12 Contrarian Statements

Contrarian: : a person who takes an opposite or different position or attitude from other people. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrarian>

The introduction my friend and colleague Gail Dickinson once gave me before a conference keynote remains the one of which I am most proud:

Doug not only pokes holes in sacred cows but drags them into public places and commits indecent acts with them.  

It is with great glee that I often tackle sacred cows, but I also like to think it is with great purpose as well. While I believe, to a degree, in the "wisdom of the crowd" philosophy, I also remember the old parenting adage, "If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff as well?"

Anyway, here are some positions I've taken that I hope have rocked the boat a little: 

1. Adhering to copyright's safe harbor guidelines and other non-user friendly fair use advice is unprofessional. See here and here and here.
2. Technology should not transform education. I harbor deep skepticism about the ability of technology to change education in powerful and positive ways. Yes, sometimes technology can support (or even make possible) best teaching practices - but teaching and learning always come before the technology.
3. Fixed schedules for librarians can be a good thing. There IS value in a library program that includes regularly scheduled classes. 
4. Collaboration is not always a good thing. Fine if it is a means to an end, but not an end in itself as library literature too often assumes. See here and here.
5. State/national program standards are irrelevant. School libraries and technology programs should be tailor-made to suit individual schools rather than conform to a set of state or national standards. 
6. Education is not capable of large scale change. Society doesn't really WANT schools to change. 
7. Librarian offices are detrimental to effective libraries. Librarians should not have offices. Their desks should be on the floor. Where they are accessible to students and staff. Period.
8. "Best of" lists are not in the best interest of PLNs. Even when one is on them.
9. Requiring a print source in student research is not needed. No, one of the requirements of a term paper resource list is not print.
10. That "21st Century Skills" are nothing new. We're just asking all students, not children of the wealthy to master them. 
11. Reading and writing are being trumped by media literacy. If you can't interpret and communicate in visuals and sound in this post-literate society, you're in trouble.
12. Face-to-face educational experiences will always be better than online. Sorry, I have personally yet to experience an online class, presentation, MOOC, or meeting that even comes close to the learning I experience when working with others in real time, in the same room. 

Patton is reputed to have said, "If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking." If you are not quesitoning every movement, every philosophy, every change effort, every piece of leadership advice, every marketing gimmick, start. 

Including not always agreeing with me.

Cartoon by Brady Johnson

We need the pauses - for society to adjust

According to the survey looking at consumers' mobile behavior, 63 percent of the 1,000 Americans surveyed said they check their smartphone at least once every hour. Nine percent said they check every five minutes. http://www.smartplanet.com October 22, 2013

In his post Taking Advantage of the Pause, Jeff Utecht shares this graphic:

and reflects...

...we go through moments of great technological growth…usually around new hardware….and then we have these plateau periods. They might not be as flat as they look in this image…but there are definitely slower periods I think of innovation as we prepare for the next disruption.

I would like to think that each new technology (or incarnation of a computing power that Jeff lays out) has been accompanied by new educational uses of technology - that the "new thing" really did disrupt old and ineffective teaching practices.* 

The plateaus are needed, not necessarily to allow educators or reformers to plan, but for the greater society to adapt to and accept the new technology. Unless the technology is valued by the larger population, it will not be accepted in school. Too many of us forget that society shapes schools - schools do not shape society. (Even the old belief that education creates a more egalitarian social structure, has pretty much been exposed as a myth.) 

Schools will not adopt a technology use until society as a whole as adopted it. Smartphones and tablets are increasingly being used in a variety of ways (all over the SAMR model spectrum) in our district. Inspired leadership by our tech integrations specialists, curriculum director and professional development coordinator deserve much of the credit.

But I also think we have to recognize that society has accepted the ubiquity of such devices. This graphic (Huff Post) is telling: 

So while it serves consultants, pundits, and bloggers well and gives many educational leaders the illusion of "progress," trying to make an societally unaccepted technology an agent for change is unproductive. As the opening quote suggests, mobile, ubiquitous technologies like smartphones and tablets are now part of the American culture. And so it follows they are being rapidly adopted in schools as well. Not jut the devices, but the belief that the ability to instantly acquire factual information is a more important skill than rote memorization. 

If Jeff's model is correct (looks good except for laptops and the Internet being out of sequence), wearable computing next. The GoogleGlass or what not will be found useful in education. But it will take Moms and Dads and younger teachers finding wearablity normal before that happens. Expect resistance:

Teacher: 1,2,3 eyes on me.
Students respond: 1,2 eyes on you. (Yeah, right.)

Jeff, I like the "pauses" too. Just for a different reason.

____________________________

* In my experience, technology is additive rather than disruptive. Just as we still have labs of desktop computers, we still have teachers who lecture. As some teachers begin to "gamify" their teaching practices, how many are still using traditional computer games? The graphics may have improved, but has Oregon Trail really changed in its 40 years of existance?

Circa 1974 on Apple II (an earlier version ran on a minicomputer in 1971)  

iOS version, 2009

From non-existent to numero uno - the power of friends!

When Teacher Certification Degrees listed its Top 50 School Library Blogs yesterday, the Blue Skunk did not make the cut*. But overnight, thanks to a little e-mailing by my friend Sara Kelly Johns, the BS blog (funny how the initials are so fitting), is now first. 

The blogs are chosen by:

Our list of top school library blogs is based on website popularity and social media engagement as measured by the number of sites linking to the blog, Google Page Rank, Moz’s Page Authority, MozRank, and number of Twitter followers. Each metric is given a weight in our ranking formula to determine the order. If you notice missing or incorrect data you can contact us and we will update the list.

and the site invites readers to recommend school library blogs to add to this list.

At the risk of sounding horrendously ungrateful, I continue to be bothered by such rankings, lists, and awards.  Selection and ranking criteria equate popularity and quality - a dangerous equation. While there is a place for a book being number one on the NYT Best Seller list and for being a Pulitzer Prize winner, the two designations should never be confused.

I know the argument for such lists is that they are a guide to newbies to either the profession or to personal learning networks. And perhaps that in some way justifies such compilations. Bus as I wrote back in 2008 in On ranking, awards and other nonsense:

Do we actually want competitive blogging? How many of [Alfie] Kohn's negative behaviors [described in Punished by Rewards] may well be (or are now) demonstrated among the edublogosphere because of rankings and awards? Don't bloggers mostly write for their own intrinsic reasons - to clarify their own thinking, to record their daily observations, to reflect willfully, to share selflessly, to converse constructively with those of both like and unlike minds?

I suppose pissing contests are just human nature. But comparing the size (popularity) of mine to the size (popularity) of yours seems the antithesis of the "I'll share mine if you share yours" world of personal learning networks.

In a season that celebrates gratitude, this post is probably out of place. But I will say that I am totally grateful:

• For friends like Sara
• For other library and technology bloggers who inspire me everyday
• For readers who comment and argue and make me think
• For a society that values the freedom of expression

Let's just figure out a more reliable way to evaluate educational blogs than rankings. Oh, how accurate can any list of library blogs be that doesn't include Joyce Valenza's Never Ending Search? [An oversight since corrected.]

Enjoy your turkey!

 * The Blue Skunk is listed as one of the Top 50 School Technology Blogs. I've always said that "I swing both ways - libraries and technology." As Woody Allen once said “Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.” So my chance of being on a "best of list" doubles as well?