Alpha wolf syndrome and why it hurts technology efforts

... truly great technology teachers know what things beginning learners really need to know to make them productive and what things might be conveyed that only serve to impress a captive audience with the technologist’s superior intellect. (“The email address is comprised of the username, the domain name, the subdomain name, the computer name, all referenced in a lookup table at the NIC.” Like that.) It’s an alpha wolf thing, especially common with males. Be aware of it, and strive as an instructor instead to use charm and a caring demeanor with the pack to achieve dominance. Seven qualities of highly effective technology trainers, Indispensable Teacher's Guide to Computer Skills.

Yeah, you still run into the wanna-be alpha wolves in ed tech circles now and then. I've been seeing it a lot when talking security issues. Somehow, the sales folks think that the more terms they bandy about related to making one's data safe and network reliable and the more frightening the consequences of even the slightest oversight, the more likely I am to scramble for a PO and an account code.

As a pretty good bullshitter, myself, I am pretty sure that the sales folks who will later turn the actual work of doing a security analysis over to engineers don't really understand about 90% of their own jargon. Ask a question and listen to the hemming and hawing over a response.

The danger of substituting tech-speak for actual English actually has a serious consequences. If I cannot make myself clearly and precisely understood in regard to network and data security, I will not be able to convince the powers that be that little things like redundancy and back ups and updated servers and staff security training is necessary - as is the funding for it.

It's fairly common knowledge that underfunding in technology is often the result of poor communication skills by those of us who work in technology. We majored in computer science after all, not English! (Well, some of us majored in English.) 

Just as I urged technology staff development instructors years ago to avoid the alpha wolf syndrome and replace it with clear and precise messaging, so I would advise technology leaders as well. You won't get a budget if you can't help others understand how the services it buys clearly benefit them. Can the TLAs (three letter acronyms).

The librarian and the tech integrationist - compete or complement?

I've been asked to do an interesting workshop this fall. An association of international schools has asked me to help answer the question "What are the mutual roles of the school librarian and the building technology integration specialist?"

For buildings that have both positions, the lines of responsibility are blurring.

Library media specialists are increasingly instrumental in providing and teaching students how to use digital resources for problem-solving along with assisting teachers in curating these resources to be used for instructional purposes.

Technology integration specialists have seen the ISTE Standards for Students become less and less about "how to use technology" and more about how students can use technology to collaborate, create, and problem-solve using those technologies.

Schools are repurposing "media center" spaces into learning commons, productivity centers, and makerspaces. Who is in charge of these areas?

Who supports teachers as they work to incorporate new technologies (and catch up with older technologies) in the classroom? Who best fits ISTE role of "coach" as defined by Standards for Coaches?

Who evaluates and selects digital resources and tools?

Are there unique roles for each position (book stuff for the librarians, hardware stuff for the tech integrationists)? Or should there be a single job description that includes both?

In 1998 I managed to insult both librarians and technologists with a snarky little colum called "Librarians Are From Venus; Technologists Are From Mars" playing off common stereotypes of both positions.

I would like to think that in the past two decades we have moved beyond viewing each other as competing species, but view our roles as complimentary.

But the important question for many schools still remains "How do we define the role of each position?"

I don't have an easy answer but I'll be doing some research and keeping my ears open. And I hope during the workshop to facilitate discussions with representatives of both groups which will lead to  useful ideas.

Anything, you dear readers, care to share on the topic?

BFTP: Reading levels are political not educational

I shared this list from What Kids Are Reading; The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools, 2012 edition (80 page PDF) with the teachers and administrators in my district:

“Top 20 Books Read Among U.S. High Schoolers 2010-2011:

1. Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (ATOS book level 5.3)
2. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (4.5)
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (5.6)
4. Night, Elie Wiesel (4.8)
5. The Last Song, Nicholas Sparks (5.1)
6. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (5.3)
7. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (5.3)
8. Animal Farm, George Orwell (7.3)
9. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer (4.9)
10. A Child Called “It”, Dave Pelzer (5.8)
11. Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer (4.8)
12. The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan (4.7)
13. The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton (4.7)
14. Dear John, Nicholas Sparks (5.5)
15. Crank, Ellen Hopkins (4.3)
16. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (6.9)
17. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (7.3)
18. Lord of the Flies, William Golding (5.0)
19. The Giver, Lois Lowry (5.7)
20. Marked: A House of Night Novel, P.C. Cast (5.4)”

And one English teacher e-mailed back with the question/statement: "Hunger Games and To Kill A Mockingbird are .3 apart?"

What she is suggesting is that reading levels are pretty much meaningless if you are just counting polysyllabic words and sentence length* and not taking sophistication of theme, imagery, and interest into account.

Increasingly reading levels are being use as a political tool (In today's crummy schools kids are reading way below grade level!!!!) and not as a means of helping students find and choose materials appropriate for them. 

I've never understood how all kids could be "at grade level" in reading scores. Wouldn't an accurate "grade level" proficiency be determined by establishing the mean student reading level, with lots of kids reading better and lots of kids reading less well? If we apply this logic, couldn't we expect all kids to be at "grade level" in height and weight as well?

In our insane metric-driven teaching environment, there are still a few voices of reason. In the document above, check out section "IV: Librarian's Picks" by my friend Terri Kirk from Kentucky. She writes:

What should kids be reading?

Maybe I should start out with what students shouldn’t be reading! They shouldn’t be required to read books that are over 200 pages. They shouldn’t be reading things that are developmentally inappropriate, no matter what their reading level is.

“I hate to read” is a common saying among teenagers. However, many of them hate to read because they haven’t been allowed to read things that they like. The basic tenet of getting all students to read is to let them choose what they are interested in. 

Spoken like someone who wants kids to love to read, not just know how to read. Yeah, spoken like a librarian, not a politician. Oh, I wonder what the reading level of 50 Shades of Gray or the latest Vince Flynn thriller might be? Are we adults reading "below grade level" as well?

Folks, you see "reading level" proceed with caution.

*From the report, page 67:

The ATOS Readability Formula is a free text-analysis tool provided by Renaissance Learning to estimate the quantifiable dimension of text complexity. ATOS takes into account the most important predictors of text complexity—average sentence length, average word length, word difficulty level, and total number of words in a book or passage—to help educators assist students in finding books to read at appropriate levels

The ATOS Readability Formula is a free text-analysis tool provided by Renaissance Learning to estimate the quantifiable dimension of text complexity. ATOS takes into account the most important predictors of text complexity—average sentence length, average word length, word difficulty level, and total number of words in a book or passage—to help educators assist students in finding books to read at appropriate levels

Original post May 1, 2012