Three futures: Duncan Middle School

I am working on the last chapter of my technology "survival" book for classoom teachers. Its focus is on the future and how it is up to each of us to help create the future we desire for ourselves and our students. The chapter will start with three possible scenarios for "high tech schools," based on trends I see today. I'll be sharing the drafts of these scenarios over the next few days. Your comments, as always, are welcome.

 Duncan Middle School

Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard. Fritz Dressler

Carl watches carefully as his language arts teacher uses the interactive white board to show the relationship between a subject and its pronoun. Carl knows that he may be expected to demonstrate his mastery of the concept at the IWB himself. While the subject itself is not that exciting, Carl watches carefully and believes he has grasped the concept.

A few of Carl’s teachers are using technology in the classroom in interesting ways at Duncan Middle School - the only 7-9 building in this rural district. In social studies last year, his class adopted a sister school in Singapore and did a joint on-line problem-solving exercise that included a Skype video call; Carl still has a couple Singaporean students as Facebook friends from the experience. Math class uses calculators that are networked with the IWB.  The same math teacher regularly records lessons so they can be viewed multiple times on a video streaming site. In health class, the teacher spiced things up in the human sexuality unit by having students answer questions using a response system.

Now and then, the principal or another strange-looking person (who Carl later finds out is the technology director) brings visitors into classrooms to watch these technology-infused lessons. On its website, the school touts a “cutting-edge, high tech environment that builds 21^st century skills.”  

When students use technology in school, it is more often doing writing in the lab attached to the library or doing research using the school’s one set of aging laptops that travel in a cart - at least when those computers aren’t being used during the six formal testing periods each school year. Last year a teacher wrote a grant and received funding for small touch-screen devices that the kids used for a couple weeks to complete a science activity.

More often though his teachers lecture accompanied by bad slideshows, his school still uses out-dated print textbooks, and photocopied worksheet completion is a daily exercise. Carl’s backpack weights 30 pounds and he uses it to carry home messages from school to his parents. While there is no school-wide ban on personal mobile use, most of Carl’s teachers will confiscate personal devices if they see students using them during class. State-wide budget cuts and unpassed operating levies, however, have resulted in average class sizes of over 40 students, so texting during class usually goes undetected.* Most kids use their own mobiles in school since the most popular social networking sites are blocked by the school’s filter.

When Carl starts a class, he really doesn’t know how or if the teacher will be using technology, or if so how or how often – there are no common expectations except that all teachers will use the district’s electronic gradebook and attendance program. Carl doesn't know it but technology use is not a part of the district’s strategic plan, its curriculum development, or staff development efforts. 

Despite large sums of dollars being spent on hardware, infrastructure and support, technology seems to be having no impact on either test scores (just good enough to avoid sanctions) or the other goals of the school. In this way, the Duncan Middle School has changed very over the past ten twenty thirty years. 

* While the local community will not pass a referendum for operating funds or technology enhancements, it still expects all students to be in school six hours a day, five days a week and a full slate of extra curricular offerings be offered. This has led to larger class sizes, fewer elective classes, aging textbooks, library books and computers, and deferred building maintenance. And a loss of students through open enrollment to neighboring districts and to charter schools.

Three futures: Dewey High School

I am working on the last chapter of my technology "survival" book for classoom teachers. Its focus is on the future and how it is up to each of us to help create the future we desire for ourselves and our students. The chapter will start with three possible scenarios for "high tech schools," based on trends I see today. I'll be sharing the drafts of these scenarios over the next few days. Your comments, as always, are welcome. 

Scenario Two: John Dewey High School

... children in one set of schools are educated to be governors;
children in the other set of schools are trained for being governed. Jonathan Kozol

Carlos’s mobile is behaving strangely. And it’s a bad time for this to happen since one of his biggest projects is due on Friday. And project-based learning is at the core of Carlo’s suburban magnet high school education.

On the four days he attends school*, Carlos spends the majority of his time in the learning commons – a huge room that contains groupings of tables, chairs, and soft seating. The offices of teachers and specialista are around the perimeter of the room allowing students easy access to them. Carlos has a personal workspace but he rarely uses it.

Meeting with his learning groups, Carlos spends most of his time completing multi-disciplinary, collaborative projects that require research, problem-solving and communication components.  He does meet at least twice a week with his teacher/advisor in a classroom setting, but the majority of his time is spent working with one of his learning teams –  both online and off - in the building and outside the building.

The projects that form the core of Carlos’ school work are carefully designed to insure that state standards are addressed, that the work is relevant to Carlos, and that his work is authentically assessed. Developing “self-assessing” learners is a major goal of John Dewey High. Carlos met the basic standards of writing, reading, mathematics, and technological literacy before he left eighth grade. High school is for applying those skills and practicing "right brain" dispositions.

Carlos likes using a lightweight tablet mobile** with a 10” touch screen as his personal communication/ creation/ research device. His is literally never without it, and of course the school is fully wireless with open Internet access. Other students prefer laptops, smartphones or netbooks, but the purpose is the same – to keep in contact with their peers, their teachers, resources, and their own work. Due to the individualized nature of learning at the school, textbooks have all but disappeared and those remaining are electronic and leveled. Dewey High does have some more powerful computers for more complex tasks like video editing.

Carlos loves school and works hard, but his mother who is an electrical engineer and member of the parent advisory council has concerns. She worries that Carlos's coursework lacks the rigor that is needed to prepare students for college - especially in math and the sciences. In fact, performance on state and national tests and participation in AP classes is below average at Dewey High and colleges report a high percentage of freshmen needing remedial classes. Other parents worry that graduates won’t have the common basics of history, literary and scientific information.

* At the high school level, school’s custodial responsibilities are less important. Students are required to attend 2 1/2 days, but many attend more to see friends and work in F2F teams. For a longer description of a similar school vision see Miles's Library: Annotated.

** Carlos prefers his own moblle but the school provides them to students whose families cannot afford them or in an emergency basis such as when a device needs repair. Since all of Carlos's work is stored in the cloud, his library media specialist loans him a netbook with a webbrowser and wireless connectivity.



LM_Net needs your support

LM_Net was my first (and only) PLN for many, many years. So my ears perked up when I read this plea...

The recent financial recession has taken its toll on the LM_NET general operating fund.  Although your LM_NET membership is free, there are monthly operating expenses for servers and part-time list managers. We need to meet these expenses to offer LM_NET service to you.

This is our first fund drive appeal to all LM_NETters. We have a strong community of LM_NET users and hope to have 100% participation in this call to action. If every LM_NET member could contribute $1 we would have enough funds to cover operating expenses for the whole year!  We encourage you to donate $1 minimum.

To donate to "What is LM_NET Worth to You?"  please click this TinyURL which will take you to the Paypal site: http://tinyurl.com/4o7gj2g

 or

If you would prefer NOT to use PayPal for your LM_NET contribution, try this alternative.

Check Payable to:  Bennett, Walker and Wurster
Memo:  For LM_NET

Mail to:
Sue Wurster/ LM_NET
729 Finnegan Rd
Potsdam, NY 13676

Blue Skunk readers who are also LM_Net subscribers, what else do you have to spend you moldy old money on? I am giving $100 - $1 for me, and $1 for 99 of you who are dead beats.

Here's my little ode to LM_Net:

Continuing Education

Head for the Edge, Library Media Connection, September 2008

You Know You’re a Librarian in 2008 when…you know more librarians in Texas than you do in your home state because of LM_Net.

Peter Milbury and Mike Eisenberg, the founders and moderators par excellence of LM_Net for the past 15 years, announced last November that they are passing the torch.

For the one or two of you reading this who don’t know about LM_Net, it has been the mainstay electronic mailing list for an estimated 100 million school librarians in 2 million countries, on a dozen other planets, and at least two identified alternative universes. It produces in excess of a billion e-mail messages each day - 10 billion on “recipe day.” (These numbers are rough estimates.)

I was an early subscriber and participant on LM_Net using my university “vax” account back in 1992 when I first joined. This was 1200 baud modem dial-up, line interface, pre-WWW, uphill-both-directions-in-the-snow Internet days. Not soft and cushy like young‘uns have it today with your graphical interfaces and wirelessness. The computer screen was hard to read by lamplight, too.

Anyway, LM_Net became my first Internet “continuing education” experience. And the learning began early.

It was my second year as library media supervisor and I was getting lots of push-back from the district librarians I had inherited. I was determined to make them tech integration specialists and they seemed just as determined to remain print-only librarians. After one particularly frustrating day, I turned on my computer, opened my e-mail, and just let rip about the reactionary, troglodytic, myopic, nature of school librarians, concluding that they had better damn well wake-up and smell the coffee or they would all be replaced with techs and not to let the door hit ‘m where the good lord split’m on the way out. And off the rant went to LM_Net.

Let me put it this way - I got some reaction. I knew librarians had good vocabularies, but even I learned some new words. I believe after that other LM_Netters opened my e-mails simply wondering what idiotic thing I might say next. In LM_Net I found my voice.

But more importantly, I found colleagues who offered information, encouragement, and support. It was my first true “continuous learning” experience not because I was the one doing the teaching, but because we were all learning together – as we do to this day. The virtual community built by LM_Net (a professional learning community before they were so named) was a lifeline and sanity-keeper for many of us.