Ed World Q&A

I get requests for insights into technology use from authors now and again. Sort of a pain in the patootie, but they are also a good opportunity to reflect. How would YOU answer these fairly generic questions about ed tech use?

How would you characterize the current use of electronics in classrooms?
Technology is currently being used in the classroom to do administrative tasks (attendance, grading, communications). Instructionally, I see it simply amplifying what teachers had been doing prior to technology arriving on the scene. If a teacher was constructivist, group oriented, liked learning stations, etc. the technology supports this environment very nicely. If teachers are stand and deliver, lecture and worksheet types, the lectures may now include a PowerPoint and the worksheets are easier to read since they are word processed. The transformative expectations of technology that many of us hoped for have not been realized for the most part.

What is the biggest change in terms of integrating technology and electronics that you’ve seen in the past five years?
Its use for administrative tasks has become mandatory for all teachers. Teachers are using the results of online testing immediately to create small groups for differentiated instruction and for buildings to create growth plans. Intra-district communication has become 90% electronic – primarily e-mail. The use of the web by parents continues to grow – both for accessing general school information and for obtaining specific information about their own children’s progress in real time. Teachers are using more web resources, including streaming video. There is an increased use of reading and math software to help reach students not meeting state standards.

What do you see as the current trend in electronics use?
As the tools of Web 2.0 become more well known by teachers, their increased use is the trend du jour. Classroom uses of social bookmarking sites, wikis, and blogs allow easy collaboration on projects as well as a means of publishing one’s work to a wider audience of parents and community – if not the world. Not needing to know anything about html programming is helping to make publishers (and pundits) of everyone. Face to face (F2F) instruction is increasingly being supplemented by teacher-created online resources and activities establishing a hybrid learning environment – and 24/7 learning opportunities.

What is needed to help make the use of electronic devices more routine in classrooms? Or do you think that is not a pressing need?
A solid infrastructure and good training are critical. I’ve always argued that if the technology is not adequate, reliable and secure, teachers will not use it. Schools spend far too little of their budget making sure that the infrastructure is rock solid and sufficient, skimping big time on technicians and maintenance. We also continue to do a far less than stellar job on training teachers to use technology. We’ve done OK having them master basic productivity tools, but we really need to move beyond the 3 hour class on creating a podcast to having the genesis of the training come from the content area and its best practices, not from the technology department. That is when staff development in technology will be powerful.

What do you think of the recent report from the U.S. Department of Education indicating that using educational software did not increase math and reading scores?
I need to read it more closely, but a study indicating there is no difference between regular instruction and computer assisted instruction tells us something. For kids who do not respond to traditional instruction, technology offers another, equally effective means of teaching them. Second, in our district, technology use has never been about raising student test scores, but about helping students do project-based learning that develops higher-order thinking, research and communication skills – not measured on standardized tests. I would predict, however, that as educators learn to use reading and math instructional software better and the software itself improves (becomes more videogame-like?) we will see better test scores when it is used overall.

What does the future hold in terms of technology use in classrooms? What trends do you see coming up?
My big prediction is that 1:1 computing will soon be affordable. When parents can purchase a $200 device that allows their kids to connect wirelessly to the rest of the world and then insist that schools allow kids to use these devices throughout the day (already being done to some degree with cell phones), the classroom will be radically changed. This will be the meteor that disrupts the slow evolutionary path technology has been on so far. Today adults tune out of unimportant meetings when they have wireless access on their laptops. Students will do the same – X 10. Teachers will need to radically modify their practices to increase engagement – or become irrelevant.

http://see.msfc.nasa.gov/sparkman/Images/Deep%20Impact.gif

This endeth my Saturday morning rumination... 

Website woes

The Mankato Schools put up its district website in 1996 - among the first districts in Minnesota, if not the nation, to do so. I used the Internet Archive to retrieve what I think was our homepage "way back" then. (See graphic.) How times have changed.

About two years ago, I requested that the District Administration magazine review our district website. I enjoyed reading the other school website reviews and thought we could learn a thing or two from an outside set of eyes. Our review was published last month. I'm meeting with the superintendent about it this afternoon. I predict he isn't a real happy camper. Though definitely accurate, the tone was pretty harsh. I guess I asked for it.

While the district site has proven invaluable for public relations, for disseminating information to parents and the community, for providing ready links for students and educators to valuable resources and for displaying student work, it's a holy nightmare to maintain. And at the same time, its importance continues to grow.

We've written webpage content guidelines. We've established a webpage updating guidelines that assign responsibility to individuals. We created easy-to-use forms for teachers to use to create their own webpages. And about a year ago, we even conducted a web usability study. Still stuff  slips through the cracks.

Having an older site might be one of the problems. If www.isd77.k12.mn.us were a house, we would have started with a cottage. As the years have passed, we've tacked on a addition here, a bedroom there, a new garage out back.  I personally seem to be able to find everything having lived with this rambling structure for so long, so it is hard for me to be empathetic with the occasional user to whom the organization is not so transparent.

Standards for websites have also increased tremendously. Our pages not only need to be current, accurate and informative, but aesthetically pleasing, consistent, and easy to navigate. And include lots o' multimedia according to DA. Prettying up few pages isn't too tough - but changing thousands of pages takes some serious time.

Our district is just now figuring out that if we want people to take the job of building webmaster seriously, they actually ought to be paid for taking it on. Keeping the building webpages organized and current is no longer an amusing hobby for the techo-teacher. Oh, the building webmaster also needs to assume responsibility for teaching individuals how to keep up their own pages as well - and seeing that they do so. Quite a job.

Last year we migrated our secondary school websites to a company that specializes in hosting school websites. The switch has gone well enough that we plan to move the elementary schools and district pages there this summer. This won't be a panacea, but it will move us in the right direction.

Like so much of educational technology, websites have moved from novelty to helpful to crucial. They've become serious business and our level of commitment to them needs to be serious as well.

Had I know this job would be this hard, I'm not sure I'd have taken it! 

Secrets of success meme

Pete Reilly over at Ed Tech Journeys tagged me with this meme:

” List the top 5 to 10 things that you do almost every day that help you to be successful. They can be anything at all, but they have to be things that you do at least 4 or 5 times every week. Anything less than that may be a hobby that helps you out, but we are after the real day in and day out habits that help you to be successful.”

Of course this begs the question that one feels successful. Pete is pretty deep in his responses. I am not nearly so introspective, thoughtful or disciplined. Sorry.

1. Talk a walk. Take a nap. Drink two glasses of wine everyday and sneak the occasional cigarette. I walk about 3 miles every free lunch hour I have. I nap every chance I get. Drinking the wine might be why.

2. Use a spell checker but never trust it.  Goes for most technologies.

3. Quit working by 8PM on week nights and 1PM on weekends. No matter how tempting it is to keep plodding, quit to watch a movie or read a book or ride your bike or do something fun.

4. Find a chance to be kind. Offer support when criticism might have been expected.  I always liked Bradley Miller's quote, "Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar." Goes for old people too.

5. Take your retirement as you go. Don't wait to visit those places until you are 65 or older. You may not get older.

6. Visit your grandchildren as much as possible. Believe it or not, they grow up faster than one's own kids.

7. Buy your spouse/kids/friends/staff a present for no reason.

8. Be amazed as often as possible. Enjoy change rather than fight it. You won't stop it.

9. Read, read, read.  

10.  Never think you have all the answers. A little humility, a little self-depreciation, a little acknowledgment of confusion are always in order.

Here's passing the meme to these genuinely successful people... 

Jeff Utecht

Joyce Valenza

Scott Schwister 

Vicki Davis