This too shall pass - I don't think so

 

I am constantly amazed by educators who think they can ignore, outlive, avoid, or defeat any efforts in their schools to improve education using technology. In the schools where I've worked, classrooms have had at least one computer for twenty-five years or more. Yet, their daily use with kids (not just for professional productivity) seems more an anomaly than a regular, unremarkable practice.

Do some educators still believe that technology in education is a passing whimsy?

As a classroom teacher and building librarian, I shuddered when the principal, superintendent, or curriculum director would attend a conference because it always seemed they would return with the latest magic educational bullet that would "fix" education. Back in the day, it was Madeline Hunter, career education, and multi-cultural gender-fair training. Today it's Response to Intervention, cultural proficiency, Danielson's Framework, and formative assessment. Throw in a little Webb's Depth of Knowledge, SAMR, formative assessment, PBIS, data-driven decision-making, et al, and it's little wonder today's classroom teacher reacts to change much the same way I did - sit quietly at the back of the room during the in-service, arms crossed, plotting how to keep teaching in the same way but just use the new terminologies of the educational "cure du jour." And thinking "This too shall pass."

While understandable, this survival strategy may no longer be successful. Culturally, technology is not a passing fashion. Online banking, CAT scans, and CAD/CAM have been and will be with us for quite some time. While it usually trails the rest of society, education does reflect it. Like it or not, kids and families will expect all teachers to use technology to improve learning opportunities. We are educating a generation of students who have learning styles, shaped by home technology use, unlike any generation we've seen before. These are kids who demand engagement and will not learn well in any environment where passivity is the expected behavior. And finally, this is the first generation of students in which every single one of them needs a high skill and knowledge set and the dispositions that will allow that learning to be put to good use. Culture, socio-ecomic level, English language proficiency will not and cannot be an excuse for school not to teach every kid that shows up. 

So here's the deal. As an educator I have a limited amount of time and energy to devote to improving my professional practice. Why not think strategically and use it to learn those practices that won't pass, that will serve me well for the remainder of my career?

E-mail suppression not management

As our district migrates our e-mail system from two (Outlook and Gmail) e-mail systems to one (Gmail), I've been hearing some rumbling about the burden e-mail places on already busy people. No, moving to Gmail does not increase in the amount of e-mail received. But now that attention has been brought to bear on this popular and important means of communication, staff members have cause to notice just how damn much e-mail does get sent!

I too often feel overwhelmed by the amount of e-mail I receive each day. And I've done a little informal research on minimizing the time suck e-mail becomes. 

While much of the "zero-inbox" crowd focuses on how you treat incoming e-mail (prioritized, file, sort, respond instantly, read at set times, etc.), I believe that the focus need to change from "managing the deluge" to "slowing the deluge." And that, I'm afraid. means personal changes and changes in organizational culture.

Here are some ideas, none original:

1. To get less mail, send less mail. Every time I send an e-mail, I am guessing my rate is about 2.5 e-mails in return - with perhaps 50% actually related to the topic at hand. Don't say you weren't warned. 

I believe there should be a $5 charge each time a person uses "reply to all." Reply to all, you just may hear from all.

2. Use the dang phone. E-mail is a poor communications medium for anything nuanced, difficult to comprehend, or possibly incriminating. Most of us have a phone on our desk or in our pockets. (An amazing device that converts voice to sound and sounds back into voice for the receiver!) You're not a Luddite if you use it for voice calls now and then. I will respond to a conversation once or twice and then it's telephone time for me.

3. Watch the cc: use. Not everyone understands that cc: means those in the cc line are not expected to respond to the e-mail. CC means that this was informational only. Oh, please don't cc your supervisor until you actually need his/her help solving a problem. You don't need CYA all the time. (Just keep a copy of your sent mail.) 

4. Use filters - a lot. You send me some stupid advert (mass e-mailing) that the spam filter didn't catch, I'll take 30 seconds and build a filter of your domain name (@andallthatfollows.com) and e-mail from your domain will never darken my door again. I bet I have 550+ domains in my filter that go directly from the cloud to my trash without every having to pass GO or collect 200 seconds of my attention.

5. Stop doing work e-mail outside of work hours. You don't like your boss harassing you after 5 or on the weekends? Well, don't harass the poor souls you manage or work with off hours either. See: 8-5 e-mail plan.

6. Let the subject heading do the work. Here are a few ideas from the 99u website:

FYI – For Your Information. It replies that no reply is needed, and is usually a short message. Example: “FYI Free Donuts in the Kitchen”.

URGENT - Used for when something is really urgent. Don’t use it if something is not urgent. And if something is truly, truly urgent, it’s best to follow up with a call or IM as well. Example: “URGENT: Final reminder to file quarterly team reports”

EOM – End of Message. This is usually used when the entire email is in the subject line. Example: Elevator is broken today, please use stairs EOM

NRN – No Reply Needed. Indicates that the receiver doesn’t need to reply. There is likely a body to the message but no response is needed. Example: “Jennifer wants you to call her back NRN”

NFA – No Further Action. Same as combination of FYI and NRN. For your notification only, no action or reply needed. Example: “Mr. Tanaka will be in at 11am not 10am NFA”

I also think we need to remember that e-mail is not an add-on to our jobs, but an intregal part to our jobs. Like meetings and reports, we may not like them or feel they are always productive, but e-mails are just plain fact of life in doing education.

Any ways you've found not to manage, but control your e-mail? 

Image source

Scammers and the cost of ignorance

E-mails like this are making the rounds again (or maybe these come out all the time and I just happen to notice this one): 

I also received an e-mail similar to this but supposedly from Chase Bank, where I've never had an account.

These must work with percent of those who receive them, despite the bright red warning label place on the message by Google.  The naive, the less-than-brilliant, the ignorant, the technologically fearful, the pathologically trustful all might send in the requested data asked for in e-mails like this.  I don't know specifically who would do this, but I'd bet dollars to donuts, somebody in your district with a Gmail account will comply to this spammer's request.

It was reported last month that Russian hackers have posted something like 5 million Gmail usernames and passwords on the Internet. Google denies any culpability and says only 2% are valid. Might the source of these passwords be scams like the one above? No clue.

Here's the deal: we have to teach adults in our schools as well as kids how to be safe online. This includes everyone who has a school e-mail address including cooks, custodians, educational assistants, paras, clerical staff, and administrators. PD in schools can't just be for the classroom teacher.