So ugly it hurts

He's so ugly his parents had to tie a porkchop around his neck to get the dogs to play with him. - old school yard joke.

In helping a friend do a Delphi study for her PhD program, I've been looking a LOT of school library media center websites. God bless any librarian who makes the effort to provide good online resources for his/her kids. A lot of thought and sweat are on display.

But there are way too many school library websites that can only be described as butt ugly. I don't care how good the links on them are, if the colors and layout make one's teeth hurt, it just doesn't matter. Get your art teacher or a person with some design sense in to critique your pages. Or follow Robin Williams's advice in her The Non-Designer's Web Book. Or hire a student who's doing well in art class. If you can't get to beautiful, at least shoot for non-offensive.

Remember Daniel Pink's admonition that it's "Not just function, but also DESIGN. Are you scaring kids away from your virtual library?

Now, about those curtains...

Disappointed again this year…

This past weekend I looked for the following information:

• Rules for playing the Barrel of Monkeys game.
•  The name of the actor who played Pea Eye Parker in the TV miniseries Streets of Laredo.
• A depiction of a yawk yawk in Australian Aboriginal folklore.

I found all this information quite handily without leaving the family room. Without leaving my recliner, to be honest. Having a laptop computer and wireless Internet access has changed the way I watch television and read books. It’s changed the conversations I have with the LWW. It’s changed the way I participate in meetings, workshops and classes. When any question or topic comes up, I can get information from the “datasphere” to which I am always connected.

And the datasphere is getting bigger all the time. Our school libraries, study halls areas and most classrooms now have wireless connectivity. Our district’s major meeting rooms are connected. At many conferences I attend, the entire convention center is, yes, wireless. Whole cities are talking about becoming wireless. On a rural golf course yesterday afternoon, I was able to use my Sprint-enabled Treo to check our local Kiwanis website for the name of guy who had just participated in the putting contest at our fundraiser. That’s connectivity.

So why call this blog entry “disappointed”? Because another damn school year is starting with my students not having immediate, continuous access to this same datasphere. And the simple reason is that there is still not a device available that is right for kids and schools. Where is the computing/communications hardware gizmo that:

• Weighs less than two pounds?
• Runs at least eight hours on a battery charge?
• Is 802.11x compliant?
• Can be dropped without breaking?
• Comes only with a full featured web browser for software?
• Has a screen that can be read for a long time without eyestrain?
• And sells at a price point most parents can afford – let’s say under $200?

Come on Apple, Dell, HP, Gateway, Sony, etc. Make one of these devices and you will sell (and make) millions. As it stands, it will be a cold day in hell before I encourage my schools to participate in a one-to-one computer program given the current state of laptops and PDAs – way too expensive, too delicate, too complex, too short on battery life, too high maintenance, too hard to read. I don’t want a machine designed for a rich businessperson but for an active kid!

I want my students to have ready access to the datasphere – now! Increasingly, I’m convinced such connectivity is the only thing that will fundamentally change how education is done. Teachers will need to become process, not content, experts. Education will be radically individualized. Boredom will end. Information literacy will be the major basic skill set. Independent learning will be practiced on a daily, no, hourly basis. Learning will become 24/7 – with kids actually learning during the school day as well as outside of it.

Where is the iPage that meets my few modest requirements for a kid-friendly computing device?

 

A simple question to start the year

One never knows what the e-mail will bring. Yesterday this question came:

I was wondering if you agree or disagree with this quote, and why: "the more powerful technology becomes, the more indispensable good teachers are.

Interesting idea, and quite the opposite of what many policymakers envision: that technology will "teacher-proof" education.

So I expect that whether one agrees or not depends on how one defines "powerful technology." If it is only to teach basic skills through drill and practice, integrated learning systems, distance education that retains the same pedagogies used in F2F instruction,  then no - these uses require few teaching skills.

But if the technology is used to help students become information literate, effective problem solvers, and powerful communicators, the role of the teacher becomes even more important, especially as the teacher's role becomes process expert rather than content expert.

I'm hoping others can formulate a better response...