Work With Hope

I want to be very clear as I start here that I take responsibility for all of this. 
 
A couple of weeks ago I ducked in to Twitter for a few minutes.  I have not been on Twitter as regularly in the past few months, but I have still enjoyed occasionally reading a few posts, saving a few good links, and occasionally posting a few things myself.  I have developed a pretty good network of people I follow, so I don’t have to sort through many pointless posts to get to useful material.  It’s also nice to have short “conversations” with friends that I seldom (if ever) see in person.
 
Reading a post from an educator I have not met, but whom I respect, I was referred to an instructional video on a topic that interested me.  I started the video, and the speaker started by introducing himself as an “Instructional coach and educational consultant.”. At this point I stopped the video, completely turned off by these titles.  I won’t justify my dislike of these kind of titles, I’ll simply say that I find them jargony and off-putting, and I’m pretty sure were I to show this video to a group of teachers, their experience would be much the same. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t know of anyone who takes a speaker more seriously because he is a “certified educational consultant.” My issue, but OK, it’s my blog.
 
Here’s where I made my mistake.  Since every week is “Snark Week” in my world, I wrote back to the originally poster (who did not make the video) and said , “I’m afraid you lost me at instructional coach and educational consultant :).” Please note the smiley…my thought was that we might both laugh about terms like this and move on.  
 
However, this wasn’t the reaction I received.  I won’t quote another person, but he was clearly offended by my judgmental approach.  We had a short exchange with me trying to explain my position, and he becoming angrier.  At a point he referred to my own profile (which is blank), and I said it wasn’t because I was concealing myself, rather pure laziness that kept me from putting in additional information.  The next time I want on Twitter I found that he had stopped following me. There was also a miffed message from the creator of the video.
 
This irked me.  I had followed this person for some time.  I liked his blog and had referred many people to it.  I was also hurt that someone would do this to me…I’m so likeable.  So I wrote a direct message to him saying that I found the whole thing silly and can we just get past it.  Soon after this, I saw a message where he accused me of being a spammer, blocked me, and notified his whole follower list of this action.  I stared at my screen stunned.  How could I be blocked?  I’m such a nice guy.
 
Looking back, it’s clear that I wasn’t such a nice guy. I forgot the key rule of Internet conversation that you need to be very cautious with sarcasm.  I should not have initiated a sarcastic exchange unless I knew we were on equal footing.  Second, once he registered irritation with my comment, I should have apologized and moved on rather than try to justify my position.  His comment showed that this was a sore point for him, and I was not going to be successful in changing his mind.  Finally, once I was unfriended, I should have taken the lesson and moved on.  It’s the classic example of digging a hole deeper.
 
Finally I looked at recent comments and saw that my “snark to value” ratio was way out of whack. It’s fun to banter, but unless you bring something to the table occasionally, there really is no reason for anyone to follow you.
 
Social media is fun, useful, and occasionally treacherous.
 
And if anyone unfriended me because I’m a spammer, please give me another chance.
 
As always, I welcome your comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot about professional development for teachers, particularly in the area of instructional technology. I’ve been involved in teaching teachers for more than 15 years, and I am one of an army in this area. I’d love to see a total of all of the money and time spent on these efforts in just our diocese, though this would possibly depress me.

The results, well, I can’t say that nothing has happened. Almost all teachers are able to use a computer, do word processing, use the grading software, and make PowerPoint presentations. However, as I look at the world of education, it seems that most are working at least a generation behind. PowerPoints are used as overheads; Smartboards are used to show PowerPoints, and students are being taught to make PowerPoints to accompany oral reports.  It’s a PowerPoint world, and we just live in it.

However, true transformation of thinking and practice in the classroom and out doesn’t seem to be happening.  Some of this can be attributed to a lack of equipment, but most of it is about mindset.  Technology is still in a box, a set of tricks, rather than a way of navigating the world.  

I think my frustration is more fundamental.  I just don’t know how you teach someone to operate in a technology rich environment.  I can teach skills and show people new programs, but I can’t often make them self sufficient or able to grow independently.  I can give fish (or sell fish), but I can’t seem to get them to fish on their own.  

Partially I think has to do with the complexity of this changing environment.  If someone were to ask “Teach me to be like you,” (no one does) I would have to say, I can’t.  The way I relate to technology is based on daily immersion in reading articles, listening to podcasts, and using every new tool (both hardware and applications) that I can get me hands on, and I have been doing this more or less for 15 years.  I’m not saying this in self-satisfaction, rather this is a source of frustration.  How do I replicate this experience in an inservice session or a talk or a blogpost?

Expectations exacerbate the problem.  Many teachers seem to believe that technology is a skill that can be learned through limited training, like riding a bicycle.  In reality it is much more like learning a musical instrument, taking extensive practice for competency and always with new level to master.

I think the real message is not one that will be popular, because ultimately the message is that it is up to the individual.  There is no workshop, video, or demonstration that will change the way a person relates to the world.  Unless you fish, you will never learn how to fish.

if you see a tech Buddha on the side of the road…kill him.

As I started to become convinced that the iPad might have real possibilities as a productivity device, I heard one consistent comment from those questioning the device.
 
“But what about Flash?”
 
Ten second background, Flash is a format for playing video and allowing for animation within websites.  Until recently it has been the most prevalent format.  With this, Adobe, the company who owns it, has held sway over much of the development of the web.
 
When it was released, the iPad was incapable of playing flash.  Browsers could be downloaded to convert Flash into html5, the animation format  used by the iPad, but these were clunky.  Apple seemed resolute that they had no intention of building Flash capability into their operating system, so iPad users had to make peace with the fact that they were going to live without it.  Other tablets immediately marketed that they were flash compatible.  It seemed that this was going to be a clear dividing line between the different products.
 
So, what happened?
 
As the numbers of iPads grew and their applications moved into businesses and schools, content providers knew that they could not afford not to have their product on the iPad, so they shifted.  More and more content became available in html5 and more flash applications became available as iPad apps.  A few weeks ago Adobe announced that they were moving away from their support for flash for mobile devices.  The great divide wasn’t a divide at all. 
 
What does this show?
 
If a platform is good, and if it reaches critical mass in distribution,then the world will come to it.  This is important thing for educators and others to remember about this and other devices.  Don’t panic over what a platform cannot do, instead do what it does, and the rest will catch up…because they have to.
 
As always, I welcome your comments.

Yesterday I talked about characteristics of the current school year that hinder school change.  Today I want to suggest two complimentary possible solutions that could be implemented fairly easily. 
 
As I mentioned yesterday, the key problem is the lack of time between the start of the year and the tractor-beam pull of the holidays beginning early in October.  One way to fix this would be putting more time at the beginning of the year.  Many secondary schools are currently experimenting with early to mid August starting dates in order to line up semesters with the Christmas break.  Though I see some challenges to conducting final exams in the middle of the most mind-numbing time of the year, I will be very interested in seeing whether these schools are able to accomplish more in the extra two to three weeks.  
 
I do know that there are challenges in making a change like this, but I think we don’t face and answer them because there is a dangerous assumption that the school year as we have it now is working.  As I say with many challenges, if we wanted to do it, we would do it.
 
OK, that’s half.  The other half would be adding a few half days on to the traditional 180 and putting the bulk of full day and part day inservice time available into the first month and a half.  If I had only one month to teach a skill, I would make all the instruction time available during that month.  If the school calendar reflected that same sense of urgency, “We’ve got two months to get this done,” schools could build specific tasks into this time and have specific outcomes at the end.
 
By adding both days and time before the holiday malaise, schools could develop faculty on a consistent yearly path.  No more “next year”!
 
As always I welcome your comments. 

Today’s post is rather particular to the world of k-12 school, so those of you who have been so kind to follow so far can take a powder for the next two days if this is not an area of interest to you.
 
For years I have been frustrated by how difficult it is to enact true change within a school community.  I enter the year with good intentions and at least what I consider to be sound plans, but by the end of the year too often I’m finding that nothing or little has been done, and I’m using the language of “next year.” What keeps happening?  Well, as I have experienced this yearly frustration, I’ve come up with a couple of ideas about this silent enemy that kills innovation.
 
The traditional school year begins during the first week of September.  Teachers and administrators return from vacation at the highest level of energy and enthusiasm.  New programs are introduced with the assurance that as soon as the confusion of the opening days has passed, the real work will begin.  
 
However, after the first couple of weeks of September, schools throughout the United States fall into the “Hallogivingmas” holiday season.  Each of the three foundational kid holidays and its “season” become the true focus of every campus.  At the secondary level (where honestly i think these holidays have just as much power) there is the focus on a football season, which is really what the first quarter of the year is about.  Having experienced this season for many years as a teacher and administrator, I can testify to its power…particularly its power to push things off.  It is hard to get anything done in October, more difficult in November, and even calling a meeting after the first week of December is seen as abuse.  We are now to the turning of the calendar year, and our project and innovation has not yet taken shape. 
 
Returning in January does not feel like the return in September, people are tired, grumpy, and looking toward the end of the first semester.  Plus so much of the routine of the school year is set that change means undoing something already in place.  The sameness monster has completely fortified the status quo.  February and March pass very quickly, and by April, the best one can do is start to suggest that we will definitely make these changes next year.
 
As it is unlikely that holidays will become less important or engrossing in our culture (Target wouldn’t allow it), the current organization of the school year, aligned with the agrarian calendar, is a perfect system to resist change.  Speakers often mention that a classroom of today would be completely recognizable to a teacher of a hundred years ago.  Of course this is true, it is built that way!
 
What to do about it?  Well, I have a couple of ideas, but those will wait until tomorrow (see what I just did there?  Two days for one topic.).
 
As always I welcome your comments.

Oooooh Boy! I’m going to go a bit tinfoil hat today.  Let me start by saying that I’m not speaking against the following innovations, rather I’m making “awareness observations.” 
The following story is partially true.
 
I don’t have an iPhone 4s. I have nothing against the product, and I would love to have one, but it didn’t work out that way.  However, several friends of mine do, and they often feel the need to take out the phone and demonstrate its superiority through the use of Siri.
 
For anyone who doesn’t know what Siri is…wait, no one reading this blog doesn’t know what Siri is, so I go on.
 
After seeing a demonstration of search results, speech to text applications, and a couple of the Easter egg clever replies, I had to admit to my friend that it was a pretty amazing app that worked better than I thought it would.
 

“Yes,” said my friend, “I count on her for almost everything now.”
 

Wait.
 

“Her”?
 

I know the app uses a female voice, but I’m certain that my friend doesn’t see it as a person, it just becomes a convenient reference point. At least I hope so.
 

Which leads me to my point today.  In the quest to make interfaces easier, more accessible, and more human, we will be interacting with our machines in very different ways.  While there is no real damage in anthropomophizing our devices (I am typing this on my iPad, Hester), it will be important that we develop in our students and ourselves an overarching consciousness of what is really going on.  When we talk to our friend Siri, we are receiving search engine results that are produced by a company who is using these results to make money.  This is the same as with Google, where search is only the attraction to the main business of advertising, gathering information, and promoting results for money.  In both cases the tool can be useful as long as one remembers the rules, but I wonder with our new search engines “friends” whether we will be more or less conscious of this fact.  Will we question Siri, or will she (ugh, it) become the voice in our heads?
 

As always, I invite your comments, just lean in and speak into my ear.
 
 
 

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” Walt Whitman (remembered not by me but by a dear friend)

I decided to start this 24 day blog-o-rama with a reflection on the form itself.  It is now very fashionable for commentators to scoff at the blogging culture (or even more at Twitter, blogging’s little sibling).  Usually these rants revolve around the self-absorption and narcissism of these reporters, and there is a predictable (almost so predictable that it is as mundane as what it criticizes) exasperation with being asked to read about the detritus of another’s life, “Who cares that you just ate a ham sandwich?” (oddly, it is always a ham sandwich, never bologna,  or chicken salad, or tongue).
While facile grist for the comic mill, these comments miss three essential points:

• Using a poor example to condemn a form.  “I am eating a ham sandwich,” is probably trivial and trite (unless it is done as performance art!); however, that does not mean that the form cannot be used to a better use.  One who criticizes the world of art because a six-year-old student insists on coloring houses and trees, is missing the point.  Much of Twitter and quality blogs is not self-referential at all.  Most of it points to the work of others or discusses at some length a problem or possibility.
• It might not be intended for you.  Within Internet communication communities naturally spring up and conversation, particularly on sites like Twitter, creates ties beyond the limits of geography.  I have wonderful conversations in Twitter or in blog comments with educators and non-educators I have never met (except in one case that I will talk about later).  Talking about my life, or even my day, is often an opening to conversation with friends, not a shout to the world.
• It might not be really intended for anyone.  During the 17th Century, Samuel Pepys carefully chronicled the occurrences of his day.  Today his diary is studied for details of daily life, major historical events, and clever, enjoyable prose.  In an interesting twist of venues, you can see regular excerpts from Pepys’ diary by following @samuelpepys on Twitter where the “self-absorbed trivia” of his day blends perfectly with the stream of modern diarists (I wonder if he ever ate ham sandwiches). Sometimes I write just to practice writing and working to put into words the inexpressible. As educators, how can we but encourage and applaud students who take that challenging step of translating the external or internal into words on a page (screen).

Finally, going back to Socrates who once tweeted about unexamined life, “What am I drinking, and why don’t I have a ham sandwich.”  Capturing human life, any human life, is beyond the ability of the greatest poets. It is a noble and life-affirming act to recognize the moment, and writing about it ain’t bad either.

As always, I invite your comments.

 

Recently I’ve had a couple of ideas for posts on this criminally neglected blog, but a conversation I had last night pushed them aside for the moment.

I was talking to a principal whom I respect as a vanguard in ed-tech and with whom I agree 99% of the time. The topic of the iPad as a classroom device came up, and I found myself supporting these initiatives, while she was questioning the device as limited and therefore not the best classroom tool for learning 21st century skills. She spoke persuasively, and she uses an iPad, so she also came from an informed perspective. Ultimately, after boring everyone else at the table for 20 minutes, we had to agree to disagree.

I probably noted this exchange particularly because it followed on a discussion I joined in on Google+ last week on the same topic. The arguments went in the same direction; others talking about the limitation of the devices and I insisting that the device was far more capable than first impressions. At the beginning of one response, one of those arguing most earnestly wrote, “Well, obviously you’re in the bag for Apple, but…”

What?

Me “in the bag” for Apple?

Me? The ultimate Apple hater? The one with the “you’ll take my right-click button when you pry it from my cold, dead hands” bumper sticker? The one who used to go up to “Think Different” posters and add the -ly? The Steve Jobs schadefreudiest?

How can this be, that I’m arguing the case I used to stone. Is this a Pauline conversion, or just plain wishy-washiness?

Still, with all this history and acknowledging the limitations, I have to say it, “I love my iPad.” Or as I said last night, “I use a desktop when I have to, but I live in my iPad” (when I said this, my friend looked at me sadly, as if I needed to be kidnapped and deprogrammed). I also think that this platform, whether an iPad or another tablet (more on that in the next post) is the single best hope for 1:1 classroom technology initiatives.

I feel this for three reasons:

The power of the iPad as a reader far surpasses any conventional laptop. In order for electronic textbooks to make inroads into schools, students will need a reader. They can either purchase a kindle-like reader and a laptop, or they can buy one device.

The iPad has the public attention to support the costs and logistics of bringing it into the classroom. Here is where my “in the bagostity” shows the most, because right now the iPad is the machine, and no other pad has the traction. This public irrational embrace is actually vital to a school implementation. For years I championed the netbook (which I still think is an ideal device in many ways), but ultimately I had to admit that the public never caught on to this form factor, and therefore I was pushing uphill to excite them about students using it.

Finally, because of the immense popularity of the iPad, I see it as an incomplete but growing platform. In less than a year that I have had mine, I have seen the capability grow as new applications arrive and the operating system improves. In fact, I believe that this machine will actually change the evolution of computing. For example, the lack of flash is pushing developers to move away from flash in net applications. No educational app will be able to be flash only if they want to be part of the market. And this is just the beginning, like the early days of the PC, and the growth potential of the platform seems limitless…unlike that of the PC which feels to me like it is topped out.

I certainly could be wrong (I used to argue against the iPad, so I was wrong then or now), but I see immense potential for this device, and you’ll take mine from me when…well, you know.

As always, I invite your comments.