have for the OCCT tests do them with the explicit goal of intimidating and confusing parents. The message I receive from a report like this is:

Your child is doing lots of complex things at school which are not easily explained or understood. Trust us when we say your child’s performance is X on a scale of Y. We’ve designed these results so you will understand very little of them. We specifically want to prevent you from asking intelligent and helpful questions as a result of this testing result document. This is designed as one way communication: We’re telling you what score we assign to your kid. Your job is to nod your head affirmatively when we ask if you understand these results, and then maintain a perception that your public school is doing a good job educating your child.

I detest and reject the myopic and damaging focus on high stakes testing which our politicians have mandated for our public schools. I attended a meeting in the last two weeks in which the committee chair made a statement which made my heart briefly stop: “Standardized testing is so accepted by the public, it is politically impossible for us to question it at this time.” The context of that meeting was such that if ANYONE in our state should be feeling empowered and able to question the value and utility of standardized testing, it was the members of that committee. No one questioned the chair’s statement during the meeting, however. Since I was attending over the phone, I couldn’t see anyone else’s body language in the meeting. It was a chilling moment for me. I’m not sure how it will come about, but I KNOW we (the educators in the room) have to take back the power and responsibility for designing student assessments from the politicians and the testing companies.

As you send documents home for your parents in upcoming weeks and months, ask yourself this simple question:

Can this document serve as a meaningful catalyst for important conversations between kids and adults?

If you’re a public school teacher, I know you have to send home standardized test results. I’m not asking you not to. The politicians have ordered teachers to send home these expensive pages of statistical obfuscation, and at this point there’s no getting around that.

However, we DO have opportunities to send home meaningful examples of student work which CAN catalyze important conversations. We can do this digitally, through classroom blogs, on a regular basis. We should be publishing and sharing “our work” in school and outside the classroom with increasing regularity. It is, after all, the 21st century and we live in an era of digital information sharing. The transparency which digital information publishing can and should afford in our classrooms can be helpfully constructive in many ways. Listen to Cheryl Beaman and Michelle Barnes describe what their 1:1 learning project did to some of their worst teachers in Grandview, Oklahoma (convinced them to quit) if you’re uncertain about this. Technology is a powerful amplifier, and it amplifies the good and the bad.

Send home and publish online this year a wealth of student work which sparks important conversations. Check out the student media examples on share.playingwithmedia.com. Contribute your own. Instead of obfuscating learning for parents, catalyze conversations between adults and kids about learning which matters. Share the spark.

Technorati Tags: media, occt, oklahoma, standardized, testing, obfuscate, school, politics, high, stakes, accountability

Standardized Test Results Obfuscate Real Learning originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 26, 2011.

1. Grand View Public Schools (Oklahoma) Digital 1:1 Project
2. Grand View Public Schools, Oklahoma
3. Michelle Barnes, 2011 OTA Technology Leader of the Year
4. Michelle Barnes on Twitter: @MbarnesGV
5. Grandview Tech Blog
6. Mrs. Barnes’ Class on Twitter: @MrsBarnesClass
7. LoTi: Levels of Teaching Innovation
8. Implementing 1:1 Prepare Our Students for Their Future… TODAY! (Nov 2010 ILI presentation by Cheryl Beaman and Michelle Barnes)
9. NewNet 66: Delivering Technology to Oklahoma Schools (Grand View Schools’ networking partner)
10. K20 Innovative Learning Institute (Norman, Oklahoma)
11. K20 Center at the University of Oklahoma
12. Fuel for Educational Change Agents (Wesley Fryer’s supplementary podcast channel)

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Podcast386: Implementing 1:1 Classrooms in Grand View Schools, Oklahoma originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 22, 2011.

My three best recommendations for organizations which provide helpful information about not only “selecting a device” but more importantly addressing the myriad issues which come up with 1:1 programs are:

• The Anywhere, Anytime Learning Foundation (AALF)
• The One-to-One Institute
• Educational Collaborators (EC)

Full disclosure: I’m a ‘collaborator’ with EC.

Going 1:1 is far more than choosing a ‘device’ to purchase and support for all learners: It should be framed and supported as a whole-school learning initiative which will challenge as well as improve the ways ‘we do business’ at all levels in school. It’s critical to not only ask and answer a long list of questions about the “whats” and “hows” but also the “whys.” There are plenty of schools ‘out there’ who have gone 1:1 for the wrong reasons, and without a guiding vision for blended and differentiated learning programs do falter and fail.

In terms of the question about research focusing on 1:1 impact, Project Red is one of the most well known initiatives to check out. Their list of linked research articles about 1:1 programs is a good start.

Here’s my HUGE problem with Project Red, however: They are charging and arm and a leg for access to some of their research reports. This is WRONG. Academic research, which is viable research, should be freely available online without cost. See my February 2011 post, “Academic journals should not have paywalls- Support Open Access Publishing!” for more on this. Plenty of publishers as well as organizational leaders are misdirected today about “monetization schemes” for educational research. If it’s academic research it should be free, it should be open, and it should be accessible for everyone. Project Red is charging “$1,299 [for a] Multiuser license only for distribution within the purchasing organization” for alleged ‘research’ published by “the authors of America’s Digital Schools.” These fees and this paywall are ridiculous. If this is legitimate research, it should be available free.

I understand a bit about nonprofits and the need to pay bills. AALF also provides a wealth of “1-to-1 Research and Resources” but to access them, you must join and pay.

Despite my sentiments about open versus closed access to academic research, I think each of these organizations is worth checking out and can assist as schools consider options going 1:1. When it comes to the device, however, remember it’s not about the device. That’s not the right question to lead with. The right question is, “What do you want learners at your school to DO?” When you can define what you want students and teachers to DO as learners, that should help define what device (or devices) you decide to put in their hands.

I also encourage educational leaders considering 1:1 programs to not fixate on “a single device.” We are all products of a 20th century factory model of education, so we tend to think in terms of “a solution for everyone and all situations.” I’m going to be very interested to watch the renewal of Maine’s MLTI contract with Apple next year, especially to see what offers Google makes them with Chromebooks. The Open 1 to 1 Project has plenty of testimonies about why ‘a single device’ hasn’t been the choice for everyone in Maine. As much as vendors would like us to believe “one size fits all” or “everyone should have THIS solution,” the fact is different schools are going to decide to embrace different platforms, and some will select different devices for kids at different grades. We’re going to see more mixed platform 1:1 implementations in the months ahead as schools embrace BYOD programs. There are a confusing array of options. My best advice is: Find ways to talk AT LENGTH with different educational leaders who have been SUSTAINING 1:1 programs for many years. They can be your “Yodas” (borrowing the parlance of Marco Torres) and lead you to not only ‘a device’ but more importantly ‘a vision’ for digital learning which can sustain your organization for the long term.

For more resources and ideas relating to 1:1 learning, check out my past blog posts categorized, “1 to 1.”

What resources and recommendations do you share with other educators considering 1:1?

Resources for Going 1:1 in School originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 8, 2011.

If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had. It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail “cut score”? How? I can’t escape the conclusion that decisions about the [state test] in particular and standardized tests in general are being made by individuals who lack perspective and aren’t really accountable.

We need to move forward in “real school reform” in the United States, and a key step we need in all states is rejecting the high-stakes testing mentality and policies which have been normalized around the nation. This example highlighted by Marion Brady provides a specific, practical goal for parent organizations and others seeking to promote educational reform: Ask school board members and elected members of the state legislature to take high school “exit” level standardized tests, and then publish the results. In addition, highlight and publish the responses those adults have to the testing experience and their scores.

The only “winners” in our high stakes testing educational culture are the test makers and the politicians who use test scores to mislead voters into believing they’ve made a positive difference in the lives of children. This “norm” must change.

Via @isteconnects.

Technorati Tags: change, high, leadership, policy, reform, school, test, testing, stakes

Ask Your School Board Members to Take Your State Standardized Tests originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on December 6, 2011.

Steven Sande’s November 22, 2011, article, “iBookstore promo codes a no-show for e-publishers,” highlights some of the interesting dynamics at play for eBook publishers, authors, and readers. Steven wrote:

iBooks publishers looking to send ebooks to reviewers, or who want to stir up interest in a new title through a giveaway contest, are out of luck. Unlike the App Store, publishers cannot create promo codes for the iBookstore… That can be a bit of an issue for publishers. The Amazon Kindle Bookstore, which also lacks a way to generate promo codes, at least makes it possible to buy Amazon gift cards in any denomination. This allows publishers to offset ebook costs for their recipients.

Independent eBook publishing platforms including Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, PubIt by Barnes and Noble, and Apple’s iBookStore all require contracts which forbid selling your ebook online at a lower cost than you sell it on their website. I’m thinking these contracts and policies seek to maintain profits for the publishers and prevent “a race to the bottom” for eBook prices, but as Steven notes they also impose some significant obstacles for independent writers wanting to generate buzz, reviews and sales around a new title.

Fortunately, I’ve found a good way to comply with these contractual requirements for consistent online eBook pricing but also provide some flexibility for schools and other organizations interested in purchasing my eBook (“Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing“) at a discount for larger quantity orders. I’ve configured my eBook information pages on both speedofcreativity.org as well as playingwithmedia.com to include “add to cart” options via E-junkie.com for all three eBook versions. E-junkie DOES let me generate and distribute discount codes for my eBooks, which can be for any amount. In some cases, organizations are ordering a fixed number of discounted eBook licenses, and with E-Junkie I’m able to provide them with download codes for those eBooks. (Those discount code amounts are for 100% since the discounted eBook cost has been paid for by the gifting organization.) In other cases, I can provide a short-term (time-limited) discount code for a special event. I’ve offered a 50% discount on the eBook, for example, for 24 hours following recent webinars and face-to-face conferences where I’ve presented the past few months. If I wasn’t using E-junkie’s extremely affordable service, however, I’m not sure how I could have done these things.

Recently, I was approached by the New Hampshire Society for Technology in Education, who want to provide copies of my eBook (at a discount) to all participants at an upcoming conference in December. Again, thanks to E-junkie, I was able to do this. Since my eBook is available in three different formats (enhanced EPUB for iPad, .mobi for Kindle, and standard EPUB for Nook & other eReaders) this discount code purchase option provides people with opportunities to purchase the specific eBook formatted for their eReader. For NHSTE, I provided flyers like the following for distribution to members and conference participants which includes their eBook download code:

I’ve created an inquiry form with Google Docs and embedded it in a new information page under eBooks titled, “Discounted / Bulk eBook Pricing.” If you’re interested in a quote for discounted pricing on my eBook, please submit it and let me know about your situation.

As educators, we are all “experts in literacy” in our communities. As literacy experts, we all need to be reading eBooks and sharing both their benefits as well as drawbacks with students, parents and others in our communities. If we haven’t read eBooks, it is impossible for us to have well-informed opinions about them. Consider giving “Playing with Media” to other educators in your school or educational organization! It’s a 21st century literacy gift which will hopefully have a “digital ripple effect” far into the future!

Remember I’m teaching a series of twelve workshops and videoconferences in December focusing on “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing.” The workshop/videoconference series is called, “The Twelve Days of Playing with Media.” Learn more on learn.playingwithmedia.com.

Hat tip to James Deaton for sharing Steven Sande’s article with me.

Technorati Tags: discount, ebook, ebooks, literacy, playingwithmedia, reading, gift, give

Give eBook Copies of Playing with Media to Educators at a Discount originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 25, 2011.

Today I had an opportunity to meet with the superintendent and CIO of Oklahoma City Public Schools to discuss my concerns as a parent in the district about the overblocking of Internet websites. I had heard a great deal from other people about the district’s policies and the reasons for those policies, but it was good to meet face-to-face with district leaders and hear firsthand about their perspectives on filtering. This evening, I had an opportunity to speak for three minutes before the Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education and share my concerns. This is the transcript of the prepared statement I shared with the board, which took exactly three minutes. A loud buzzer went off at the end of the three minute period, and I felt a bit like I was on “The Gong Show” and had done poorly when it went off. I also recorded the audio of my statement using my iPhone and the free Cinch app, which I’ve embedded below. I’m hopeful my advocacy and the work of others in the district will lead to the formation of a task force (which will include parents) that can recommend changes to some of the district’s current policies on Internet filtering. MANY thanks to those who completed my online survey/request for assistance on the content filtering policies of large, urban districts. I integrated some of those results into my prepared comments this evening.

Chairperson Monson, Members of the board and Mr Springer, I appreciate this opportunity to visit with you.

My name is Dr. Wesley Fryer, and I am a digital learning consultant in Oklahoma City. Tonight I want to share deep concerns with you as a parent of three students in Oklahoma City Public Schools regarding the overblocking of Internet websites in our district. I want to call on you to establish a task force to further investigate these issues and make recommendations so students and teachers in our district have opportunities to use interactive websites like Evernote, Edmodo, and Google Documents. These websites provide important platforms for students to practice safe collaborative writing and social networking.They are free and are being used by students and teachers in other large, urban school districts around the United States today which comply with legal requirements of E-Rate including the Children’s Internet Protection Act.

Since August 26, 2011, I have been working with teachers and staff in our district to get the website Evernote.com unblocked so the debate team at Classen SAS can use it to share research and evidence. I have worked with our classroom teacher, school librarian, school principal, and secondary schools director. This morning I met with both our district superintendent and district CIO. I have been told Oklahoma City Public Schools blocks the website Evernote.com because it poses a security risk to the network, because students could upload pornography to it, and because providing student access to sites like this would risk the loss of millions of federal E-Rate dollars.

In mid-October 2011 Oklahoma City Public Schools started blocking student access to both Google Documents and Google Mail. Last week our district started blocking student access to Edmodo.com, a free and secure website for in-classroom social networking and electronic assignment management. These decisions are not justified and should be reversed immediately.

Oklahoma City Public Schools has a professed commitment to “Preparing Students for Success in School, Work, and Life.” We have a problem, however, with a disconnect between these professed commitments involving digital literacy and the reality of draconian Internet website filtering in our classrooms.

Some of the information about the Children’s Internet Protection Act’s legal requirements provided to district staff is inaccurate. It is not true our district would lose $4 million of federal E-Rate funding if we provide students and teachers with access to sites like Evernote, Google Docs and Edmodo. Yet the threat of that monetary loss is regularly brought out at district meetings where content filtering issues are discussed. Large urban districts like Fairfax County Public Schools, Seattle Public Schools and Minneapolis Public Schools provide access to these three sites today. A district task force can research these issues further and provide recommendations to the board which support more balanced content filtering policies.

Thank you for considering these ideas and for your service to our community.

Technorati Tags:
okcps, oklahoma, city, public, schools, filter, filtering, cipa, balanced, balancedfiltering

Advocating for Balanced Content Filtering in Oklahoma City Public Schools originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 21, 2011.

THANKS. I’ll report results of tonight’s meeting as well as this survey here and on balancedfiltering.org.

Technorati Tags: block, filtering, internet, survey, blocking, overblock, overblocking

Help Needed from Urban Educators: Are Evernote, GDocs & Edmodo Blocked for Your Students? originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 21, 2011.

We need to be investing MORE in education today, not less, in part to ramp up workforce skills. Consider this perspective:

The problem is that not enough people know how to use the new tools of the Internet, mobile, and cloud computing. The workforce as a whole does not have the right mix of skills. Hence tech companies can’t hire enough engineers while the rest of the economy suffers from perpetual unemployment.

Read the entire article: “Is Technology Destroying Jobs?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/15/technology-destroying-jobs/

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from wesley fryer’s posterous

Reasons to Invest in Education originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 15, 2011.

Update 11/16: Note the original title of this article has been changed, my intent in writing this is not to personally attack the reporter who wrote the article, but rather call attention to these issues which desperately need clarifying in our communities.

Update 11/17: After reaching out to the newspaper reporter via phone and email I have learned her quotations in this article came from the district technology director at a school board meeting. I am in the process of contacting the Assistant to the Superintendent for Operations for Parkland Schools for additional clarification. To address the reporter’s concerns about this blog post I have changed the title again. The initial title was, “Newspaper Reporter Marion Callahan Misquotes CIPA.” The title was changed on 11/16 to “Pennsylvania Newspaper Article Misquotes CIPA.” I have now changed the title to “Pennsylvania Newspaper Article / School Tech Director Misrepresents CIPA” and also changed this blog post permalink. The current Google search results for the reporter’s name which include “misquotes” in the title is her concern.

Sunday’s article, “Parkland students may soon take laptops, Kindles to class” in the Allentown, Pennsylvania, newspaper “The Morning Call” shares an exciting story about BYOD (bring your own device) computing plans in a local school district. The reporter, Marion Callahan, interviewed a school administrator at a recent board meeting. Her interview quotations may give readers a misleading impression about the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Those statements give the false impression that school officials are mandated by federal law to ban student smartphone use at school. While districts are obligated to implement and enforce a Internet content filtering policy on their school networks, schools are not required to outlaw smartphones at school which can bypass school-provided Internet access. With respect to current policy in the Parkland School District, Callahan wrote:

Smartphones, however, are off-limits. Until the district can find a way for its network to limit access, students are not permitted access to the Internet with phones during school hours. The Children’s Internet Protection Act requires that schools have a content filter in place and make every effort to block objectionable sites.

Callahan’s statements in this paragraph misrepresent the requirements of CIPA for schools. Students as well as staff at U.S. schools receiving federal E-Rate funding are NOT prohibited by law or mandate from using their Internet-capable smartphones at school and accessing the Internet through their privately-paid / cellular company provided Internet access. Too many school leaders use CIPA and other legal requirements affecting computing to maintain draconian content filtering policies which make China’s firewall look like a benevolent Santa Claus. This must change, and change starts with the truth.

If wireless Internet access is provided by the school receiving E-Rate funds, that school-provided wifi access must have some kind of content filter in place. The school is not obligated to provide wifi access, however, and certainly is not obligated to ban student use of smartphones or ban students from accessing the Internet with their own carrier data plans. The project wiki, “Unmasking the Digital Truth” highlights the requirements for CIPA:

CIPA requires schools and libraries using E-Rate discounts to operate “a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors…”

See the May 2011 post on BalancedFiltering,org, “Do your school administrators REALLY understand CIPA?” for additional information including clarifications on CIPA requirements provided last spring by Karen Cator, the U.S. Department of Education’s Director of Education Technology.

Misunderstandings of CIPA like the one highlighted by Marion Callahan in this article might seem like a minor detail, but they are not. Widespread misconceptions about CIPA abound in in our schools today. The last thing we need mainstream media outlets to do is further confuse and obfuscate ‘the truth’ when it comes to content filtering in schools. This is the reason the “Unmasking the Digital Truth” project highlights the facts, laws, and court decisions behind eight primary reasons school leaders in too many U.S. schools today over block the web far beyond their legal mandate to do so. These reasons include:

• CIPA – The Child’s Internet Protection Act (mandates basic content filtering – U.S.)
• e-Discovery – Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) requiring email archiving under some circumstances (U.S.)
• FERPA – The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (U.S.)
• COPPA – The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (U.S.)
• Bandwidth – Often a concern the school does not have enough to support a particular website/tool
• Control – Educational leaders sometimes want to limit potential user behavior
• Liability – Concern that website access will lead to lawsuits from and litigation with parents
• Fear – More generalized feelings that web 2.0 sites and technologies are bad / dangerous

I applaud the district leaders in Parkland School District in Pennysylvania for embracing a vision for digital learning which will support BYOD (bring your own device) computing for students and staff in the near future. I hope, however, local newspaper reporter Marion Callahan will clarify her misleading statements about CIPA so all community members in and around Allentown can gain a better rather than a murkier understanding of CIPA requirements. While the school district (which receives E-Rate funds) clearly has a legal obligation to provide a basic level of content filtering on its network when students, staff, and community members access the Internet through it, the district is NOT obligated by law to ban Internet-capable smartphones for students or anyone else or ban smartphone Internet use through commercial cellular providers.

All schools in our communities need policies which support balanced content filtering. All our schools need “smart networks” which can enable both flexible access as well as accountability for network users. It sounds like leaders in the Parkland School District are on the right road forward. Hopefully we’ll see more BYOD initiatives in our U.S. schools in the months ahead, as well as state-funded digital learning initiatives providing mobile computing devices for students who cannot afford to bring their own to school.

For additional guidance and information related to digital literacy and school leadership I recommend “What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media” by Scott McLeod and Chris Lehmann. (Steve Dembo and I co-authored chapter 3 on “Podcasts and Webinars.”)

Hat tip to John Maklary for sharing this article.

Technorati Tags: block, cipa, filter, filtering, internet, iphone, pennsylvania, school, smartphone, requirements, marion, callahan, allentown, parkland, ban

Pennsylvania Newspaper Article / School Tech Director Misrepresents CIPA originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 15, 2011.

Doubtless the fact that children normally engage in play and work out of school has seemed to many educators a reason why they should concern themselves in school with things radically different. School time seemed too precious to spend in doing over again what children were sure to do any way. In some social conditions, this reason has weight. In pioneer times, for example, outside occupations gave a definite and valuable intellectual and moral training. Books and everything concerned with them were, on the other hand, rare and difficult of access; they were the only means of outlet from a narrow and crude environment. Wherever such conditions obtain, much may be said in favor of concentrating school activity upon books. The situation is very different, however, in most communities to-day. The kinds of work in which the young can engage, especially in cities, are largely anti-educational. That prevention of child labor is a social duty is evidence on this point. On the other hand, printed matter has been so cheapened and is in such universal circulation, and all the opportunities of intellectual culture have been so multiplied, that the older type of book work is far from having the force it used to possess.

And yet, in the words of Karl Fisch, many math teachers today are still “assigning one through thirty-one odd” and calling that education.

In the same chapter, Dewey reminds us about the importance of mistakes and fashioning learning opportunities for students which permit learning from mistakes. He wrote:

Moreover, opportunity for making mistakes is an incidental requirement. Not because mistakes are ever desirable, but because overzeal to select material and appliances which forbid a chance for mistakes to occur, restricts initiative, reduces judgment to a minimum, and compels the use of methods which are so remote from the complex situations of life that the power gained is of little availability.

This “requirement” pertains to digital as well as analog work, including digital writing / blogging. I resonate with Dewey’s reference to “the complex situations of life.” Too often in school we try to over-simplify reality. Attempts at simplification can be warranted in some cases, but frequently these attempts result in boring lessons and boring activities for students. Life IS complex, and many of the learning challenges we share with students should include elements of complexity. When they do, not only can we see their levels of interest and engagement go up, but also their opportunities to “make mistakes” and thereby learn valuable lessons they are unlikely to forget tomorrow.

Reading these passages today reminds me I need to “return to Dewey” and read his ideas more often. Project Gutenberg currently has seven of Dewey’s books available free in multiple formats.

Technorati Tags: education, learning, play, dewey, mistakes

Dewey on Book Work and Opportunities for Mistakes originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 14, 2011.

I have not seen “American Teacher” yet, but the previews look excellent. It’s strange to learn, however (via Dana Goldstein) the film never addresses the contentious issues of teacher unions, testing, or merit pay based on student test results.

Check out the official movie trailer as well as introductory videos about the four teachers highlighted in the documentary film. I hope to see this movie soon.

AMERICAN TEACHER: Meet Jamie

AMERICAN TEACHER: Meet Jonathan

AMERICAN TEACHER: Meet Rhena

AMERICAN TEACHER: Meet Erik

A list of upcoming screenings of this movie around the United States is available, along with instructions about screening the film in your area. Follow the project on Twitter @teachersalary. I hope someone will take the lead and bring this film to Oklahoma City.

Hat tip to Mary Frances Agnello for sharing this film.

Technorati Tags: american, education, film, reform, school, teacher, video

American Teacher Documentary: An Answer to Waiting for Superman originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 14, 2011.

This session is available as a no-edit audio podcast via Cinch.

Conference Twitter hashtag: #k20ili

I’m passionate about these issues we’ll discuss today because of my 11 year old daughter, Abby
- particularly for her, I want you to think about YOUR Abby
- think about your young children or grandchildren you want to think about as I say “Abby” instead of thinking about ‘the generic student’
- make it personal, think of someone personal to you
- we need to think about what’s important

My purpose today is to be part of the conversation today, and the conversations you take back to your schools

Start: “I am a derivative”
- not a math derivative
- most of what I will share today I stole from someone else
- this first statement is from Dean Shareski in Moose Jaw, SA

Lots can say “Yeah, but…”
- I want you to change that to “yeah, AND”

As I teacher I set out in the audience
- I don’t have the answers, but I think I do have some good questions

backstory
- give you the context of how my thinking has evolved

As the director of technology, I am responsible for all the stuff which plugs in
- most important job is helping teachers and students USE the technology in compelling way

I was math teacher first
- fall of 1991 I started teaching math at Arapahoe High School

Generally our students are really ‘nice’ (compliant)
- for the most part they pay attention, do homework (or copy each other’s homework)
- some A’s, lots of B’s, a few C’s, generally everyone is happy

As an idealistic math teacher, I loved my content area and I wasn’t satisfied: I wanted

“We have a problem with math literacy: It affects 10 out of 6 people”

pushback: have an unwritten rule that we’ll ask just so much of each other, but not too much

“go back to giving 1 through 31 odd, and no one gets hurt”

1994 my administrator said, “I heard you know something about technology”
- photo of 8 mHZ processor Mac SE, 1 MB of RAM, dual 800K floppy drives for $2999, for $1000 more you could get a 20 MB hard drive
- flash drive in his hand: $15 and 400 times as big as that hard drive

Photo of Mac SE’s used as bookends in a school library

when I become full time tech director I started work on more staff development, starting writing grants
- I initially wrote grants but they were focused on tech, gradually I made them more about the teaching learning

Started blog “The Fischbowl” to continue the conversations in between grant meetings that were every two weeks
- faculty meeting: invitation to speak to teachers
- MY PARAPHRASE: KARL DIDN’T WANT TO PROVIDE THE ‘SAME OLD SAME OLD’ PD EXPERIENCE FOR TEACHERS, HE DID HAVE LOTS OF IDEAS TO SHARE, BUT HE WANTED TO DO THIS IN AN ENGAGING AND NOVEL WAY…
- went home over the weekend, created a PPT, shared it with staff, they liked it, and I posted it to my blog
- some wanted to share with their spouses

Video was “Did You Know” (Shift Happens)
- shifthappens.wikispaces.com
- video talking about changes happening and what it means for our students
- I was very concerned we were doing a great job preparing our students for 1985

Got posted by prominent educational bloggers (Will Richardson, David Warlick, Bud Hunt)
- 50,000 views by winter break
- in January Scott McLeod (at Univ of Kentucky now) asked for permission to remix it and post to his blog
- he posted it as video in multiple formats
- within 1.5 days someone downloaded it and re-uploaded to YouTube, http://glumbert.com (video sharing site), also iambored.com
- those sites track views
- I tracked top 4-5 sites: conservative estimate, PPT I created for my staff of 150 has been seen by 40+ Million folks in all

Video was shown for Senate Select Subcommittee for Intelligence and the DNI and heads of every intelligence agency!

If a simple little PPT created by , we live in a fundamentally different world than the one you and I grew up in
- if you buy that, then maybe school needs to look a little different than it does now

Schools as we know now were designed in the 1920s based on ideas from the 1890s
- students are widgets, we perform similar operations on the assembly line for 180 days per year
- after 12 or 13 years kids fall off the assembly line ready for success in industrial-age America
- the model is messed up
- if you put good people in a bad system, generally the system wins

“Never before have kids been so well prepared for success in an industrial…” (David Warlick partial quotation – I DIDN’T GET THE ENTIRE THING)

We need to prepare kids for a world of information abundance
- anyone wishing for more info today?

What should students be able to know and do?
- old conflict: content v skills
- I want both as an educator! (I’m biased of course)
- sometimes we err too much on the side of content

We are going for understanding and critical thinking
- Chris Giovanni, English teacher in Colorado, great books
- says “I can reach the finish line and cover the curriculum in the year, but the problem is I”m often the only one left” (kids can’t come with us)

We can teach Colorado history, but it might be more relevant to have kids research why a particular street has the name it does, and not just turn a report to the teacher
- make a video, publish to Youtube
- put a link and QR code on a plaque so students visiting a particular place can see the video

THIS IS A GREAT IDEA WE NEED TO DO FOR STORYCHASERS / CELEBRATE OKLAHOMA VOICES!

ADDITION FROM KARL VIA A BLOG COMMENT: The QR code and movie trailers are being done by two language arts teachers in my building (Anne Smith and Maura Moritz), but we got the idea from Becky Johnson (@librarybecky)

American Revolution (idea from Alan November)
- have students in England study American Revolution side-by-side with students in U.S.
- perspective really matters
- it’s easier than ever before

Founding Fathers or Insurgents?
- there are two sides to this
- victors write the history, but there is more to the story

world geography
- showing world map
- more accurate view via landmass
- we have skewed perceptions because anytime you make a 3D surface into 2D you get a skewed view
- you have to decide how to orient the map (showing upside down map)
- US students need to stop thinking of the US as ‘on top of the map’

Book reports
- we still do these
- but doing an old school book report doesn’t make as much sense
- so a student at my school is doing “BAnned Book Movie Trailers and QR Codes”
- students are doing movie trailers: 1 describes the book, 1 describes the controversy, and 1 shows their opinion
- making those links into QR codes and taping those onto the spines of those books on the shelf
- so if our kids have smartphones in the library, they can view those reviews right away

What does it mean to be LITERATE in the 21st century?
- I don’t think we know the answer to that question
- when I grew up it was about reading
- last 30 years, we know literacy is about much more
- I still don’t think we have a good idea about that

reading and analyzing “To Kill a Mockingbird” is different than reading and analyzing the WWW (photo of multiple websites) – teacher: Cris Tovani

Let’s talk about elections
- I grew up in Lexington, KY
- 1 newspaper and 2.5 TV stations (rabbit ears off, NBC didn’t come in)
- newspaper at most might have 5 stories in a night about national elections
- of 22 minutes of anchor news each night, about 4 or 5 minutes would be about national elections
- you had to be home at 6 pm to see the news
- we didn’t flip channels too much (no remotes!)

Think about how different elections are today
- collage of lots of other sites/sources
- surveys overwhelmingly show young people get their resources here, but older adults now do too increasingly

Websites of candidates, you could get pretty detailed policy briefs
- yes some spin there, but…
- compare this to Carter v Ford news ‘back in the day’
- no comparison…

Who is teaching our kids how to do this?

Showing graph of realtime searches during the debate between Palin and Biden
- searches of ‘clean coal,’ nuclear, maverick, and voter registration
- DURING the debates
- remember how few presidential debates there were in previous generations?
- now realtime conversations

literacies are not just for school or to get a job: it’s about citizenship

ABC started broadcasting in 1948 as 3rd major network

Thought experiment: 3 networks x 62 years x 365 days x 24 hours per day (all new content)
- over 1.5 million hours of programming (lot of TV)
- Last month, YouTube produced more info and that’s probably closer now to two weeks

Clay Shirky: says important things
- we lived in the past in a filter then publish world
- we now live in a publish then filter
- everything is published, we have to be the filter
- we all need to be media specialists
- media specialists are in the best place to help us figure all these things out

You can track rise and fall of Presidential candidates by what video is ‘hot’

Obama campaign said official campaign videos uploaded got 14.5 million hours of views
- would have cost $47 million to buy equivalent ad time (via traditional outlets)
- that was free

How many of our students can legally get to YouTube in our schools

Even the Vatican has a YouTube channel (the Pope!)
- now that the Vatican has given their blessing to YouTube who can’t: public U.S. schools and Taliban
- 17 year olds can defend our country in the military
- 15 year olds driving big SUVs to school
- but we still don’t let kids access YouTube at school

I understand there are issues with YouTube and distraction , but we have to work that out

Anyone watch enhanced, online version of last State of the Union address
- they had slides with additional info
- lots of folks like @nprpolitics asking for fact checking

3 groups of people
1- people who don’t watch State of the Union
2- people who watched it on TV and let the pundits do their thinking for them
3- people who watched it online and fact-checked / engaged in conversations

I want Abbey to be in group 3 as she grows up

Photo from Tunisa Arab Spring
- 10 years ago it might have stopped with the fruit vendor setting himself on fire
- no one is saying it’s a Facebook revolution
- but it DID help them spread their message

Picture from Tahir square
- blogging area, extension cords out to the edge of the square, people getting out their messages

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, requires eery diplomat who rotes through the forging service institute to get training in social media
- you think our students should? (no, let’s just ban it)

Quotes

Jason Ohler: “Literacy means being able to consume and produce the media of the day”
- not enough that students can consume media, they need to be producer
- if you know how to produce, you can deconstruct hand maybe not be manipulated by them
- think of the ‘media forms of the day’

My guess is “5 paragraph essay” not at the top of the essay
- I’m not saying the 5 paragraph essay is evil
- but if that’s all we teach our students, that’s educational malpractice

Ohler “Fluency is the ability to practice literacy at the advanced levels required for sophisticated communication within social and workplace environments.”

“The fluent will lead and the rest will get left behind…”
- thinking about NCLB

Partnership of 21st Century Skills
- “profound gap between knowledge and skills most students learn in schooll and the skills they need..”

ISTE: “work collaboratively, including at a distance…”

technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments…many literacy”

NCTE definition of literacies:
when we were growing up literacy was a capital L, now it’s many lowercase “l’s”
- “literacies are multiple, dynamic and malleable”

NCSS position statement one media literacy:
- we live in multimedia age where majority of folks get info from non-print sources…
- that true of your classroom?

Howard Rheingold: “In the 21st century, participator media education and civic education are inextricable.”
- if you are teaching civics and not teaching social media, you’re really not teaching civics

Richard Miller, Chair of English Dept at Rutgers
“We are not longer grounded in the printing press… to compose and compose successfully in the 21st century, you have to now only excel at verbal expression, at written expression, you have to also excel in the use and manipulation of images. That’s sweat it means to compose.”
- I have shared videos from him

Idea of a digital footprint

gateway drugs to Facebook and MySpace: Webkinz and Club Penguin

I think we need to teach kids Facebook in class
- not how to upload photos
- we need to teach them how, when and the consequences of things

difference between stupid things when we were young and now: if it didn’t rise to the level of felony in the past, we don’t remember it now
- today stuff gets archived in ways it didn’t before

GEneral Electric has internal social networking site they call professional networking
- employees will interact around their passions
- if that happens, good things will happen
- the site gets 25 million hits per day
- how are we preparing kids for a world of work when we block most social networking sites

High school language arts class who read “A Whole New Mind”
- interacted

Fishbowl technique with inner circle and outer circle, involved live blogging
- author Dan Pink came in for 2 hours

post: Dan Pink Ustream and CoverItLive Archive
- this is now part of the digital footprint of these kids

What will your kids have in their digital footprint?

you never get a second chance to make a first impression
- the first impression we make now is often virtual, not physical
- people will know about you before they meet you
- your digital footprint will speak about you to college admissions officers, future employers, your future mate

In a world where info is a text away…

Text GOOGL (46645) or ChaCha (242242)

Google Mobiel App for iPhone
- now Google Googles
- take a photo of something and it will search the web for it

Apple released Siri a few weeks ago, interacting with searches
Try WolframAlpha, it does all of high school math and science with detailed steps

What do we do if this factual information is a lick away

kids must learn how to learn

Toffler: “The illiterate of the 21st century will be those…

Hoffer quotation” Learners inherit the earth….

That was my concern when I created “Did You Know”

How do we help students create their own Personal Learning Networks?
- cavemen had PLNs to learn about hunting, gathering, etc.
- PLNs are now on steroids

I have teachers on 6 different continents now, most of whom I have never met in person

Knowledge resides in the network

were you can find info and answers today is much broader than it ever ways

Will Richardson: we are moving form “do your own work” to “work with others”
- “hand it in” to “publish it”
- “just in case” to “just in time”

what should students (and their network connections) know and be able to do?
- the more people you know, the smarter you are

Jay Cross, “Informal Learning”
- “What can you do….”

Help kids build networks and go global
- education is both local and global

2009 Horizon Report “those who use tech in ways that expand personal connections…”

5 billion potential teachers by 2020
- lots of people for my kids to learn from
- why would I lock this down?

My daughter now in 6th grade, had project similar to Flat Stanley and you write
- within a week 200 people around the world participated by sharing a photo and writing a paragraph about where they live

A couple weeks ago: Skype conversation with a teacher in Bermuda as a result of an assignment at school

What about standards
- I think we can have high standards but not be standardized
- the things my teachers are asking students to do now are much harder than what we had to do in school, but they are not standardized

Example: Do all students need to know “there is a complex number i such that i squared = -1, and every complex number has the form a + bi with a and b real?”
- I wish people would acknowledge that Abbey

It’s as if the most important thing we know about our students is their date of manufactured

I care about Abby’s Yearly Progress, not your AYP
- I don’t measure this with test scores

rhetorical question: you ever going to be 18 again?
= your students ever going to be your age?
- should we be preparing students for the world of the Mac SE or the iPhone world

What do you want for your Abby?

We need to spend less time paper training, and more team using digital tools (David Warlick)

Richardson: differences between what we can do with analog paper and digital paper

I want you to have some VISION for your students, for your Abby
- I’m not asking you to not be accountable, I’m asking you to be accountable for my kid

1 thing worse than not being able to see, being able to see but not having vision: Helen Heller

Breakout session links: https://sites.google.com/site/k20ili111011/

We’re living in a read/write world

Technorati Tags: creativity, edtech, education, technology, karl, fisch, ili2011, k20ili

Karl Fisch at the 2011 Innovative Learning Institute originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 10, 2011.

Referencing Fast Company article: “Great Tech War of 2012”
- big 4: Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon
- Disruption goes exponential
- Post-PC World: smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks
- the Cloud is Everywhere

Hopefully everyone in the room has read “Disrupting Class”

We are in a post-PC world
- we need to embrace cell phones and deliver content to them over their mobile devices, instead of taking them away at school

cheap tablets ($199 and dropping)
- broadband access expanding
- smart phones ubiquitous
- free content exploding
- digital natives teaching

I listened to Sal Kahn recently at a luncheon I attended
- a nice uncle who was looking for a way to teach his niece math skills, now thousands of views on YouTube

Consider this: Young teachers just coming into education now were born around 1994 or a little before
- they have never known anything other than technology
- those kids are ready to embrace these tools and use them
- they are already there

MY COMMENT: MY EXPERIENCES TEACHING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS THEIR TECHNOLOGY COURSES SINCE 2005, AND MOST SPECIFICALLY THE LAST THREE SEMESTERS,

I visited with Tom Vander Ark: his book “Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World”
- TOM’S BOOK WAS ACTUALLY ON DR. BARESI’S DESK DURING HER PRESENTATION, CLEARLY MANY OF HER VIEWS ARE CONGRUENT WITH TOM’S ON DIGITAL LEARNING / SCHOOL REFORM
- so many important points brought out in that book
- migrating to “just in time learning” instead of “just in case learning”
- students being able to acquire information required to solve a problem
- think of a gaming system, advancing on to higher levels

Tom talks about 10 shifts that are happening
- 2 are critical
- change in expectations: this ties to what we are doing with shifting to Common Core
- there is consensus that students need to be prepared for college (everyone)
- 68% of new jobs in Oklahoma will require competency in algebra, statistics, data analysis, technical reading

Common Core is not just about content: there are two classes going on at the same time
- students get critical content but also develop critical skills, learning about inquiry, engaging in higher order thinking
- real currency of the 21st century is being able to create things

Kids today are used to customized learning
- we know kids today learn differently
- kids need to advance based on competency, not just seat time

Another Tom Van Der Ark point: kids need to develop their ability to persist under dynamic conditions

Through gaming, kids learn to persist until they are successful

Tom talks about new testing/assessment tools where students are in a game, but it assesses the students’ cognitive skills

Let’s talk about Sal Kahn and disruptive technology
- 80 million YouTube viewers
- has developed 2800 videos, has a pilot in California where 7th and 8th grade students are taking trigonometry because “they are progressing through his videos with lightning speed’

Sal talked about ‘the flipped classroom’
- students will watch videos at home
- homework is in class
- very impressive tracking tools are available for his tools, which are free and he’s committed to keeping them free forever

MY COMMENT: OF COURSE MOST OF OUR K12 SCHOOLS IN OKLAHOMA STILL BLOCK YOUTUBE FOR STUDENTS, MOST (I THINK) ALSO STILL BLOCK YOUTUBE FOR TEACHER ACCESS
- ACCESS IS NOT THE WHOLE ISSUE, IT’S ALSO ABOUT THE ABILTY/RIGHT TO PUBLISH THERE!

A few months ago I visited Yuma, AZ and visited the “Carpe Diem” school
- 300 students, grades 6-12
- students are in 2 learning environments: large learning center with own computer in cubicles, kids are constantly taking short quizzes all day
- some short instruction and guided program, and lots of individual
- 60% of kids are free and reduced lunch, 48% are minority kids
- ranked in top 10% of AZ charter schools

MY COMMENT: IT’S VERY INTERESTING TO AGAIN HEAR ABOUT CARPE DIEM, THIS IS THE SCHOOL TOM HIGHLIGHTED THIS SUMMER IN HIS KEYNOTE AT THE SDE INNOVATION CONFERENCE. OFFICIAL SCHOOL WEBSITE IS carpediemschools.com.

In California I visited “Rocketship Education” center in San Jose
- serves kids in K-5
- it’s a blended education model

Now watching a video about “Rocketship Education”
- I’M NOT SURE IF THIS IS THE SAME ONE JANET SHOWED OR NOT, BUT IT IS A RELATIVELY RECENT ONE FROM FEB 2011

I’m proud to be part of “Chiefs for Change” founded by Jeb Bush
- he is working with others on the “Digital Learning Council”
- digitallearningnow.com/roadmap-to-reform

key points for me:
- personalized learning, customized learning for students
- promotion based on competency, not on seat time

As a state I see us moving in that direction
- through digital learning we are moving in that direction

We are truly at an ‘inflection point’ now as a country
- these points are not comfortable when we’re in transition

Our PASS objectives are a mile wide and an inch deep
- beauty of the common core is they let students go deeper into the content

MY COMMENT: IT’S INTERESTING TO LOOK AT ALL THE EXAMPLES JANET HAS SHARED TODAY, AND SEE THEY ARE ALL CHARTER SCHOOLS. SO THE QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ASKED AND ANSWERED: CAN ALL OUR SCHOOLS BE CHARTER SCHOOLS? DO WE WANT ALL OUR SCHOOLS TO BE CHARTER SCHOOLS? ARE THERE NON-CHARTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN OKLAHOMA DOING GREAT THINGS WITH KIDS AND ENGAGING THEM IN GREAT LEARNING WHICH COULD BE HIGHLIGHTED? (I KNOW THERE ARE.) IT’S VERY INTERESTING TO HEAR OUR SUPERINTENDENT OVER PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN OKLAHOMA CHAMPION EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN CHARTER SCHOOLS AND NOT SAY ANYTING POSITIVE ABOUT ANY PUBLIC SCHOOLS. I TOTALLY AGREE WE NEED EDUCATIONAL REFORM AND CHANGE, AND MUCH OF THE EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION WE SEE IN SCHOOLS IS HAPPENING IN CHARTERS. HOWEVER, PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN AMERICA DO HAVE WONDERFUL TEACHERS DOING GREAT WORK WITH STUDENTS EVERY DAY, AND WE NEED TO AVOID THE PITFALL OF DEMONIZING ALL PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC EDUCATORS.

Now responding to questions from the audience
- KUDOS TO SUPERINTENDENT BARRESI FOR TAKING QUESTIONS!

Question about rural broadband
- Congressman Lucas talked about Dept of Ag offering grants for expanding broadband for rural businesses to function
- schools have to be allowed to piggyback on that grant-funded bandwidth

I ASKED SUPERINTENDENT BARRESI ABOUT CONTENT FILTERING: DOES SHE HAVE IDEAS ABOUT HOW TO ADDRESS SEVERE CONTENT FILTERING IN SCHOOL DISTRICTS? AS AN EXAMPLE, OKLAHOMA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS BLOCKED ALL STUDENT ACCESS TO GMAIL AND GOOGLE DOCS IN OCTOBER. DO YOU HAVE IDEAS ABOUT HOW WE CAN RESTORE OR ESTABLISH MORE BALANCED CONTENT FILTERING POLICIES IN OUR K-12 SCHOOLS?

The Gates Foundation has provided writing templates available online, but accessing those depends on digital/online access

In the next 5-6 years we are going to be moving away from use of paper-based textbooks and embracing digital content / curriculum

40 districts in our state have already implemented the Common Core

Question from Larry Cochran on needing more K-12 representation and participation in ODLA
Legislation last year established a P-20 Council for Oklahoma education

Best way to get back to Superintendent Barresi on questions: contact Damon Gardenhire
- also work with Eric Hileman

Technorati Tags: barresi, education, janet, learning, New Tag, oklahoma, odla, odla2011, distance

Janet Barresi’s ODLA 2011 Keynote originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 9, 2011.

I showed several videos during the presentation, and the first one was “Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)” by Erik Qualman. My question to school administrators preceding and following this video was:

Why should communication changes matter in school?

Interestingly, the original YouTube version of this video has been taken offline by Google for a copyright violation. Apparently the music is copyrighted by EMI and Erik either didn’t file a fair use claim on YouTube for the use of the video or that claim was rejected by Google. The video is still available on Vimeo, however. It appears “the copyright police” on Vimeo aren’t as strict or sophisticated in their media analysis algorithms as those on YouTube for Google.

The copyright “teachable moment” from Erik Qualman here, which should be shared with students, relates directly to the “Harry Potter Can Fly” mnemonic for intellectual property and media creation guidelines. When students want to use music in a video project, encourage them to NOT directly go to copyrighted sources. Instead, challenge them to follow this menu of options:

Harry Potter Can Fly
H = Homegrown
P = Public Domain
C = Creative Commons
F = Fair Use

Only if homegrown, public domain and Creative Commons music options absolutely won’t work for the purpose and audience of a video project should copyrighted music be used. Copyrighted music shouldn’t be our “first choice” before an immense landscape of legal alternatives when creating and sharing media projects online.

Eric and other video creators today are well advised to use Creative Commons licensed music in videos like this, rather than entire copyrighted works. While the re-use of copyrighted music without permission CAN constitute “fair use” under U.S. law in some cases, it is much easier and CLEARER to simply use CC licensed media. digCCmixter is a great, free resource to use to find music for your videos and other student media projects. The website slogan makes it clear why: “You already have permission.”

More copyright-friendly music and audio resources are available on the Storychasers wiki, as well as the “audio” page of PlayingWithMedia.com.

I published the recorded audio from today’s 1.5 hour presentation in New York as an unedited podcast on “Fuel for Educational Change Agents.” Of the 99 slides I had prepared, I got to number 69. I used Switch software to convert the 34.4 MB MP3 file (which is 95 minutes long) to WAV format, normalized the audio with free Levelator software, then compressed that output file to a 16 kbps mp3 file (11.5 MB) again using Switch before publishing it. I did NOT edit out the 2 minute sharing/brainstorming sessions during the presentation, however, so if you’re using a mobile podcasting app like Podcaster.fm you can “skip ahead” 4 30 second clicks to avoid those.

If you have any comments or feedback from today’s presentation I’d love to hear them. Today’s presentation was a combination of the session slides I shared in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma in August, the “Smart Networks” session shared in Montana in August, and the “Playing with Media” sessions I’ve been sharing at face-to-face conferences as well as in online webinars like the DEN virtual conference a few weeks ago.

By far my favorite video to share today was seven minutes of David Wiley at TEDxNYED in March 2010. His messages about sharing and openness in education are VITAL for every leader in our communities (not just those “in education”) to hear and understand.

Hat tip to Dean Shareski for pointing me to David Wiley’s ideas in his pre-conference keynote last year for the K-12 Online Conference, “Sharing: The Moral Imperative.” My question to New York school leaders after watching that video clip was:

How can we share like this?

I think it’s a great question. With respect to the original topic of this post, copyright and intellectual property issues, Creative Commons needs to be a significant part of “the answer” to that question.

Remember you can access and contribute to the growing archive of student media projects using digital text, audio, images AND video on share.playingwithmedia.com.

Technorati Tags: collaboration, copyright, edtech, education, intellectual, newyork, property, share, technology, vimeo, youtube, erik, qualman

A Teachable Copyright Moment from Erik Qualman originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 4, 2011.

Creativity is an everyday phenomenon, it is not just something you find just in luminaries lives and writing

1 message: Creativity is a decision

Goals
1- show creativity is in large part, a decision
2- review research
3- show how to apply this in our lives

Definition of creativity: Production an idea or product that is novel and good and useful in some way difference to some contexts where both these things are not valued

Does creativity really matter?
- organizations that are not creative today are really in trouble
- “The Big Three” vs Honda
- CDC (Control Data Corporation) vs IBM
- Eastern Airlines versus United Airlines

Our standardized testing that we do today might have made some sense 100 years ago
- there was very little variation in students taking college entrance exams 100 years ago
- a lot of differences in test scores today have a lot to do with educational opportunities

Stanford Benet came out in 1905
- if we were still using medical tests from 100 years ago that would be ridiculous
- I have an article about this that was published today, we cannot accept the tests these companies are producing

Different aspects for personal relationships: intimacy, compassion and passion, commitment The Big3 automakers got into real trouble because they didn’t innovate
- 2 are bankrupt, 1 is in real trouble

IBM changed itself from a mainframe computer company

There used to be buggy whip companies too

Examples of quotations of people lacking creative vision…

Must read article on testing & college admissions: How to Reform Testing by Robert Sternberg

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/11/01/essay-difficulty-promoting-reforms-admissions-testing

There are a lot of kids who can really change the world, but often they don’t have the high test scores colleges are looking for and demand for admissions
- my view is that tests are very narrow and don’t tell us the things we need to know

Creativity is in large part a decision to ‘defy the crowd’ Creative people “buy low and sell high” in the world of ideas
- almost no one does this

Creative people are ‘value’ investors in the realm of ideas, very few people want to buy low and sell high, whether novice or experts

Reasons it is hard to be creative: external and internal pressures
- when you defy the norm you get negative feedback from others to conform, then you question yourself if you are off track

There are 13 key decisions to be creative 1 to redefine problems
- story of the guy who invented sticky notes for 3M

2- to analyze creative solutions to problems
- ask yourself the best and the worst things that can happen to you and your family

Aside: wisdom and ethics are often lacking
- we see this in failed leaders in business and politics – often those folks act in ways which are unwise and unethical Infusion of positive ethical values are essential

Always ask yourself: Is this going to make the world a better place?

Basic purpose of education: create responsible and ethical leaders who will make the world a better place – that is the bottom line for us in schools

Creative ideas don’t sell themselves: they don’t. You have to sell them

Story of Robert giving a preso on intelligence at Princeton, and feeling like it had bombed
- people get a vested interest in doing things a certain way, and they don’t want to change
- if you want to share a creative idea, you have to be able to sell it

This year we are starting our “panorama” project at OSU for admissions, we are putting new questions on the application

In education we have to teach to the way kids learn, other wise we are not really teaching (it just feels Iike we are)
- story of college psychology prof who told me I was a loser after getting a C in psychology

Problem is we give kids tests that don’t correlate to what we do in our professions and jobs

At OSU we have started a new learning center to change (at least some of the time) how we help students learn

Another key decision: to realize that intelligence and knowledge both help and hurt creativity
- example: a trip to the zoo in another country I visited

The less you know, the more flexible you can be in your thinking -Robert Sternberg #okcf2011

To be creative, you have to take sensible risks
- example was a showdown at tenure time Key decision: to find what you love to do
- research shows creative people are almost always doing things they love

Example: son Seth playing the Trumpet
- you will never have a creative kid if you want them to be you

It is really hard to find what kids love to do, it’s hard to find what you love to do

You have to believe in yourself
- you have to keep in touch with that belief

Need to tolerate ambiguity

Sense of humor: you have to take oneself and one’s ideas somewhat lightly and to a have a sense of humor

Only God finds truth, we don’t Creativity is a way of life

Create, design, invent, imagine, suppose: these are the key learning tasks we need to give kids -Robert Sternberg #okcf2011

Even if your goal is test score improvement, you have to teach to how kids learn Organization skills do matter, but so do creative skills

The Kaleidoscope Project at Yale

Panorama Project at OSU

Both changing admissions requirements for college to embrace creativity

Ending story “The End of Eternity” by Issac Asimov

Sent from my iPad

Posted via email from wesley fryer’s posterous

Creativity is a Decision: Keys to Developing Creativity in Children and Adults originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 1, 2011.

Peter Gamwell is the Superintendent of Instruction, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board

Flow involves entering an energized state of mind during which attention becomes undivided and motivation is absolutely intrinsic
- it happens to all of us at different points, through different abilities in our lives
- for me this happens playing in a rock band
- I also absolutely love research

But in school, not so much
- in school I was the ‘classic clown’ and did almost nothing
- I understand why now

3 key messages:
- need to challenge ourselves to think and act from a strength based perspective rather than a deficit based perspective
- need to recognize, value and tap into creative capacities of those around us
- we need to foster a culture of engagement

the world is too complicated to just work on a whiteboard
- solution is to turn the whiteboard upside down, imagine the magical future you want to bring to your organization, and set processes in motion that bring that future forward

Often as soon as people come into their places of work, they leave their creative capacities behind
- we must tap into the amazing capacities of the people in our organizations
- in a culture of engagement people naturally want to contribute
- we are 5 years into this journey in our district
- there are too many formal leaders who use control as a means of maintaining the status quo

My future book: some of the stories that have been done to me to try and stop this movement
- surround yourself with people who can help you move this forward

Problem solving versus appreciative inquiry

Maxine Greene: You see and value what is not yet and work to bring it into being. that is what i call social imagination

we have to stop pretending that solutions form the past will translate into successful solutions for the future

3 key themes:
imagination, creativity, and innovation

these are the 3 themes which are guiding us
- we are expending our conception of literacy (and that narrow understanding) which has been holding us back

the standardization movement has not only been holding back educational systems, but business systems/organizations as well

devastating impact when people in an organization feel their creativity isn’t valued in their environment

150 years of evolution in education has produced this system, where we

we were at the imagination summit in July in New York
- director of LA school board said “the education system is very successful at doing what it was designed to do, it brilliantly moves along a very limited amount of ability (language and mathematics skills) for a very limited number of students)
- we have to be more hopeful and challenge ourselves to move to the future

3 vehicles for transformative change (to be revealed later)

We did a study for OCDSB 6 years ago
- what are our understandings as a district of ‘ideal leadership?’
- remarkable results
- we found out we were doing really bad as a school district, this gave us a baseline
- we need to create a dynamic, imaginative learning environment in our school district
- if we don’t have this now, that’s an opportunity to be embraced

Activity: when you think of the world creativity, what other words come to mind?

Challenge: how do you define creativity

MY RESPONSE: THE CAPACITY TO IMAGINATIVELY PERCEIVE, EXPRESS AND MANIFEST IDEAS

Now sharing an idea from Tim (?)
- he wanted to setup a company based on friendship
- this is a design company

whole concept of the company is they play with ideas: through role play and other methods

Ken Robinson talks about how we educate kids OUT of creativity

John Goodlad said in “A Nation at Risk “if an outside agency had imposed our existing educational system on the United States it would be perceived as an act of war”

Next activity on your paper: draw your neighbor

action research: what are the conditions under which creative individuals and organizations flourish?

THIS REMINDS ME OF THE “GOOGLE SCHOOL’ STUDIES OF PRESBYTERIAN DAY SCHOOL IN MEMPHIS

Next activity: make a flying machine with your paper

next: deliver this onto the 4 x 4 piece of carpet here at the front of our classroom

We have an annual conference now, regularly challenge everyone in our district to take creativity and imagination and weave it into what you do on a daily basis

Now hearing from Jeff, the lead custodian for our district who leads the mentoring program for custodians in our schools
- We’ve put together a mentoring program for custodians and facilities / maintenance staff
- mentoring has more traditionally been focused on academic staff, but it has a lot to contribute to facilities support staff
- creativity in this: there are never 2 situations exactly alike, this brings forth our resourcefulness, being able to make quick decisions, resolve different problems
- we need to draw from within ourselves to get the best results

Last year Burns Hargis said creativity is not just someone locked in a room, like a mad scientist
- it can be found anywhere, all we need to do is be able to recognize the people we work with
- mentoring is a way to connect with those people and be able to tap into those hidden talents which may be rarely seen

Custodians in our school have the ability to influence the course of any child’s education
- it’s important to maintain a very open and welcoming environment in the school
- the more children feel welcome in the school, the more they will want to be there and the more comfortable they are going to want to be

From Dan Pink in “Drive” – autonomy, mastery and purpose
- by giving people the ability to change what they are doing in the system, encouragement to move forward: this is VERY important
- then they can learn from those around them and archive mastery, and do the best they can do for themselves as well as the organization

breaking down those barriers which have been built up, in doing that you are going to achieve purpose individually and organizationally

In our initial study, our custodians reported they felt very disconnected

Now hearing from Michael Wendler (I teach grade 4/5 – 9 and 10 year old children)
- Creative Initiatives in the Classroom
- immersing ourselves into the creative process
- embrace the unexpected

First I want to talk about my son: The Precocious Paleontologist
- story of him eating a dragonfly at a museum when he was expecting a serious question

Lesson story focused on providing students with a powerful experience
- “The Griffin” (our school mascot)
- we were going to build together
- kids spent almost the entire year during recess time
- meaning of this was the dialog that started happening between the kids as they were working on this project

Big challenge was creating the wings
- local artist gave idea from the community: wood, old bed sheet, cut water bottles

The griffin was invited to a larger conference focused on educational creativity
- led to unexpected situations

As a teacher I need to give up some of my own direction, and allow the conversation and dialog students have to be what shapes where the project is going
- I want the students immersed in the process, I want them to take risks and make mistakes
- as I (the teacher) am taken out of the equation, this can happen

Connecting to Creativity Conference hosted by the OCDSB
http://www.leadthewaytocreativity.com/
- started a blog to share this experience with parents
- direction of the blog became a showcase, much more than a newsletter
- too often as teachers we are focused on the weaknesses of kids, and focusing on those
- as students took over the showcase blog, the children war showcasing their strengths

Threads start to weave their way through the community as a project like this develops
- example: slate rocks from the community, found fossils in the rock
- started to get comments from others around the world as we posted those, even a comment from a paleontologist

We are embracing a new way to teach math, through problem solving and critical thinking
- to teach this way, you have to be guided by what students are doing in the classroom
- buy in from teachers is very challenging with this

This is about letting go of some of your control

2 blog sites for Mr Wendler’s class:
- last year: http://mrwendlersclass.wordpress.com/
- this year: http://mrwendlersblog.wordpress.com/

Elliot Eisner’s research on forms of representation is critical when we talk about education and creativity
- everyone represents their understanding of the world in a different way
- if you block the door to the way people understand and represent the world, you have shut down the door to that person

Book reccs from Peter:

“The Power Of Mindful Learning” by Ellen Langer

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer (: Creativity in the Workplace, impact of it on people’s lives, summary of 3 year longitudinal study

THIS WAS A GREAT SESSION, I LOVED IT! GREAT BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS TOO, ADDED TO MY AMAZON WISH LIST!

Technorati Tags: change, creativity, education, innovation, leadership, okcf2011, school

Creating Conditions for the Extraordinary by Peter Gamwell originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 1, 2011.

Environments we are placed in have a HUGE impact in whether or not we act in creative and collaborative ways
- often people are isolated and not encouraged to work together and take risks

Big myth about creativity and innovation is that it’s easy
- it takes a lot of work
- it takes time and work to develop the mindset and the ideas you have

Biggest myth of about creativity is you can’t measure it (via Robert Sternberg)
- often we focus on measuring things that aren’t that important
- when I was provost at Tufts University we focused on measuring creativity, now at OSU we are measuring creativity for our applicants because
- We need to ask students creative questions: imagine something, explore something, create something..
- creative questions
- huge block is that we can’t do this

We need creative and wise leaders today more than ever
- so we have people in high positions that do well in multiple choice tests, but don’t have good creative skills (example are people in Lehman Brothers responsible for our financial meltdown)

MY COMMENT: AFTER READING “ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE,” I HAVE TO SAY THAT FOLKS IN FINANCIAL INDUSTRY DID SHOW A LOT OF CREATIVITY IN CREATING ‘NEW INVESTMENT VEHICLES’ – THESE WERE NOT NECESSARILY ETHICAL THINGS TO DO, BUT THEY WERE CREATIVE

It’s not JUST results that are critical, the process is key

Innovation can take longer to be recognized
- creativity can be expressed much more readily

SOUNDS LIKE PANELISTS ARE SAYING WE ALL HAVE THE CAPACITY TO BE CREATIVE, BUT MANY OF US DON’T EXERCISE THAT POTENTIAL AND CHOOSE TO BE INNOVATIVE

Picasso said he spent a lifetime trying to draw and paint like an 8 year old

Getting in touch with our creativity can depend on the ability to bounce off others, interact with others, overcome our feelings of isolation
- feeding off the energy and others

Steve Jobs intentionally said “Think Different” instead of “Think Differently”
- conventional wisdom is a very powerful force

Orthagonal innovations idea by Dave Albert
- positioning yourself at 90 degrees to the conventional ways of thinking
- example of drilling horizontal wells with Chesapeake

Grest story by Robert Sternberg about a former NBA player working for the association, who (on advice from his creative wife) got a headhunter to find a new job for HIS boss (who was a real problem for him) instead of finding a new job for him

Every day is a new day to start over
- when you have a block: step away, get a new canvas
- we all encounter roadblocks but each day we get to start over with a fresh breath

Deciding it’s time to take a risk is KEY
- if you’re stuck take a risk, you’ll end up somewhere but it may not be where you intended

Does brainstorming work?
- diversity in a room can lead to chaos and lots of different ideas

Dave Albert: creativity is a state of mind
- brainstorming is a tool
- every person has potential to be creative: each person should take risks to discover what is successful for us

In Steve Jobs biography he talked about access to his intuition, benefit of wandering around India barefoot to get in touch with that

What is the role of intuition in creativity?
- Bill Gates is an example of analytic creativity, Steve Jobs more of an example of intuitive creativity

Robert Sternberg: I don’t think creativity is intuitive
- story of middle school principal having trouble with girls putting lipstick on bathroom mirrors, had custodian demo cleaning it off putting squeegee in the toilet first before cleaning it… no more lipstick vandalism problems

Collaboration doesn’t just happen on its own, it has to be deliberate / intentional

How do you inject fun into an environment
- we gutted the floor where we work, took out the walls, brought in the natural light
- we’ve setup a miniature golf tournament in the office recently, had trick or treating and office decorating

Desmond Mason
- making a conscious effort to use creativity to take me away from the negative aspects of my situation early in life (around poverty and drugs) was key

Robert Sternberg: to be creative you have to be willing to defy the crowd
- story of a ski jumper who held his hands differently, went further but lost because judges graded him down for aesthetics

Dave Albert: “Think Different. Those crazy enough to think they can change the world often do.”

Ken Grant: Are you willing to step out and become an entrepreneur
- some organizations, OG&E is an example of a company that empowers and encourages creativity
- you’ve got to be an agent for change
- other people will follow you if you have passion
- really empowering people is more than just talk
- letting people make real decisions
- OZ principle: decisions you make lead to behaviors and beliefs for your people
- need to enable people to believe and understand they can take risks and make mistakes

Robert Sternberg: It’s important to not just say we value creativity, but look at what we actually value and reward in our culture

Dave Albert: Risk and failure are inevitable bedfellows
- we have cultures to our west and east that don’t’ tolerate failure
- this gives the United States a real advantage
- Entrepreneurs prayer: God grant me the wisdom to make only NEW mistakes

Robert Sternberg: NCLB has straight-jacketed all constituents (admins, teachers, kids) against taking risks

OK GREAT! THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I’VE HEARD AN OKLAHOMA LEADER TAKE ON NCLB TEST MANIA IN A PUBLIC FORUM! WOO HOO! (MORE ON THIS HERE)

Ken Grant: Best takeaway = take risks, encourage your people to take risks

Technorati Tags: creativity, innovation, okcf2011

Opening Plenary Session: 2011 Oklahoma Creativity Forum originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on November 1, 2011.

QUESTION: What should we do when parents “say no” to an email account for their child at school, when we want all students publishing some of their work online?

ANSWER:

I’d recommend the school and each classroom have a “menu” of digital publication options for student work, some of which require individual email accounts and some which do not. That way when a student’s parent has opted out of an email address for their student, there are still other publication options they can use.

Depending on the grade level of the students, a class email account can be used for some web-based tools. This approach has some drawbacks since students can theoretically edit or delete classmate work when logged into the account, but depending on how students access web-based resources this can be functional. It depends on the tool. I know VoiceThread made a change several years ago so multiple computers can’t be logged on simultaneously to the same account, discouraging this “class account” approach using a single, free account. If students are using a single classroom computer to edit their work, however, it could work for some tools.

I’d recommend several strategies to encourage parents to grant permission for individual student emails.

The first suggestion is for the school to notify parents that student email accounts are required to meet the requirements of state academic standards, reflected in NETS-S. A good case for this can be made and some schools are taking this approach. This makes school-provided email accounts a requirement, not an option for students, just like a cafeteria number for billing or a student identification number for grading. Providing student email accounts is straightforward to do and manage when a school has adopted Google Apps for their domain.

Whether or not the school opts to go with this “email is required for students to be digitally literate” approach, I recommend class-level blogs be used to share student work interactively on a regular basis in all classrooms, at all levels. In addition, a school-wide blog should be used to share announcements as well as periodic cross-posts from classroom blogs. This school blog can be linked at least with an RSS widget on the school homepage that shows recent posts. By having this school-wide blog, exemplary classrooms and exemplary student work can be highlighted for the entire campus. It can also be a way for the positive uses of digital media to be amplified in a more visible way throughout the school community. The RSS feed for the school blog can be connected at least to a Facebook page for the school, and possibly to a Twitter account. The latter things should ONLY be done if a an individual or (better yet) team of staff members at the school will share responsibility for checking and replying to inquiries on these accounts regularly. The point is the school should be intentional about its use of social media and its sharing of exemplary student work, to regularly “show and tell” for parents as well as others in the community the benefits of the digital literacy focus/initiatives at the school.

At some point it can be helpful for the school to establish recommended/supported web-based publishing environments. While teachers should be encouraged and allowed to use “other” websites, these supported environments can be more thoroughly explored for support needs by staff and teachers can therefore expect more help with them than they might with a “brand new tool” they just learned about and want to try. I’d recommend the school use free, advertisement free tools to provide at a minimum class blogs and wikis for teachers to use as “home bases” for each class. My favorite platforms for this currently are Kidblog and WikiSpaces for Educators. There are obviously lots more choices, but it’s good for the school to formally endorse and support use of these tools. I consider a class blog, a class ‘home base’ (wiki) website, and the school’s confidential/login required website for student grades and attendance the “triad of blended learning websites” which is mandatory for every classroom.

A final workaround to consider is to create different student email accounts using a single Gmail address. Sue Waters wrote a great how-to post about this a few years ago. This may not be workable in secondary settings where teachers have over a hundred students, but it can work well in elementary settings with fewer students. The best scenario is for students to have their own email accounts in a managed system like Gmail included with Google Apps, but for teachers and schools not in that situation yet this can be a good workaround. Each student will have a unique email address for creating different web-based accounts, but emails will actually be delivered to the teacher/class account.

When Parents Don’t Want Student Email originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 31, 2011.

Show Notes:

1. Digital Ethnography @ Kansas State University (blog of Michael Wesch)
2. Mike Wesch on Twitter: @mwesch
3. Michael Wesch’s YouTube Channel
4. “From Knowledgable to Knowledge-able: Learning in New Media Environments” by Michael Wesch: Academic Commons, Jan 2009
5. Academically Adrift by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (Kindle edition)
6. “Generation Me” by Jean M. Twenge (Kindle edition)
7. My text notes from Michael Wesch’s Heartland Learning 2011 keynote
8. Michael Wesch’s BLC 2010 Keynote podcasted by Bob Sprankle
9. Heartland eLearning Conference 2012 in Edmond, Oklahoma hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma: March 5 & 6, 2012
10. Tech or Treat: Playing with Media (on the Fuel for Educational Change Agents Podcast Channel)

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Podcast384: Michael Wesch at Heartland eLearning 2011 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 23, 2011.

Registration is free. The morning-only conference is described on the NetPotential website as:

Join fellow administrators and IT directors for a unique professional development opportunity. Learn to harness the full potential of your data network, maximize the benefits of a OneNet subscription, meet organizational goals and simplify your work.

NetPotential will be offered this Friday, Oct. 21, 2011, in Oklahoma City and on Friday, November 4th in Tulsa.

I’m particularly interested in available solutions which can help K-12 schools deploy and maintain “smart networks.”

If you’re in or close to Oklahoma City or Tulsa and involved administratively with K-12 schools, you should attend this conference. I’ll be attending in OKC on Oct 21st. Hope to see you there!

On the subject of outstanding Oklahoma educational technology conferences and events, also plan to attend the Oklahoma Distance Learning Association (ODLA) annual conference at Rose State on November 9th. ODLA is a great organization and always puts on a good conference. I’m planning to attend this year.

Hat tip to James Deaton for letting me know about NetPotential.

Technorati Tags: administrator, conference, development, edtech, leadership, oklahoma, onenet, professional, school, technology, netpotential

Oklahoma Educators: Register for NetPotential 2011 in OKC & Tulsa originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 18, 2011.

I grew up in Libya, and in my middle school years lived in Tehran and attended international school
- I remember growing up in Libya digging in the sand, digging for tanks and artillery shells

I taught in Denver, Colorado
- I was one of those teachers who got a job in the middle of the school year (ask lots of questions if you have a chance to take a mid-year teaching job)

Let’s give our assistant principals and principals a round of applause

Beware when your principal uses the word “unique” to describe kids

Where are our 8th grade teachers? Please stand up and let’s give them a round of applause!

Ever noticed how 6th graders are a lot like pigeons?

Middle school gym teachers learn ice can solve all ailments!

1st priority: we are going to become adult advocates for kids

2nd: you better know the fads, the fashions, the trends and the trends of you clientele
- isn’t it fascinating we don’t talk about those things in our faculty meetings?

How many of you have ever made a current cultural reference to your students?
- and they day, “How did you know that?”

We’re all over 40
- even if you’re under 40, they still think you are over 40

The biggest gap we have in understanding our clientele is with technology

I went to Univ of Northern Colorado in Greeley
I took ET410 where I learned to thread a film projector

Who remembers the filmstrip projector?

Did you ever read the can of the ditto machine? “Do not inhale”

There is no difference between the kids today and the kids of the past: The difference is, you’re sober now!

Think about when Xerox came into our lives… those big machines…

Now kids can get more information from a cell phone than any textbook we have
- But we ban cell phones because they use them for evil!

The interactive white boards today are amazing…

If you are going to teach middle school, you had better think differently about classroom management

The least effective form of classroom management is something we do every day: “Shhhhhhhhhh……”

I learned: if you talk to an inanimate object, middle school kids will listen

A group of middle school teachers would have NEVER created “cooperative learning”

There is nothing wrong with being emotionally unstable in front of middle school kids

The backpack / notebook symphony

We often forget we have the BEST job in the world
- people wait for us unconditionally every single day
- they give you the biggest compliment you’ll ever get after you get back from an absence: You’re better than the sub!

Kids are easy compared to teaching teachers!

Edict #4 when I am ruler of education: No more crappy professional development for teachers in this world
- our best and brightest should be teaching us
- here’s the problem: we can’t go back and teach our colleagues

You are only an expert when you are 50 km away from your own school
- the truth is: you all can do what I do
- you can believe what we believe in: what’s right for this age group

We speak for thousands of middle school students who do not have a voice
- this group needs a voice now than ever
- who is the last group thought of: middle school kids
- that’s a shame, because they are gift which is only given to a few….

There are days I know you’re thinking: If they’re a gift, is there a receipt?

We are truly blessed… every day adolescents wait for us unconditionally…

Technorati Tags: conference, doha, education, qatar, jack, berckemeyer, keynote

Jack Berckemeyer: Opening Keynote at Qatar Academy originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on October 7, 2011.

What happens in 60 Seconds on the Internet (April 2011)

“What Technology Wants” by Kevin Kelly (a great book to read or listen to on Audible)

The Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire TV Commercial (30 sec)

Google Chromebook

“You had me at 8 seconds”

Chromebooks for Education (2:13)

See resources for digital text, image, audio and video sharing on playingwithmedia.com

See examples of shared student projects on share.playingwithmedia.com

Purchase “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing” as an eBook or paperback

Google Sketchup software (free)

Scratch software (free)

Green Cities – New Businesses

Green Cities – New Businesses from DeerfieldCS on Vimeo.

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman Book Trailer by Alec G.

The Great Book Stories project (examples of student-created VoiceThread-based book reports)

Roman Weapons In Plain English

Technorati Tags: blog, book, edtech, education, inspirational, inspire, new, playingwithmedia, report, school, schools, share, sketchup, student, technology, video, vimeo, youtube, nhste, hampshire, newhampshire, work, bookreport

Reach for the Stars Using Media in Your Classroom originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 29, 2011.

In today’s webinar for eTechOhio, I argued that every classroom needs three digital spaces for sharing: a “home base” site (wiki), a newspaper (blog), and a “digital locker.” That digital locker is the space for sharing confidential information like student grades, taking quizzes and tests, etc. It’s NOT the space for creating and sharing digital curriculum. Those activities need to be done on the OPEN WEB, outside logins and passwords. Curriculum for the Technology 4 Teachers class I taught at UCO last spring is an example. Jim Askew’s amazing high school chemistry curriculum for students in Crescent, Oklahoma, is another. There are more examples, but there need to be MANY, MANY more. This kind of open curriculum sharing on the web needs to become the NORM, not the exception.

The 2008 Creative Commons video, “A Shared Culture,” makes a compelling case for why sharing content on the open web is so important. The contexts here go beyond education, but the education space specifically is vital for open sharing. This is an ethic we each need to embrace and advocate for. Take a few minutes and watch this video, then pass it on.

Hat tip to Maria Henderson for sharing the term “home base” in this context in a presentation in White Oak, Texas, this summer.

For more related to this topic, see my presentation resources for “The Road to Blended Learning.” Also don’t miss Dean Shareski’s opening keynote for the 2010 K-12 Online Conference, “Sharing: The Moral Imperative.”

Technorati Tags: blog, classroom, edtech, moodle, technology, wiki, needs, webct, blackboard

Making the Case for Sharing Curriculum Openly Online [video] originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 20, 2011.

Our planning document for this video is on:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uGuoQBqK_Xlb_mLK9oPQp5nhsIsg8T0T6SrBg3FwUPc/edit?hl=en_US

Other videos in this series include:

Administrator Movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-zY7d5ljSk

Librarian Movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zVFktNmUoo

I do not know if Marco’s original “Teacher Movie” is available online anywhere. There was a YouTube version, but it’s been taken down. I’m not sure if the original .Mac version of Marco’s video is still online. I don’t think so, as my own .Mac webpage movies are offline because of changes Apple made to the .Mac / MobileMe website. If you have a link to that original movie, please share it as a comment!

Technorati Tags: conference, development, edtech, professional, technology, video, satire

The Best Conference I Ever Attended… originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 9, 2011.

Control, apparently, is not the answer. People who need certainty in their lives are less likely to make art that is risky, subversive, complicated, iffy, suggestive or spontaneous. What’s really needed is nothing more than a broad sense of what you are looking for, some strategy for how to find it, and an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way. Simply put, making art is chancy– it doesn’t mix well with predictability. Uncertainly is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding.

Two particular sentences in this paragraph stand out for me: “What’s really needed is… an overriding willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the way.” What’s PBL if not a willingness to allow students to create, to discover, to “drive their own learning” and at times, and make mistakes on their way to “learning?” The final sentence stands out for me as well: “…tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding.” Are we comfortable with uncertainly? Are we willing to embrace the ambiguity which naturally is attached to projects which are open-ended and not fully defined at the outset?

Just as these dispositions are essential for those who create and seek to create ART, I contend these dispositions are essential for good teaching and good teachers. We cannot truly be “guides on the side” if we’re trying to direct every “turn of learning” for students like a traffic cop in the center of a busy intersection. We must leave the door to student choice open. This does not mean “anything goes” and a complete lack of boundaries. Rather, it means students have freedom to move within the confines of a project… and the choices they are allowed to make really matter in determining the direction and quality of their own learning.

I’m just 21 pages in, but already I can tell I’m going to love this book.

Technorati Tags: art, creativity, learning, student, teach, teaching, making, create, philosophy, freedom, choice, pbl, centered

Keys to PBL and Student Centered Learning originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on September 6, 2011.

We are in the midst of the latest wave of reforms, and Steven Brill has positioned himself as the voice of the new reformers. These reforms are not just flawed, but actually dangerous to the future of American education. They would, if implemented, lead to the privatization of a large number of public schools and to the de-professionalization of education.

As Brill’s book shows, the current group of reformers consists of an odd combination of Wall Street financiers, conservative Republican governors, major foundations, and the Obama administration. The reformers believe that the way to “fix” our schools is to fire more teachers, based on the test scores of their students; to open more privately-managed charter schools; to reduce the qualifications for becoming a teacher; and to remove job protections for senior teachers.

Note the breakdown of this misdirected education reform agenda. We have prominent politicians in Oklahoma advancing these policies now:

1. fire more teachers, based on the test scores of their students
2. open more privately-managed charter schools
3. reduce the qualifications for becoming a teacher
4. remove job protections for senior teachers

Wealthy corporations and individuals continue to chant, “More charters, more charters,” despite the fact research (which Ravitch cites) persuasively shows charter schools are NOT categorically better than traditional public schools. The June 2009 Stanford report, “Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States” (PDF) is one highlighted study. This research was funded by the “pro-charter Walton Family Foundation and the Dell Foundation.” Are we data driven and research-based today in American educational politics? Not much.

Just as important in the article is Ravitch’s explanation of how wealthier U.S. students continue to do GREAT on [traditional] international comparative tests, while poorer students don’t. The biggest problem we need to address in our nation with respect to educational outcomes is POVERTY, not testing or bad teachers. She writes:

The last international test results were released in December. Our students ranked about average, and our leading policymakers treated the results as a national scandal. But here is a curious fact: low-poverty U.S. schools (where fewer than 10% of the students were poor) had scores that were higher than those of the top nations in the world. In schools where as many as 25% of the students were poor, the scores were equal to those of Finland, Japan and Korea. As the poverty rate of the schools rose, the schools’ performance declined.

An objective observer would conclude that the problem in this society has to do with our shamefully high rates of child poverty, the highest in the developed world. At least 20% of U.S. children live in poverty. Among black children, the poverty rate is 35%.

Educational leaders: listen up. As citizens and taxpayers, we’re fed up with they way you manipulate data to paint teachers, unions, and public schools as “the enemy.” These groups are NOT the enemy. Poverty and illiteracy are our enemies. We need you to provide leadership to our nation on educational issues and reframe our discussions. Let’s declare war together on poverty. Let’s champion and support teachers who are in the trenches. Let’s support school administrators who focus on relationships with kids and parents, good instruction, and student engagement. Let’s stop pretending everything that matters in school can be measured on a bubblesheet. Let’s “shift our schools” not only to focus on digital literacy skills, but also to focus on the importance of student/teacher relationships. Let’s focus on strong school leaders who CARE for professional educators as well as the constituents we serve. Let’s stop bashing the educational profession and pretending that anyone with a heartbeat and college degree (regardless of training or preparation) can make a wonderful professional educator. Let’s get to work. There’s a lot to be done, and we need to stop the destructive course of privatization and professional teacher demonization which is popular with the “not-so-new reform crowd.”

[END OF RANT]

Technorati Tags:
education, reform, school, policy, ravitch, unitedstates, charter

Understanding and OPPOSING Misdirected Educational Reform Efforts originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 23, 2011.

What is blended learning and why should educators embrace it? How can we move towards a vision of blended learning in our schools? This session presents an OVERVIEW, WAYPOINTS, and DIRECTIONS for the Roadmap to Blended Learning.

I’ve shared a variety of resource links on my curriculum wiki. These include:

The 7.5 minute video, “Iowa Did You Know?” (August 2011)

A 3 minute introduction to Moodle.

Martin Dougiamas‘s July 2011 update and overview of Moodle on SlideShare.

In the second hour of each session (which will be repeated in the morning and afternoon) we’ll be exploring some of the Moodle demo courses available on the official Moodle.org demo site.

In addition to encouraging teachers to build and cultivate their classroom “home base” (wiki) and “newspaper” (blog) I’m throwing down the glove for the playing with media classroom challenge!

Even if you’re not a teacher in Ft Gibson, I encourage you to take the challenge! More on this to come as my advocacy for “playing with media” continues!

Technorati Tags:
blended, blog, development, edtech, education, fort, leadership, learning, moodle, oklahoma, pd, playingwithmedia, professional, technology, vision, wiki, #playingwithmedia, lms, ftgibson, gibson

The Roadmap to Blended Learning and the #playingwithmedia Classroom Challenge originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 22, 2011.

eSchoolNews’ August 17, 2011 article, “ACLU sues Missouri school district over internet filtering,” provides details about a new lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Camdenton R-III School District in central Missouri. The lawsuit is part of the ACLU’s “Don’t Filter Me” campaign. Camdenton Schools are accused in the lawsuit of prejudicially blocking students’ access to educational websites about gay, lesbian, and transgender issues, while providing access to anti-LGBT sites.

According to the ACLU’s August 15th press release:

The lawsuit argues it is discriminatory and unreasonable to require students to ask for permission every time they want to access a new LGBT website when students can freely access anti-LGBT websites.

The press release also reveals Camdenton Schools is using the URL Blacklist for content filtering. According to the ACLU, URL Blacklist:

…has a viewpoint-discriminatory category called “sexuality,” which blocks all LGBT-related information, including hundreds of materials that are not sexually explicit. The filter does, however, allow students to view anti-LGBT sites.

The April 11, 2011 article from the ACLU, “ACLU “Don’t Filter Me” Initiative Finds Schools In Four More States Unconstitutionally Censoring LGBT Websites,” provides more details about which LGBT-related websites are blocked and permitted in some U.S. school districts. The article links to the “Don’t Filter Me: Students, Check Your School’s Web Filter!” page. This campaign asks students at school to check for access to the following five LGBT websites:

1. Day of Silence: http://dayofsilence.org
2. It Gets Better Project: http://itgetsbetter.org/
3. The Trevor Project: http://thetrevorproject.org/
4. GSA Network: http://gsanetwork.org/
5. Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network: http://glsen.org/

The campaign also asks students to check if the following “anti-LGBT, ‘pray away the gay’ websites” are accessible or blocked:

1. National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality: http://narth.com/
2. People Can Change: http://peoplecanchange.com/
3. Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays: http://pfox.org/

The following video provides an explanation, targeted at students, for how they can help in the “Don’t Filter Me” campaign.

As far as I know, this lawsuit by the ACLU against a school district for over blocking Internet websites is the first of its kind. The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires schools and libraries in the United States receiving federal Erate funding have a policy for blocking offensive Internet content and enforce that policy. Schools locally define filtering policies, however. According to the ACLU’s press release:

“School districts cannot use filtering software that discriminates against websites based on their viewpoint,” said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project. “This filter was designed to block more than just adult content and is not viewpoint-neutral. There are many other filtering systems available that do not arbitrarily group websites like PFLAG in the same category as adult-oriented websites.”

It is very important for school officials to understand the laws in the United States related to Internet content filtering as well as the importance of not “over blocking” web content. As I’ve written and noted previously, some of our U.S. schools filter Internet content more severely than China. This is a big problem, and should be addressed for a variety of reasons. I started the projects “Balanced Content Filtering in Schools” and “Unmasking the Digital Truth” to help address these issues. I also included an appendix in my July 2011 eBook, “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing” on “Balanced Content Filtering in Schools.” The issues here go beyond LGBT website access. In the United States, we ideologically support free expression and the marketplace of ideas. We recognize the need to censor certain kinds of content on the Internet in our schools and libraries, through the CIPA law, but that mandated censorship is still LIMITED. It will be interesting to follow this case and see how this develops. Hopefully one outcome will be more balanced approaches toward content filtering in Camdenton Schools and elsewhere.

For more background about this ACLU campaign, see the March 2011 article in the Yale Herald, “Yale Law goes online for LGBT rights.”

Technorati Tags:
content, education, filter, filtering, lawsuit, leadership, school, aclu

ACLU Sues Missouri School District for Overblocking Internet Websites originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 20, 2011.

This is a great, reflective post from a university professor on how high stakes testing continues to damage students, our educational systems, and student capacities to effectively write at “college level.” The last two paragraphs summarize:

First, college professors like myself should realize that their teaching is being changed for the worse by standardized testing. The brains in our classrooms are shaped by the SOLs [mandated standards & testing] just as much as they are shaped by Google, and we have to clean up the mess. Many more students come in unprepared for writing at a college level, but also unprepared to focus and apply their own interests to a topic. Naturally, I believe the best place to realize their interests and gain that preparation is a small liberal arts college, where people like me have a passion for teaching as well as the time and support to focus on a lower number of students, and follow them for 3-4 years.

Second, I would remind those educational “conservatives” like those at the Fordham Institute who championed Core Knowledge when E.D. Hirsch was derided for his traditionalism, and now rise to the defense of the research paper that I appreciate that your right hand is fighting hard to preserve valuable aspects of the “industrial model” of education: broad factual knowledge, rigorous arguments based on legitimate scholarly authorities. Unfortunately, you don’t realize that the true enemy of these cherished elements of education is … your left hand, which is pursuing awful test-based accountability. The research paper was in hiding and on life support long before Cathy Davidson came along, and it was not driven mortally wounded from K-12 education by blog cheerleaders like Heffernan and Davidson, but by the very Reformy Idols that you celebrate.

We must end the widespread, damaging policies of high stakes testing in K12 education and restore both respect and autonomy to the educational profession. This does not mean a simple return to the pre-NCLB status quo, however, we DO need systemic changes in the ways we educate our society. High stakes testing should not and must not, however, continue as the principal instrument of curricular change. We have suffered long enough, and our students continue to pay the price. The madness must end now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:N Higgins Ave,Missoula,United States

High Stakes Testing Damages Student Writing Skills originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 10, 2011.

Kevin’s website is kevinhoneycutt.org

Opening comments from Nancy Marks, conference organizer:
- This is our 14th August Institute, we have over 400 this year
- who knew when we started 14 years ago and had 40 people at our first institute we’d grow like this?!
- some of our workshops will be shared as a podcast (check out our conference podcast channel)
- Follow our conference Twitter feed with the hashtag: #wildtech

I’M NOTICING HOW KEVIN HAS HIS KEYNOTE PRESENTATION ONSCREEN INITIALLY,
- INTRO SHARES WHAT HE’S PASSIONATE ABOUT

Starting with his own story
- taught art for 13 years in Inman, Kansas

I’m passionate about brain research because we teach brains
- if you pay attention to the outside package, you might underestimate that brain’s capacity
- I share stories because we remember stories, not facts
- we remember things in context
- we are temporal creatures who live over time

You ever meet a brilliant idiot?
- they can win Jeopardy but not change a tire

When you challenge kids, give them projects to do, they are engaged

“We’ll do the tests, but please let it matter”

I work with at-risk kids, the ones who bite
- you ever help a kid and then they get in trouble

It’s challenging to make the space for safety, to connect with a kid

I lived in 20 states growing up
- story of my crazy brother who

Our kids are playing on digital playgrounds without lifeguards

People are friending me on Facebook who I didn’t like in high school!

Group: “The Digital Grannies”
- they want to mentor their grandkids on Twitter and Facebook

I found out growing

It was always the kids who had EVERYTHING who were the meanest at school
- every once in awhile there were kids who would be nice, they leveraged their

I don’t preach to kids, that doesn’t work
- I try to talk to their hearts
- what is your ‘digital legacy?”
- everything I can Google about you is your digital legacy
- our kids are on the record
- I love digital because when we found the pyramids we learned all about the Pharaohs, because they had biographers
- but how long did it take for us to learn about the slaves who built them

Technology is anything invented after you were born
- Which of these are technology to you? cell phone, fax machine, the laptop, the abacus

All of us have a time when we thought music stopped being good
- for me, it was “Funky Cold Medina”

When my son came along, I have to embrace his

I am a “12 o’clock flasher” (it sounds bad, but it means all the devices in my home are flashing 12 o’clock)

When they found bacteria killed patients in surgery, some doctors said they didn’t have time to watch their hands
- problem was: they were killing people

You can only dream as big as your personal experience
- to move into a new life, you have to be able to imagine it as fully as your old life
- this is part of what we do: Helping kids IMAGINE who they can be

Question: Do I really need to know this?
- kids are asking in this situation for context

I always gravitated to the REAL teachers: three fingered shop teacher talking about bandsaw safety
- contrast those REAL teachers with the “Suzi cream cheese” teachers

The Honeycutt dream was to live in a double wide trailer and have skirting
- a mobile home isn’t mobile once the tires go flat, except in a tornado

My 2nd biggest fear, tornados
- my biggest fear: my dad
- he died at a party at the lake when I was 16

I want to talk about “the angels” (this is you, the teachers)

Mary Lou Burgoon
- the most dangerous place to be at school is alone
- are you brave enough to be nice to someone NO ONE ELSE is being nice to? (“What you do to the least of these you do to me”)
- she gave me a safe place to be
- when I graduated college, I went back and found all these people

Dorothy Anderson
- she believed in me!
- she gave me mail every week
- she sustained me with her letters
- she died 7 years ago and I love her forever, I am going to keep paying it forward because she had my back in 1978

My time in lockup: teaching in juvi-lockup
- you can never leave a pencil behind
- they have rubber pencils
- 15 minutes to hook em and 45 minutes to cook em
- without technology: it’s about relationships, it’s about trust

1979: The Digitor
- do you have one? It’s worth $1000
- the Intel chip inside was the first one ever
- it was a calculator with feet

I’m emotionally compromised, I’m damaged
- if you make me come in the front door, I’ll fail
- please let me be creative, can you give me choices?
- there is

I”m a digital dumpster diver looking for what works
- the schools I work with don’t have any money

Why this is benevolent:
- ever meet siblings, one is an A student and the other is flunking
- if I show you something new that none of you have seen, all of you have a chance at being great with this
- there is benevolence here (IN THE LEVELING POWER OF NEW DEVICES)

Mr Austin let me take the Digitor home, my family gather
- he used technology to win me back, to get be back into the boat

I believe this: Empowerment comes from being trusted to attack learning according to your own strengths

When I was in a new class
- “she wasn’t rewindable”
- if you just

If you waited till you were good at it to have kids how many would you have?
- just start

I don’t want to be stupid, certainly not in front of everyone

the benevolence of rewindability is a big deal

example of cereal box story that I built
- she gave me choice and she empowered me
- she saw me as a bionically powered learner
- she never let me be creative again all year

I could change education in 1 night: break into school and burn every file cabinet
- we need to shake things up, make things more interesting

we make our environment and then it makes us

Ever see “a kid launch?”
= they leave scorch marks on the pavement

Collect the keys
- this is a drive by
- you don’t have time to remember all this stuff
- learn a few things today, and make friends with others who can be

Digital Dumpster Divers
- this invites people
- dive in: click “Free tools you can use”

I’m smart, but my network is brilliant

Twitter is “thought casting”
- it is how good you build your network
- I only collect good people in my network: I don’t include people who cuss

Facebook, Twitter, Network, Plurk, and my Ning: I’m connected to over 10,000 people
- when we leave this conference we don’t have to stop learning, we can remain connecting

How many people typically read what our kids write?
Readers
- Blogs: 112.7 million
- My essay in class: 1

I had a college professor who saw me as a “C”
- if you’re going to guess me a grade, guess me an “A”

Kids as authors today: Lulu.com

As soon as we see a tool, we often categorize it and limit it
- Lulu is one of six tools on my site for self-publishing
- Kool-Aide stand on steroids

(I’M EAGER TO SEE KEVIN’S OTHER

Why do people buy “Who’s Who Among American High School Students?”

We need to let kids become published authors

Story: “Saving Me” by April Dawn
- Paperback book $5.52, Download $1.25

If this girl came into the Emergency Room with a broken leg, we wouldn’t say, “Why don’t you sit down and think

When you find a new tool, you need to TAME it
- example: I published two of my plays on Lulu to figure out the tool

Story of April: for the first time she cared about spelling
- that’s exciting

If you do this, do it for YOU
- let it be personal before it becomes professional
- we too often create prisons instead of playgrounds in schools

Publish letters by your Dad from the war, grandmother’s recipes
- do it first because you love it

Our high school this year is publishing our yearbook on Lulu
- do a search on lulu.com and find other schools publishing their yearbooks
- then you don’t send the check to Jostens, you support fundraising

This is the “Some Pig” principle

Kids submit and their work has to get approved
- example

Talk to your shoulder partner about this

If you don’t know why, why do it?
- how is easy today: you need to know they “why”

[TALK TIME]

NOW KEVIN IS USING EXPOSE ON HIS MAC TO SWITCH TO HIS WEBSITE

I work to create an environment where everyone is invited
- this middle space is intentional

Story of electric football game (the one that vibrated to make the players move)
- Quarterbacks see through time, and see to throw the ball where the receiver is going to be

I expect to get a current education, not one which is convenient because you’ve recycled 30 years

Example of project: The cereal box of now
- using Google Sketchup
- don’t think: “I’ll tell the art teacher”
- STOP: this works for ALL of us

Trojan horse learning: Asking your students who aren’t reading Poe to design the setting in a part of “The Raven”

What does it means to “do a 21st century collaboration?”

Be careful what you call kids’ work, you’re usually wrong

I bought the Wii-Fit because I’m a Wii-Fat
- I have lost 15 lbs on the Wii the past few months

13 buttons dis-invited us on a video game

Now shifting to a demo of Google Sketchup
- it has

I stopped teaching technology and started teaching WITH technology
- we don’t “teach pencil: teaching about compassed graphite sandwiched between wafers of wood”

there is a big barrier there where people think they need to be experts

Google Sketch up: leave the guy (the person) to include your scale

I flunked geometry but did awesome in art: how could that be?

Now doing a demo of Google Sketchup
- draw a square,

Opening an example of the human brain
- 8 years ago software that did this cost $30,000
- now I’m doing my report as a 3D virtual docent
- now shooing the Viking ship

Showing video of Kim Herron’s

Innovation dies from domestic violence: You do it

We need leadership which frames this for people
- that thanks our pioneers

We are moving at glacial speed in a time of exponential change: this is a problem

tell your story, frames are important

Call it what you want: give it a frame

Bringing kim Herron to our district was like strapping a rocket engine to a bi-plane
- we often fear those people

Kim Herron: kherron [at] usd448 [dot] com (she gave me permission to share her email address, she would LOVE to collaborate with you

I am in my second term as a school board member in Kim’s district

Now YouTube story: my first guitar
- kicked out of a music store for ‘thought-lifting’

MY COMMENT: LISTENING AND WATCHING KEVIN SHARE THIS STORY I CATCH A GLIMPS OF MY FUTURE. I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE GUITAR. KEVIN INSPIRES ME TO BELIEVE I CAN…..

KEVIN ALSO INSPIRES ME TO RUN FOR THE SCHOOL BOARD IN OKLAHOMA CITY. NOT BECAUSE IT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD, BUT BECAUSE I CAN, AND BECAUSE I CARE. AND MY KIDS GO TO SCHOOL THERE. AND WORDS MATTER.

For some kids, I”m good enough to be a teacher for
- many kids are not brave enough to get past blisters
- my question: “Are there cognitive blisters?”

Great closing demo by Kevin of digital musical tools! I recorded the last 6 min 40 seconds of Kevin’s preso on my iPad2 and posted it to YouTube:

MY COMMENT: THERE ARE FEW EDUCATIONAL CONFERENCE PRESENTERS I’VE SEEN WHO ARE AS INSPIRING AS KEVIN. HE HELPS US CONNECT WITH SO MUCH THAT MATTERS: WHY OUR WORK MATTERS, WHY RELATIONSHIPS WITH KIDS MATTER, WHY WE NEED TO TELL AND SHARE OUR STORIES. WHAT A TREAT TO GET TO LEARN WITH KEVIN TODAY, AND MY DAD WAS EVEN IN THE AUDIENCE TOO! KEVIN IS 1 OF MY TOP “YODAS” FOR LEARNING AND SCHOOL LEADERSHIP. YOU ONLY HAVE TO LISTEN TO HIM PRESENT FOR 60 SECONDS TO FIGURE OUT WHY.

Technorati Tags:
education, inspire, learning, montana, technology, kevin, honeycutt, inspirational, wildtech, #wildtech, missoula

Trends, Tools & Tactics for 21st Century Learning #wildtech originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 8, 2011.

Strategies to support a web-based learning environment such as filtering, infrastructure, bandwidth and safety issues. What are the considerations needed to write policy and acceptable use guidelines that support a web based – web 2.0 learning environment? Policy and recommendations for using handhelds and social networking in the k-12 learning environments from an administration perspective.

UPDATE: An audio podcast recording of this session is available.

Technorati Tags:
bandwidth, content, filter, leadership, network, copa

Smart Networks #wildtech originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 8, 2011.

www.neiffer.com
blog: www.techsavvyteacher.com
twitter: @montdigacad and @TechSavvyTech (shared with Mike in Helena PS)

Handouts today: www.workshophandouts.com/etcmtda2011

I’m a big fan of paperless presentations

Montana Digital Academy
- created by 2009 legislature
- we were the 3rd or 4th attempt at an online digital academy
- took us over a decade of failures to come up with a model that works, but that has now worked to our advantage
- online statewide virtual school (this is very unique in the online world)

we don’t have a charter school law in Montana
- we exist/serve through local districts
- we don’t exist minus the local school
- ‘original credit’ and ‘credit recovery’
- enrollment has to happen through your local school
- certified teachers with Association with MOntana Public School District
- State STandards Based
- Moodle and Other Learning Environments

We don’t independent students unaffiliated with local school districts

Program Timeline
2009
- HB459 passed and funded
- Initial board named, chair and vice chair elected
- Director hired (from Michigan)

2010
- additional hires: curriculum director, 76 teachers, Instructional manager
- initial summer pilot project
- Fall 2010: Full program begins

2011
- February: MTDA Connect credit recovery rolls out
- Summer: Full, two tiered summer program
- Fall: Expanded program begins

Our numbers exceeded our wildest imagination by a factor of 4

Major unique thing: we have “partners” who are critical advisors
- Montana School Boards Association
- School Administrators of Montana
- MEA-MFT
- Montana Rural Education Association
- Montana University System
- Office of Public Instruction
- Board of Public Education
- Montana High School Association

Critical piece of our program and EVERY successful online program: the TEACHER’S roles

We have thousands of students around Montana that wouldn’t have access to education without our online learning program
- questions and debates should go beyond “online learning good or bad”
- it’s really an issue of access to kids

Good report: Online Learning in Context – 2010

Our slate of courses
- we have 7 AP courses
- it’s very challenging to teach to College Board standards online, we’ve had good success with this, however
- we are the only program in MT that teaches Mandarin Chinese
- we are the only Latin option for most MT high schools
- we have full spectrum of science courses, science courses are our most popular
- have some electives like oceanography that are wildly popular in our landlocked state
- we taught 7 sections of digital photography in MT, Spanish and Pscyhology were #2 and #3

Geographic distribution of our students and teachers (slide 10)

Successes of 2009-2011
- successful recruitment of administrative and program staff
- rollout of two distinct programs: original credit and connect credit recovery
- adoption of cutting edge tools to enhance online learning
- passage rates on par with other statewide virtual schools
- developed working relationships with 160 schools across the state of Montana
- Offered dual credit / dual enrollment courses from three unit of the MUS

We have lots of young moms in our program
- lots of them would have been without ANY educational alternative without online school options
- had many students in unique medical circumstances: Being in an out-of-state hospital for cancer, burn unit, etc.
- many needed an extra half credit to graduate this year, and were able to graduate because of online courses

These numbers don’t tell the whole story, but they do show our need, viability, and impact

Adding some exciting new courses this year:
- Spanish III
- Irish Studies (first in the nation in online environment for HS)
- Art History
- Personal Finance
- Pre-Algebra
- French III
- Health Occupations
- Music Appreciation

Our requests for new courses was three times this number
- we didn’t cut courses that weren’t as popular with students, because we think online courses should include unique offerings that meet special kids

Expanded Credit Recovery
- we are still stuck in a model of “seat time” by law
- we have a fair number of kids
- we do use a vendor for this, we think the vendor name is less important than our model
- key elements:
1- open entry, open exit
2- self-paced
3- pre-test module exemptions
4- available 24/7

Self-paced means you can really work hard on 1 course intensively, and decide how to change your course focus
- when this is sold by a vendor, it is usually a teacher less option (I’ll talk later why I don’t think that is a good option)
- we assign an academic coach to each student in this program (lots of cheerleading, keeping a mindful eye when a student is having struggles our program can’t address – we need to help you get assistance outside our online program)
- this is a unique opportunity for kids
- we don’t want kids just dropped into these courses and then asked 4 months later: How did it go?
- We want local schools to built support capacity and assistant for kids in these programs

This year we’re offering MLS: Middle School Multi-Language Sampler
- Aimed at the Middle School Learner
- Seven week program
- Programs in French, Spanish, Latin, German and Mandarin
- Innovative, Game-BAsed PowerSpeak Curriculum

Using PowerSpeak program, out of Utah, the company has been teaching distance language courses for over 50 years
- program is very game-based
- not unlimited enrollments, we will have 700 slots this year

Things we’re very proud of
- you have to have a platform for online learning: we use Moodle (we pay for this as a serviced, entrprise-level Moodle service)
- we are one of the first statewide virtual schools to use Moodle (this may surprise you)
- because of timing and being the new kid on the block, we could choose Moodle
- most statewide virtual academies are using Blackboard or WebCT / Angel (which are now both owned by Blackboard)
- we wanted to use Moodle since the Univ of Montana is going with Moodle

We give a Montana Digital Academy Google Apps account (Gmail, docs, etc)
- we do pay about $10,000 a year for extra archiving and storage
- that is basement bargain priced when you compare that to running an Exchange server
- we don’t really have a tech staff, so outsourcing this to Google Apps is very scalable for us

You are doing your students a dis-service if you don’t provide email to them
- many kids don’t use email, however

We use a lot of Open Educational Resources
- National Repository of Online Courses
- HippoCampus
- Open High School of Utah
- OER

We are working to figure out questions about things for science labs, hands-on learning

Smart Science Labs is an example of virtual science labs
- is a hands-on / mouse-on model

Mobile Learning
- adults are more excited about mobile learning than kids are
- sometimes we frame this in the wrong way
- wrong way to frame this: “Kids can learn 24 hours a day” (I’ve been on plenty of debate bases, at 2 am there isn’t any chemistry study going on them)
- right context: use powerful elements of mobile learning platforms

Example is an App MockUp
- real power of this is reminders that can be sent directly through the device
- it’s hard in an online environment to grab someone through the screen
- you can design notifications on a phone: something is due, something just got graded, instant message from

Smartphones are amazing measurers of data
- example is a walk app that is 99 cents
- imagine if we tell kids: you have to run a mile, so turn on your app
- the app tracks where, when, how fast, heart rate, etc
- we don’t even this in face-to-face classes now

I have a scale now that reports my weight to my iPhone and online that my wife can see if she wants

I think this is the future of a number of online courses
- I don’t think doing chemistry online at 2 am in the bus is what kids will do, I think this app is more like what the future looks like

MDA is cooking up lots of online PD

We are also working on creating lots of support for blended learning
- this scares a lot of people because there are schedule changes involved in many of these courses
- some districts do “Moodle Monday,” that’s the day they do assignments online and don’t come to school
- Moodle Snow Days
- states are working out how this still follows contact hour requirements

We are not a competitor to schools, we are a partner
- we may be able to provide curriculum to you, help you develop courses
- we are a partner to schools to help schools offer the most flexible learning environment

Tangent: Who is the “ideal online student?”
- we believe organizationally that any kid can be an online learner
- independent, smart, tech-saavy, motivated
- kids that have these skills typically don’t have all these skills

Problem with online learning: we can’t login for kids, we can’t reach through the monitor to touch them

Magical key to this: YOU (the teacher in the room)
- this is why I don’t think online learning will every replace the role of the teacher in the classroom

I had to leave the session at this point

Technorati Tags:
blackfoot, blackfootETC, learned, learning, lessons, montana, online

Online Learning with Montana Digital Academy #blackfootETC originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 3, 2011.

Today at the “Building Human Connections in a Digital World” Educational Technology Conference in Missoula, Montana, I attended Terrisa Metzler’s presentation “Balancing Learning and Security in a Web 2.0 World.” I am very interested in the topics of this presentation because of the Balanced Filtering in Schools project (balancediltering.org), the “Unmasking the Digital Truth” project, and my breakout session next week at the “Technology Runs Through It” conference in Missoula, “Smart Networks.”

Terrisa Metzler, regional sales manager for Lightspeed Systems, presented this session. During the session in demonstrating the “My Big Campus” educational / social networking platform Lightspeed offers free to everyone (not just its customers.) Terrisa made a comment I’d like to address which can be misleading. Terrisa showed how teachers can embed “cleaned” YouTube videos on their webpages within My Big Campus, and stated this is good because it protects students from “non-CIPA compliant YouTube videos.”

CIPA is the Children’s Internet Protection Act and applies to all U.S. schools and libraries (both public and private) which receive federal E-Rate funding.

Here is the clarification I’d like to offer: There is no such a thing as “CIPA compliant content” or “non-CIPA compliant content.” There obviously IS content online not appropriate for school, but that determination is not made by the CIPA law, it’s made by local authorities. CIPA requires that each school or library subject to E-Rate rules have a filtering policy in place and enforce it, but it does NOT definitively state specific videos and other webpages which should be blocked and should be accessible on school networks. Tina Barseghian’s recent post, “Straight from the DOE: Dispelling Myths About Blocked Sites” (highlighted in the BalancedFiltering.org post, “Do your school administrators REALLY understand CIPA?”) is an excellent article about these issues.

Words matter, and we need to be careful that our discussions about content filtering, CIPA, e-Discovery, FERPA, COPPA, etc. clarify requirements rather than confuse people.

It is confusing to say, “My Big Campus” keeps your school CIPA compliant by filtering out non-CIPA compliant YouTube videos. CIPA requires a content filtering policy and enforcement of that policy. CIPA does not define “compliant / non-compliant YouTube videos” or other content.

Teresa also said: “WikiPedia is a site of hotlinks, and students can quickly get to inappropriate content” from WikiPedia articles. She then advocated for how Lightspeed Systems lets teachers whitelist (allow on the content filter) just a specific WikiPedia page, but then every hyperlink on that page is blocked from student access.

I have big reservations about this. I understand Lightspeed Systems is a vendor and is creating a product to meet consumer demands, which include IT personnel who want to overblock the web for students and teachers far beyond what is required by US law. I also understand a system in place which lets teachers directly unblock websites for student access, and specifically whitelist websites for student access, is a HUGE leap forward from the “digital prisons” in which many of our K-12 learners live today at school.

The perspective of educators like Matthew Kitchens, who wants to shut down open web publishing of content by students at school and for school, is also troubling. Lightspeed Systems tweeted a link to Matthew’s post and amplified this today. Matthew wrote in July:

I believe social networking has a place in the classroom, when used within a closed, monitored learning management system(s)…

LightSpeed Systems is a big company and has a lot of clout. Terrisa said Alan November as well as Kevin Honeycutt are now presenting on behalf of LightSpeed Systems at educational conferences. I am very appreciative of Terrisa’s session today, but I think it is very important to be careful and scrutinize the words and phrases we use to discuss these issues. These aren’t minor points.

Terrisa said in our session, “Every filtering company today is working hard to block Google image thumbnails, and we’ve done it.” She then went on to describe a hypothetical student who tries to search on the network for ‘Playboy.’

The issues here are both technical and human. Schools need policies in place to protect students and comply with CIPA as well as other laws. There is a significant difference, however, between protecting students from objectionable content and trying to stop all students from searching for anything inappropriate online. We also have obligations as educators to help students use sites besides Google Images which are copyright friendly and less inappropriate image content. I’m tackling that issue tomorrow at the conference in my breakout on Pecha Kucha presentations and ending PowerPoint abuse.

LightSpeed Systems has some good products and services. The ability for IT in your school/district to have access to bandwidth utilization graphs as well as data like that shown below by Terrisa in our session is vital. Many of our smaller/rural schools don’t have this kind of capability and need it. In Oklahoma, NewNet66 is a great organization putting tools with similar features in the hands of its member school educators.

I’m really interested in advocating for more balanced content filtering in our schools. LightSpeed is doing some good things to address overblocking, but I’m concerned about advocacy which would push everyone onto the “closed web” and discourage learners from publishing on the open web. See my notes from Karen Fasimpaur’s session, “Open Educational Resources: Share, Remix, Learn” at the 2011 ISTE conference for more on that topic. I’m also concerned with definitions of WikiPedia like “it’s mainly a hotlist of inappropriate links” which perpetuate misconceptions about the site rather than clarifying what the value of the site is and how it should be used AND authored by our students. I’m finally concerned about phrases like “CIPA complaint content” which are misleading and do NOT help others better understand the actual requirements and terms of the CIPA law.

On a related note: Two free websites which can be used to show “cleaned” YouTube videos “live” to students are VideoPure and QuietTube. These weren’t mentioned by Terrisa, but I want to share them since they relate to the topics of this post. Those sites don’t stop students from visiting other “related” videos on YouTube, but they do eliminate related videos, comments, etc. when showing a YouTube video to students live in class. I included those sites in the Video chapter of my eBook,”Playing with Media: simple ideas of powerful sharing.”

What’s your take on these issues?

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The phrase “CIPA compliant content” can be misleading originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on August 2, 2011.

Tom started by joking he’s here with a contingent from Seattle looking for something they lost… (Seattle SuperSonics)

The Pivot to Personal Digital Learning: Digital Learning NOW!

Remember the first line of M. Scott Peck’s “The Road Less Traveled”
- first sentence: Life is difficult.
- 1st chapter: Peck talks about love, defines love as extending yourself to benefit another
- that’s the best definition I’ve ever read of teaching

We are here to talk about digital learning
- we’ll talk about improvement levers
- how this will happen (blended learning)
- implications for school leaders

I want to acknowledge you had a tough last year, and have a touch job
- I think it’s gotten even more difficult in the past few years

School leaders can influence seven key things:
1- culture
2- goals
3- instruction
4- hiring
5- materials
6- parents
7- partners

Culture is at the top of this list: #1 attribute that sets about extra-ordinary schools is culture
- you get a sense of this ethos in the first 30 seconds in an extraordinary school
- sense of goals and shared aspirations are key in this

instruction is the heart of the matter

While your district may have more control than you do over curriculum, when it comes to MATERIALS there are many ways you can supplement that
- digital supplemental resources

But you are stuck in an obsolete model
… based on time not learning
… based on cohorts not learners
… with limited leverage

I think we can do better: we can invent better ways to do school that work better for teachers and kits

Shift from batch-print to personal-digital

batch-print:
- age cohorts
- textbooks
- sequential
- annual tests
- institutions
- teachers

personal digital:
- individual students
- digital content
- adaptive
- instant feedback
- networks
- teams

We are living through one of the most important transitions in human history
- for thousands of years we lived in oral traditions and print-based traditions
- now we are shifting to learning predominantly through digital media

Almost anyone can learn anything, anywhere now for free or cheaply is extraordinary
- if you have a broadband connection you can learn almost anything, that changes anything: Kahn Academy is an example

Customization

kids will learn more
- adaptive content
- instant feedback
- personalized guidance

Kids can move at their own pace
- demonstrated competence
- rolling enrollment, money follows the student

Education driven by:
- learner profile
- smart recommendation engines

Students will learn more per hour in this blended learning environment

School of One” is a great pilot example in New York where each student has a “customized playlist” for each subject, for each day
- that can be a powerful way to build knowledge and skills

Persistence: Exploit game strategies

Passion: exploit interests, bring your passion!

We have learned so much the last few years from casual games
- designers are so good at ‘setting the hook’

some of the most important breakthroughs

We need kids to work harder: to write more, to do more problem solving
- we need to be smarter about building perseverent behaviors

We can do a better job making school less boring
- school network: Big Picture – http://www.bigpicture.org/
- they put passion and interest at the center of their school design

2 example projects:

UK-game Manga High
- all games are free, there are about 8 that teach pre-algebra skills

Edmodo is a company I helped start a few years ago
- about 2 million students using it now
- helping teachers customize instruction

I call what the learning environment will look like in the next five years: Blended Learning
- blended learning is an intentional shift for at least a portion of the student day to an online learning environment to boost learning and operating productivity
- most US students will learn in a blended environments in this decade
- low-cost, blended formats offer a chance to reach “the next billion”

blended learning is AT LEAST as important as clean tech and bio-tech in changing the world today

Read “The Rise of Blended Learning” by the Innosight Institute, best summary of innovative school models around the country

School One: Personalized Playlists
plus
Project based learning

I chaired “Digital Learning NOW” project last year with Gov Job Bush and Bob Wise
- 100 digital learning council members
- rapid virtual policy development process
- report released Dec 2010
- will release state scorecard report in Oct 2011
- www.digitallearningnow.com

assumptions
- all students are digital learners
- customized learning
- competency-based
- choice of providers
- all students have access

controversial piece: funding should follow the student to create incentives for quality and innovation
- funding should become more performance based
- encourage students to achieve, graduate, and innovation
- infrastructure supports digital learning

Example is Florida Virtual School

Infrastructure piece is complicated and expensive: we need to work together to promote this shift to personal, digital learning

Development of Race to the Top-funded assessments is very important right now
- I’ve been obsessed with this on my blog the last few months
- ESCA is going to be a weak bill, we won’t have an NCLB
- NCLB framed American education for the last decade
- ESCA won’t do that, state policies will be more important
- the common core state standards and the new tests which reflect those will be a big deal
- in at least 40 states we will have new standards and new tests, those will be the ‘frame’ for American public education for the next decade

Some of us have been worried those tests will not be good enough
- 60 of us signed a letter on June 30, that is an important letter to read
- these tests are a REAL big deal
- those tests will be ONLINE and will go live in 2014
- we only have a few years to get ready for online assessments

states can’t save enough money going from print to digital to give all students a digital tablet
- if you shift from textbooks to digital results, and to online tests, you can save enough money to give every kid a tablet computer
- they are cheap enough to be $20 per month in cost
- you can make a financial case just on the transition
- you can ‘lift the floor’ – give every student in your district access to digital resources

this is a difficult transition
- this will require states and districts to build a plan and phase this in

4 blended pilots you should start in September, in 60 days
1- 6-10 Math (every kid learning at their own level, in a learning lab)
2- AP, dual enrollment, STEM (offer hard to staff courses virtually)
3- Elementary learning lab (Rocketship are best elementary schools in CA, are all high poverty, they are top scoring elementary schools, every day each student has a 2 day targeted instruction lab time)
4- Special services (demonstrated power of distributed staffing, teachers working remotely, speech therapy is an example, I have vendor friends providing these services)

This is a big deal: blended learning, open resources
- this IS going to change the world

Story of visiting Nairobi
- kids getting surprisingly good education in one of the worst slums

My investment fund is working with Bridge International to develop schools in these slums
- $3.50 per month we are giving these kids an education pretty close in quality to what we provide in urban American elementary schools
- I’m fixated on providing that in high school too

We can create school formats in the toughest slums in the world and deliver a world class education for these kids

This will transform educational opportunities in Oklahoma, and in other parts of the planet
- I am so excited about the power of digital learning

Janet Barresi: visited “Carpe Diem” school in Yuma, Arizona
- school staffed by six teachers, had the highest math scores in the state of Arizona

MY THOUGHTS: I’M VERY GLAD TO BE ABLE TO HEAR TOM ARTICULATE THIS VISION AND GET MORE INSIGHT INTO WHERE JANET AND OUR OTHER STATE LEADERS WANT TO TAKE OKLAHOMA SCHOOLS. THIS IS AN AGENDA WHICH NEEDS TO BE MORE CLEARLY ARTICULATED, EXPLAINED, DEBATED, AND REFINED. I’M NOT SURE WE WANT ALL OUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS STAFFED BY JUST SIX ADULTS, BUT WE DO NEED TO INNOVATE AND THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT HOW WE PROVIDE EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES IN OUR NATION. I’M ENTHUSED BY A LOT OF THE FOCUS ON BLENDED LEARNING AND DIGITAL ACCESS. I DIDN’T HEAR MUCH AT ALL ABOUT STUDENTS CREATING DIGITAL CONTENT, HOWEVER. I’LL REFLECT MORE ON THIS LATER. GREAT PRESO, THANKS TO THE OKLAHOMA SDE FOR BRINGING TOM TO OUR STATE AND CONFERENCE!

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The Pivot to Personal Digital Learning by Tom Vander Ark #innov8 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on July 8, 2011.

This Friday, July 8, 2011, I’ll be sharing three presentations at the Innovations 2011 Conference in Oklahoma City sponsored by the Oklahoma State Department of Education. I’m using the following slides, combined with this video and these web links, in the session, “Supporting STEM Skills with Scratch.” This is a new presentation for me and I’m VERY enthused to have an opportunity to both show Scratch to Oklahoma superintendents and principals as well as encourage them to start after-school Scratch clubs.

My other two sessions are “Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing” and “Leading Schools with Digital Vision in a Bubblesheet World.” Resources for each of those sessions are available on the links above.

Cross-posted to Playing with Media.

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Supporting STEM Skills with Scratch #innovation2011 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on July 7, 2011.

Leadership is a choice, not a position
- I define leadership differently than most people

Today I want to discuss leading your life, and being a leader for students

To be successful in today’s economy, you need a strong skill set, tool set, and mindset
- if you miss one of these, you feel pain
- without these we become obsolete and irrelevant
- not enough attention is being given today to MINDSET

Biggest changes in your life will come from changing your mindset, not your skill or tool sets
- who we are are is made up of many kinds of mindsets or paradigms
- these are temporary and change with our surroundings

I’ve spend almost my entire career identifying the mindsets we want to be long lasting

reactive people see themselves as products of their environment or genes
- blaming circumstances and outside factors, rather than taking responsibility for choices

people with proactive mindsets control the weather of their minds
- don’t let their past hold their future hostage
- realize the best ways to realize their future is create it

Story about a teacher in California who read the book, “The Leader in Me”
- stories of how teachers around the world are transforming their schools and school cultures

By focusing your mindset on things you CAN control, rather than things outside your control, you’ll make a bigger

you are the creative force of your own mind

habit 2: BEgin with the end in mind (Vision)
- especially applies to personal leadership

Personal model: Live life in crescendo

technology is a means, not an end
- some educators make technology an end, however (acquiring a SmartBoard, new software, new gadgets)
- that

Technology is meant to bless, not to impress

remember relationships are much more important than things

habit 3: put first things first (discipline)

- stay focused on what matters most

Principles drive the consequences of behavior

2 suggestions for helping prepare students for new jobs not yet invented

1- empower students with effective mindsets / paradigms
- skill and tool set improvements will just result in incremental changes
- lasting changes go with mindset changes

Principles will remain constant into the 31st century

In our effort to leave no child behind, we have limited our vision of what teachers are and and do
- if we reduce education to a test score, we will never help students reach their potential

Reducing children to a test score is the worst form of identity theft we could commit in schools

Quotation and Mother

“This is what I want for my son. At home, he is so much more… [than a test score]”

I STOPPED TAKING NOTES AT THIS POINT IN THE KEYNOTE. THERE ARE GREAT IDEAS HERE TO BE SURE. THIS WASN’T THE KIND OF KEYNOTE I EXPECTED OR WANTED AT AN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE, HOWEVER.

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Steven Covey on Personal Leadership at #iste11 originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on June 29, 2011.

in the end we are talking about agency
- the ability to own your ideas and do powerful things with them
- be fully engaged in your world
- that is what we want for our children

idea that our children can be in and of their world
- poets have handed us the roadmap
- they don’t want to be told what to think
- they don’t want us to stand up and be brilliant
- they need each of us to see them and their brilliance

Agency is lacking in most schools
- most children have school done TO them
- the notion of compulsory education: we know what’s best for you

you can never doubt the wisdom of the voices of the children

how do we help children develop agency: to stand in front of thousands and speak truth to power

develop head, heart, hands and voice

develop minds
- help children ask powerful questions
- no ones we already have answers to
- the answers we don’t have yet

I can help students ask the questions they need, guide them, teach them
- we should take no greater pleasure than watching our students eclipse our abilities

helping students see all they can be
- schools have always known that
- help students develop their heart
- help them to see the world with empathy

the problems we face today, the world we are turning over to them will require more than analytical minds / data to solve those problems
- we must help children see the humanity all around them

At SLA children see teachers and each other as family
- they see that community as something that matters
- we must help students develop their heart

At the same time
- kids should do stuff that matters: they can do /create /make things that matter

Who can tell me what the lives of these childrens will look like for the next 50 years?

avoid the great lie of education: “this will be good for you someday?”
- why am I learning this?
- you might need it some day…

How powerful to say: you need it now!
- we must develop their hands…

And when we do, we will help them develop their voices
- I defy anyone to find someone who can speak to the challenge of public education in Philadelphia better than those 5 students just did

We are facing $629 million budget deficit in Philadelphia
- 20% of operating budget of the school district
- students went out, did the research on their own, and got on busses to go to Harrisburg

When we develop their head and hands, we enable them to have a powerful voice

Now a little about the Science Leadership Academy
- we are a public school, partnership of the Franklin Institute and the School District of Philadelphia
- opened in 2006

Our school is built on the ethic of care
- not only do I care about my students, I care FOR them
- there is a profound difference

I care about the ISTE community, but I can’t care for you… there are too many of you!
- I can, however, care FOR my students
- when we build a school that is first about the ethic of care (we are better together than we are apart) powerful things happen

Yesterday on a panel with some of my students
- a student who said “I don’t need a network… I need a family, brothers, sisters and mentors”

Our school is built on core values
1- inquiry
2- research
3- collaboration
4- presentation
5- reflection

A student who came to SLA and was initially “paralyzed by the right answer”
- student found it was OK to fail as long as he was always learning

Let us build a nation of schools where children understand and believe this

We should be building systems and structures around what we believe, in & out of schools – build on the ethic of care

Our teachers build their lesson plans on these five core values
- all of us

Key questions:
What does teaching and learning look like in your building?
How do you learn?
How is that sustained?

When you do this you unlock students’ passion

Example of students who entered a kinetic sculpture contest

Challenge to take back:
- what if school was not just preparation for life, what if it WAS real life?
- what if we let students do things that matter NOW?

Our kids have interviewed politicians, spoken in front of 6000 people, built websites, opened businesses, started nonprofits
- they have engaged with their world

In the end our goal is not to “create the 21st century workforce,” that is too low a bar
- our goal should be helping students be the 21st century citizens we so desperately need
- the scholars, activists, neighbors we need

The most important things we do is teach the child in front of us to fully become human beings

Remember: These tools and what we’ve done this week does nothing else more important than helping us become better people

When people ask what you teach, answer: “I teach children”
- that is what we all do

In the end the goal is this: Thoughtful, wise, passionate and kind children

MY COMMENT: I’VE HEARD CHRIS SHARE THIS MANY TIMES. THE “KIND” ESPECIALLY RESONATES WITH ME.

I want our children to be full of wise thoughts, and passionately apply them in the world
- be kind: find the humanity in all of those around them

SLA is not alone
- I hope and trust in everything I’ve said, you are finding pieces of yourselves which you believe
- much of this is not new

Like John Carver, superintendent in New Carver
- New Tech Network

If you come to this conference and don’t walk through the student showcase, shame on you!

Today is the day, wait no longer, join us
- write down your goals
- write down the action plan of how you will realize those goals

What is our role?
- we’ve already won
- the war has been won, no one is saying we shouldn’t use technology in education

Our Sec of Education has called us to innovate our way out of this crisis
- we have got to dream bigger

If the biggest way we can think about using these tools is a bigger and better flashcard, we will have failed
- we can give our tools the most powerful productivity tools ever created

Technology should be like oxygen in our schools
- Ubiquitous, necessary and invisible

Then we need to stop talking about the technology so much

Use these tools to create, research, collaborate, present and network
- show what you know and bring that voice to the world

We must empower ourselves, not just our children
- it’s not just about unlocking their potential, it’s about unlocking their potential
- it’s about the power of #edchat
- the ability to say I need help and get it, and then give it back

We can come together but we should never be apart

We should be humble, this work is hard
- we don’t have all the answers

Lets us question anyone who claims to have all the answers
- this is about us all
- we must innovate out of this crisis
- we should become 1 community

We need to bring that vision to ALL the students in our nation
- then, like our students, we will all be beautiful

MY THOUGHTS: GREAT MESSAGES AND THEMES FROM CHRIS. MY ONLY SUGGESTION: TELL A FEW MORE STORIES!

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Unlocking Potential by Chris Lehmann #iste11 (notes & audio podcast) @chrislehmann originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on June 29, 2011.