Another golden oldie

As I was transfering files, I stumbled on this that I shared in a parent newsletter in 1990...

Most educators feel students who have the greatest access to computers are the most educationally fortunate. However, Tom Snyder, an educational software developer, envisions a time when this might not be the case. As a part of a speculative timeline, he writes for a 1999 entry:

“A presidential commission has been established to study the growing inequity in computer allocation. Apparently, most computers are being used to deliver instruction to poor kids in the inner-city schools, putting these students at a clear disadvantage. All the best jobs and places in incoming college classes are going to applicants who were ‘fully teacher taught.”

from “Technology, Trends, and Gizmos: A Timeline for the ’90s and Beyond” Technology & Learning, September 1990, 92-98. 

Were you a visionary in 1990? 

Bridging two mountains

Yesterday's Edublogger conference here at NECC in Atlanta was as exciting as only being in a huge group of like-minded educators can be. Keywords of engagement, authentic learning/assessment, creativity, information fluency, and global citizenry were common as ticks on a coon dog. (Sorry, being in the South has had an effect.)

What I wonder, though, is if education technology change isn't creeping up on many of us in that group from quite a different direction - through the use of technology to assess and use data to determine learning needs of individual students.

Now, by "learning needs" I would suggest that there is a dichotomy of what constitutes "learning needs" in the educational community. Look at the NETS standards, the blogosphere, and the work of Stiggens and Kohn and other progressive educators, engagement, authentic learning/assessment, creativity, information fluency, and global citizenry are the goals - the mountain the group yesterday is trying to climb.

But another real mountain exists in schools and classroom that may be more representative: the goals represented by NCLB, summative assessments, and the focus on basic skill attainment and fact-heavy content standards. To put it bluntly, test scores are of more concern to my teachers and administrators than nearly anything else. Too many of the things we believe in remain "nice extras" or more likely, distractions for the classroom teacher.

Some teachers like Vicki Davis seemed to have naturally bridged the gulf between the mountains - through her personal courage and belief that  this way of learning is just plain more important than test scores. But how do will build bridges for the rest of the educational world?

I can think of some important ones: 

Make sure assessments are used to differentiate instruction. We need to use the data we get from tests to individualize the educational process. As a teacher, I now empirically KNOW that I have kids with different skill levels in my classes. But I have to now take that knowledge and make sure every child is custom educated - not mass education. This might be the way educational technology (value-added testing) that may have the biggest positive impact on classrooms (and was not really addressed by we edubloggers yesterday to any great extent - at our peril.)

Have 21st skills recognized as being as important as the 3rs.  The "refreshed NCLB" requirements must include holding schools and teachers accountable for making sure students master the skills represented by the "refreshed" NETS standards. This will be a tough sell. (Despite the lip service, I am not convinced that business really wants creative thinkers.)

Make the case for engagement = learning. On a gut level, all teachers know that a student that is not engaged at least a certain level is not learning. (Duh.) But is there research saying the the greater the level of engagement, the greater the amount of learning? This is important given technology's power in engaging our Net Generation students. We can't rely on gut feeling to make this case, especially in a high stakes testing environment.

As you go through the vendor area (or look at ed tech publications), make a mental note of which products and services support the constructivist/21 century skill mindset (read Sylvia Martinez's June 23rd Generation Yes blog entry) and how many support the NCLB basic skills emphasis. Folks, the big money is going to the second group.

There is an old maxim about a person who climbs a huge mountain, only to turn around on reaching the summit to see the rest of his party has climbed another mountain. Are you climbing the same mountain as the rest of the educators in your schools? And if not, how do you build bridges between the peaks? 

7 Imps

Seven mental imps of information/technology integration

I've been asked to give a 20 minute talk tomorrow about "integrating information literacy and technology skills good" in schools. I am a little hesitant to do so.

While our district has done more than many to make this happen and we have been working on this for a very long time,  we still have a long way to go before I would say we have anything approaching an exemplary implementation.

So I think I will use my 20 minutes to visit about some impish mindsets I've seen working against schools trying to make sure students have good IT/IL skills. Here are some of the detrimental ones I've encountered: 

1. IMperial. IT/IL skills are only for necessary for kids going on to college or for "gifted and talented" students. Take a look at today's jobs. Everybody needs "to be able to use information and technology in order to solve problems and answer questions."  And ironically, activities that teach IT/IL skills tend to be hands-on and appeal to those kids with less than a purely academic bent.

A corollary is that IT/IL skills are only about traditional research methods - footnotes, secondary sources, bibliographies, margins, footnotes. Yes, some kids need to know how to do this, but everyone needs to answer the pragmatic everyday sorts of questions.

2. IMPosing. IT/IL curriculum and the activities that teach it must be big and complex. Oh, and we should be extra fussy about what we call them. This may be the biggest mistake we make. Having good IL skills basically boils down to being able to competently answer these questions:

• What is my question or problem?
• Where do I get reliable information in order to answer it?
• How do I communicate my findings to others?
• How do I know I've been successful?

And students need to know the technology skills which will help them answer these questions.

Oh, the Super3 simplifies even further: Plan, Do, Review. Or look at Alice Yucht's Flip-It model. This does not need to be rocket surgery.

And problem-solving needs to be an everyday occurrence - not something done in huge blocks of time, once or twice a year. It's also easy to get hung up on names - Information Literacy, Technology Literacy, Information Fluency, Computer Skills, Information Problem-Solving, Research Skills, etc.. Yes, it probably is important symbolically, but not to the teachers who need to teach the skills.

3. IMPediment. Teachers may choose whether to teach IT/IL skills. As Bernajean Porter likes to say, "When something is optional, some people will choose NOT to do it." To keep these skills from being "optional," we need state-mandated standards and state-required assessments. Federal would even be better.

Oh, and to think the librarians and technologist alone can teach these skills is a big mistake.

4. IMPosition. Teaching IT/IL skills are viewed as an imposition, not improvement, to the curriculum. Here's a simple suggestion: Integrate IT/IL projects and activities into the least successful units of the curriculum, not the best. Think about it.

5. IMProbable. Teaching IT/IL skills can be done without resources.  Yes, kids do better when there are adequate print and electronic resources. (And this means more than just the "free" Internet.)

Probably the most important resource teachers and students need access to, however, is an information/technology professional - a great librarian - with whom they can partner. 

6. IMPossible. The IT/IL skill curriculum is so complicated that it is impossible to implement. Stages and planning are requires - as is determination and stamina. Our district (see A Curriculum Built Not to Last) took two years to build the framework, revises every year, and does a formal review of the standards and benchmarks about every five years. It is a big task, but it can be done if there is a will. How do we revise now to look at Pink's right brain skills?

7. IMPasse. Standardized tests are the only measure of a student's (and school's) performance. This probably the biggest barrier to the implementing good IL/IT curriculum at present. Yup, readin' and 'rithmatic' are important - but this is truly the 4th 'R that everyone needs. I believe our parents and community know this - it's just Feds that don't seem to get it. Perhaps for sinister reasons. We need to show the courage of our convictions and provide every child a full education - despite the DOE. Too bad it can't be with its help. Inform your parents that schools are more than the some of their scores.

 There are some other "imps" at work here as well. The task of integrating information and technology skills across the curriculum in every school is also IMPerative, IMPortant, and will IMProve education. If we don't, we are IMProvident.

 Any Imps to add to this IMPressive list?  ;-)