Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

I sat in a meeting of teachers today when someone in the crowd made reference to a clause about consultants and made the statement that she felt “there were too many consultants anyway”.

This made me upset for two reasons:

1. I wouldn’t want to suggest, espescially in public that I felt a school or some other area of the division was overstaffed.
2. More importantly, it upsets me because it reflects an attitude that exists that would suggest that solving the challenges of education lies in increasing the number of teachers.

I believe that the role of the consultant is largely two fold;support teachers in the classroom with their current situations but also to present possibilites, ideas and support for change.

I’m certain a survey of teachers would reveal that few would suggest that the current model of education is in a good state. Everyone’s talking about the changing student, the changing world and the lack of change in education. This conversation is taking place as much outside the blogosphere as it is in it.

It’s clear that we need to continue to help teachers see the need for change and that the solution is much more complicated and involved than simply providing more teachers. Last year as budget cuts called for the loss of over 40 teachers, reference was made to the large expenditure in technology and wondering if supplying a school with new computers was justifiable considering that schools were losing teachers. In this case, the understanding of technology as an intregal part of learning was not shared by all.

Michael Fullan talks about the “daily grind” and how this makes it difficult for teachers to consider much else besides just getting by. I acknowledge this problem and sympathize with teachers in situations where survival is the best they can hope for. But we have to demand more. We have to have teachers who consider themselves learners first. We need teachers who believe that reflective practice is critical for growth. Even when things are nuts and out of control, survival can’t be all there is. I remember reading the reflective teacher and my impression was that last year was a challenging year but through reflection and search for new ways of approaching teaching and learning, change happened.

So while I know I can’t reach everyone and support everyone, I’m challenged by this reminder that many consider my job and others like mine as “extras”. I probably knew that already but rarely think about it. My natural inclination is to speak louder and longer but that may not be the best response. I suppose that it also tells those that serve as consultants that we need to do a better job promoting our work. Is that called marketing? Hopefully those who I’ve been able to work with and speak to would feel differently than this individual. In the meantime, I’ll keep talking about new stories of teaching and learning.

Update:

I’ve had a few second and third hand responses about this post being unethical or somehow should have not have been public. Here’s my response:

1. Firstly, this is my personal blog.
2. Secondly, the fact it’s linked from the school division website is no different that other resources that contain a disclaimer.
3. Thirdly, I make no personal reference.
4. Fourthly, if you read the post, you’ll see I’m addressing a general perception I believe to be true from my experience…that’ what a weblog is for. I think it’s better these discussion happen publicly rather than in segregated staff rooms and other closed environments.
5. And finally, if on some point you disagree, leave a comment or contact me directly. I’d welcome the discussion.

Chip Camden compares blogging to jazz. I like this analogy because I like jazz and part of why I like it is because it’s so diverse….you never know what to expect. Also, I’m quick to skip a song if it’s not working for me but often I go back and listen again and decide it’s not bad…there’s something about it that resonates.
Full Article:Naked Conversations: Is Blogging the Jazz of Writing?

If you haven’t read his book, you should but Shel Israel compares blogging to jazz. I like this analogy because I like jazz and part of why I like it is because it’s so diverse….you never know what to expect. Also, I’m quick to skip a song if it’s not working for me but often I go back and listen again and decide it’s not bad…there’s something about it that resonates.
Full Article:Naked Conversations: Is Blogging the Jazz of Writing?

technorati tags:blogs, jazz, nakedconversations, shelisrael

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I’ve been playing around with geotagging for about a year using a firefox extension. It was always a bit wonky. Flickr has now added geotagging. There are several ways to utilize it from the geotag bookmarklet to flock’s uploader extension. I prefer the bookmarklet but whatever works. The result is a great opportunity to tag photos to locations. I’ve started tagging a few of my photos with this result:

There are even a couple of screencasts on Youtube on geotagging and flickr.

• Geotagging with Flickr
• Geotagging with Flock

Stephen Downes talked about this article today on students videotaping lectures and classmates and posting to Youtube.

I agree with Stephen about encouraging this. Perhaps not without
permission but if we want our students learning to be more transparent
I’m assuming the same goes for our teaching.

Update: Embedding youtube videos into Wordpress is not that straigthforward. If you use tiny_mce it seems to have issues. Blogging with Flock should work but it seemed to really mess with my template. If you have any suggestions for embedding youtube videos in Wordpress, please pass it along.

technorati tags:youtube, video

Blogged with Flock

Dave Weinberger writes about the credibility of wikipedia even more passionately than I do.
He points out that wikipedia’s openness about their accuracy makes them more trustworthy. He talks about the various notices that begin many articles.

Weinberger asks:

So,why is it that you don’t see such frank notices in traditional sources such as newspapers and encyclopedias? Is it because their articles don’t ever suffer from any of these human weaknesses? Oh, sure,newspapers issue corrections after the fact, and “This is non-neutral opinion” is implicit on the Op-Ed page. But why isn’t there any finer grain framing of the reliability and nature of what’s presented to using their pages? Can we come to any conclusion except that traditional authorities are more interested in maintaining authority than in helping us reach the truth?

Wikipedia at the least, encourages us to be critical thinkers. I know when I go there, it may be inaccurate. I’m okay with that. Let’s help our kids not to be brainwashed by the media into believing everything they read and see.
I love the behind the scenes type shows on TV. I love the special features on a DVD showing how the movie was made and any other background information that provides context. The discussion portion of wikipedia entries is well worth the time, especially on these types of disputed articles.
Will we ever see a wiki newspaper?

technorati tags:wikipedia, weinberger

Blogged with Flock

I’ve started a group called K12 in Youtube. I wondered if those posting videos might want to add them to this category. I know many students and teachers are creating good stuff but it’s hard to find it. I think Jeff has done some stuff but I couldn’t find it. Perhaps this will help. Spread the word around so we begin to collect a repository of educational content.

Here’s the URL:

http://www.youtube.com/group/K12

technorati tags:youtube, videos

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After reading this article today in the NYTIMES, it once again raised the issue of how we measure success.

Saskatchewan has been one of the last provinces in Canada to move towards standardize testing. We’re still not there yet but recent changes worry me. In an effort to become more accountable we are moving dangerously close to models were test scores determine funding and support.
My argument has been that these type of bureaucratic models will lead to the lowest common denominator of work which is low level thinking and testing in order to produce the required results. Good assessment takes time and thought. Good assessment is not simply assessment OF learning but assessment FOR learning. Data collection in these circumstances for this large number would not likely be able to handle thoughtful, messy assessment. (See Wes Fryer and Brian Crosby for more on messy assessment)

Personally, I’ll be coordinating a number of projects this year relating to the 21st century classroom. It will be largely experimental and self directed for the participants. I want to assess not only for its success (assessment OF learning) but more importantly to make learn from it (assessment FOR learning). I’m struggling with the right type of assessment and the right questions. Any suggestions would be welcomed.

One final thought. If you think of these districts like the NY Public school district or even Saskatchewan Learning and compare it to a classroom, how effective is assessment when you have a large class of 50? Not very in depth. That’s why I argue the validity of these test scores as true indicators of learning. It can’t possibly measure your students learning alone, why would we expect it to reflect the learning of a school? Also I hope that teachers don’t pull their support/funding when they see how poorly students have done. Shouldn’t we provide more support for schools that achieve less? Weird.

technorati tags:assessment

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