Category: Articles

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.

This may not be the most hopeful of posts, but if this site is to inform and encourage, then sometimes we need to look at darker realities. I don’t want encourage hope based on naiveté.

In recent months it has become clear that there are two competing and contradictory trends within the tech space. These cars are racing toward each other at breakneck speed, and I fear that we are standing directly in their path of collision.

Our combatants in this insane game of chicken are 1)anywhere online access and 2)bandwidth restrictions
The first of these principles is actually quite a positive one. We have never had better access to our own data and resources. Cloud storage services offered by Dropbox, Amazon, Apple and many other provide users with amazing amounts of storage that can be accessed by any device at any time for free or a reasonable price. Media is moving toward a streaming model, whether it be movies with services like Netflix or for music with services like Spotify, Pandora, or Rdio. The clear model of the future is not to carry data on a device, but to use the device as an access point whether through wired home and office Internet or through mobile wifi or 3G access. It provides the consumer with greater access, convenience, sharing abilities, and ultimately and improved digital experience.

However, this encouraging trend is racing at breakneck speed toward a competing vehicle, not moving so fast as to cause alarm, but on a collision course nonetheless. With the advent of this immense use of data, ISPs (Internet service providers) are feeling the strain (or opportunity, depending on your level of cynicism) on their distribution system, and they are taking deliberate steps to limit the amount of data and to further monetize the service they provide. This is being seen clearly now with the end of unlimited data plans at three of the four main cell phone providers. Even those lucky enough to have been “grandfathered” into unlimited plans learned recently that AT&T plans to throttle (lovely word) those in the top 5% of data usage each month. As with most movements like this, the ISPs are clothing their actions in righteousness. They bemoan the strain on their network, rarer than expanding it despite billions in profits, or they complain about “bandwidth hogs” who use more than the average data, suggesting that they must be doing something illegal in order to consume so much data (“bandwidth hog = someone using the service that he or she has paid for). This movement is not limited to the mobile space, because several ISPs are also talking (or acting) about plans to limit or to charge more for greater bandwidth use in the home. While I don’t want to say that these companies are trying to catch up to this rush to mobile, there is an inherent hypocrisy in saying you need a mobile device to stream music and video while throttling this ability.

There are not specific answers to this problem (short of all of us getting our mobile Internet from Starbucks…which will make us a much more jittery people). Since there is no real competition in this space (and the demonstrated tendency of the few “competing” ISPs to act in lockstep with one another) there are no market forces to regulate this, and government regulation, given the immense lobbying power of these companies, is unlikely. In the same way, I don’t see us turning away from conveniences that we have experienced. I suspect the absolute best case scenario that we can anticipate is rising costs to do the things that will be a normal part of modern life.

But no matter what direction this takes, this is not an issue we can ignore. The mainstream press doesn’t cover it because it is not of interest to the general public (and maybe because they are primarily owned by companies with direct or indirect ISP involvement? No, that’s too cynical…but they do keep encouraging us to use their online app?), but the “general public” needs to wake up and see that they are going to be the ultimate game victim of this game of digital chicken.

As always, I invite your comments.

Anyone who follows technology news learned that last week both Facebook and Google were making announcements of “awesome” new products.

Facebook announced integration of skype video chat…zzzzzzz

Google may have changed the world.

OK, a bit of hyperbole, maybe, but I think that the new Google+ social media platform might have taken everything learned with Twitter and Facebook and combined them in a one stop communications platform. This new way of “doing social” may provide new openings for integration of the strengths of the medium without many of the privacy concerns.

In a nutshell, Google+ uses many of the conventions of Facebook. Users can post statements, pictures, video, links, and location which appear in a “stream” to intended viewers who in turn can comment. The brilliant idea of G+, however, is the recognition that a person doesn’t share on only one level or with one group of people. Rather we have “circles” of friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers, and we want some to see some comments and others to see different ones.

As friends are added, you put them into one or more circles. The platform comes with a number of pre-named circles, but these can be renamed and you can add additional circles. For each post, you are able to select “public,” in which case all registered users can see the comments if they follow you (much like Twitter), “all circles,” allowing the comment to be seen by all your approved followers (like Facebook), any particular circle, or even an individual (like nothing else right now). This ability to select level of sharing post by post in a simple one-click protocol is what sets G+ apart from its competitors, and what will most likely give it the legs to move forward.

Now family photographs can be shared with only family members, an education discussion can be focused to a group of teachers (and not polluting Grandma’s stream), and you can shout out to the broader world. Two other neat options are the ability to write longer posts, leaving the limits of 140 or 420 characters, and the ability to re-edit an entry after it is posted without deleting it and starting over.

Turning to education, suddenly the inherent weirdness of having students on one’s Facebook page is mitigated by adding them to a students-only circle. The students will now not see anything that is not intended specifically for them. There are layers to this that still need to be sorted, and like any new platform one should never trust privacy absolutely (which is why one should always write as if writing in public), but directing comments in a circle including school administrators provides a greater degree of focus, usefulness, and protection.

There are other aspects to this platform, but we will leave those for another day. Until that time, if anyone still needs an invite to Google+, send me an email at GJDguyvetter@gmail.com and I’ll try to send one along.

Originally published in the OCCatholic June 2011

This Spring I will watch my daughter graduate from Mater Dei High School. Many parents out there will understand the jumble of emotions I will be feeling at this event, pride, love, joy, nostalgia, anticipation, sadness, and an overwhelming sense of the increasing speed of time. However, as Superintendent of Catholic Schools, I can’t help but also see this day as her graduation from Catholic education, and that too brings feelings of joy…and sadness.
This June nearly a thousand young men and women will be graduating from our Catholic high schools and nearly 1500 will be graduating from our Catholic elementary schools. This is time of pride for students, parents, families, and in a greater way for all of us associated with the Catholic school system of the Diocese of Orange. In the midst of all of the challenges faced by families and schools, our diocesan schools continue to produce graduates who are better prepared for the next level of education and for all levels of life. The yearly miracle of the passing on of our faith can be read on the faces of these future leaders of our Church.
For students and families graduation is a time to look back with gratitude. Graduates from our Catholic schools have benefitted from the hard work and sacrifice of their parents and the generosity of the many women and men, old and young, religious and lay, who worked for the education of minds and the formation of souls. From the founding of the Diocese of Orange, Catholic schools have been central to the faith formation apostolate. Schools have served as the heart and center of vibrant life of parishes, and have produced many of the priests, sisters and lay leaders who serve throughout the diocese today.
Though there are many successful educational institutions in this county and country, the mission of our Catholic schools sets them and their graduates apart. Academic excellence, demonstrated through test scores and authentic performance, is only the beginning of this mission. Our schools work daily for the education of the full child in the faith through instruction, through participation in liturgy and prayer, and through service to the local community and the greater world. All of this is done at a much lower per-pupil cost than that incurred by the solely academic mission of public schools.
However, just as parents and students look forward with anticipation colored with some fear, so our pride in our Catholic school system in Orange and throughout this country is tempered with real concern for the future. Schools throughout the county face financial challenges which impact families and enrollment. The formerly natural decision of Catholic education for children of Catholic families becomes more and more difficult.
These fears, though real, do not need to be the last word, for the future is still of our making. Families still value and choose Catholic education for their children, and many more want to make this choice if support is available. Parishes, the diocese, and generous grants from the Pastoral Services Appeal are working to provide the funds to close the gap between the aspiration and the reality. Individuals of means are coming forward to financially support this vision, and parishioners are supporting schools through their dollars, through their voices, and most importantly through their prayers. Challenges faced by our school system can, and will, lead to new possibilities and a future of promise.
As I watch my daughter cross the graduation stage, I know that the past she is leaving behind is only the preamble and preparation for many good things to come. Congratulations graduates, parents, and Catholic schools. We are counting on hearing great things about you in the future!

Probably one of the most hopeful days of the year:

Class of 2011, It is my pleasure to be able to speak to you on this great day for you and for us.

For all of the adults sitting on the stage, for most of the teachers flanking you on either side, and even for many of your parents and relatives, this looks like one more graduation ceremony. Another wave crashing on the shore of the Bren Center like the many waves before and the swells following in the year to come. The predictability and dependability of this yearly event carries the inevitability of one more repeat of Pomp and Circumstance or one more musical number in an episode of Glee.

However, this is our mistake, our blindness, and our missed opportunity. For there is not an “another” about today. Today is about newness, about firsts, about the unique, once in a lifetime gift that you are and will be in this world. As a class and as individuals, you are a new thing, not limited by the actions or even vision of those who have come before you, but blazing potential that we watch transfixed, as if by fireworks.

And while I am part of the past that you surpass, I want to leave you with one idea that makes sense from my limited vision.

Lives are defined by the limits we embrace; therefore, as you go forward live an expansive life that challenges the limits that other people, your circumstances, or the accepted realities of the world try to put on you. There is no limit to your possibilities at this moment, only to your courage and energy to chase them. There is no limit to your creative power to make new products, services, and ideas that change the world and improve the lives of all. There is no limit to your ability to embrace revolutionary digital changes in communication and relationship and form them into positive humanizing forces, and there is no limit to your capacity for love and gratitude and empathy and service. We are put on earth to share in the work of Jesus Christ, to serve and love those close by and sisters and brothers beyond our familiarity and beyond our sight.

There are no limits to a world where a tiny sister in India can bring comfort and attention to millions of the ignored and neglected.

There are no limits to a world where the most life changing invention of the century is now appearing every six months.

And goodness knows there are no limits to a world where a song by Rebecca Black can be downloaded a million times.

Embrace the beauty and possibility and expansiveness of your dreams, and remember the school where so many of those dreams were born.

As everyone knows, Apple announced the iPad 2 last week, and as a newly baptized Apple fanboy (for the iPad, not the other machines), I followed the announcement closely.  To be honest, part of me was still looking for the slip, the mistake that would provide the opening for the many Android tablets hitting the marketplace to take the lead.

After the conclusion of the talk, I posted the following on Twitter:

“As much as I hate to say it, iPad is eating everyone’s lunch!”

Not only were many of my specific concerns for the device addressed in the upgrades, but also what I have seen and learned from other manufacturers in the months since the release of iPad 1 have greatly affected my response to the iPad as a widespread platform.

Here are a few of the things I like about the new iPad:

• It’s thinner and lighter. Though my iPad has quickly become my primary reading device, it is just slightly on the heavy side for this task.  Since I have become more or less used to this, I’m certain that the new device will be much more comfortable to hold.
• It has a faster processor and a faster graphics processor. With Android tablets moving toward a dual-core processor, I thought that the iPad might be left behind, but the iPad 2 does have a dual-core, which should improve performance on many applications (and make other applications like iMovie and Garage Band possible).  The graphics of iPad 1 have been adequate, though I am hoping that the better graphics processor will improve the occasional sluggishness on some streaming video.
• It has a camera (two, in fact).  As anticipated, the device has both front-facing and back facing cameras.  As well as providing the possibility of video conferencing, these cameras will allow direct input of photos and videos.
• It stays within the same pricing structure. When iPad 1 came out, I assumed that it was as overpriced as most Apple products.  My feelings on this have been tempered by the equally high or higher prices for the products of other manufacturers.  Oddly enough, in this category, Apple is a deal.  This isn’t to say that quality tablets won’t come out for less, but unless it is dramatically less, I don’t see people moving from a second generation product to a new one.

I couple all of this with the reality that it is being released less than two weeks after announcement.  The one consistent story in the all-but-Apple tablet market is pushed back deadlines and uncertain release dates.  Today I heard that Microsoft doesn’t expect to have its tablet OS available until fall 2012!  They will be competing against the fourth generations of the iPad, and a completely glutted market.

So, I will be getting an iPad 2, and I look forward to using it to save my recipes for eating crow.