I’m not what you would call a history buff - maybe it just wasn’t brought to life for me in the right way. However, through my RSS feeds, I came across this link to ‘History’s Most Overlooked Mysteries‘. It makes me want to know more about a topic that I didn’t expect to explore today - and that, at least, gives me a little smile.

Here’s what I’ve found in 15 minutes after listing to the program:

Google Map of Liverpool, NY, Website of Liverpool Schools, Liverpool Laptop Webpage, NPR Talk of the Nation, Liverpool High State Report Card, Liverpool High 3rd Year Eval on Laptop Program

Pardon my French, but their district website is atrocious, the webpage for their laptop program is atrocious, they are primarily a white district with a low percentage of free/reduced lunch students, the laptop program is self-described as ‘voluntary’, at the MOST, only 70% of the students in 11th/12th grades would have had computers (although it’s hard to track), and according to their 3rd year evaluation (of which most discussion is related to percentages) less than half of the participants actually responded to the survey(s) that they used in the eval of the program.

This is a small program, a drop in the bucket. It sounds like it was not very well thought out, and it is now giving larger, better planned programs a bad name.

In addition, the it seems like the Assistant Superintendant of Instruction is the driver behind this vehicle of death (clear agenda to destroy the program).

 Thanks for the bad rep.

1:1 laptop programs are getting a good bit of national press (negative) lately and here is a 1/2 hour program on the topic from NPR’s ‘Talk of the Nation’. I’m in the middle of listening, so I’ll comment later…

Well, until our kiddos get busy and figure out a way to down the new system, I am on IE for good. Updated score: Networking - 57, Us - 1

To clarify what is happening and how we’re being blocked: We can download/install Firefox and even open the program on our machines. The ‘new product’ does not allow Firefox to pickup outside bandwidth. I can still do my internal Irving ISD homepage and even our internal Blackboard system, but nothing more.

Until someone develops a plug-in that bypasses the ‘new product’, we’re all doomed for eternity!!!

YES!!!! I just informed our main networking guy - with a broad smile and ample gusto - that Firefox is working again (temporarily)! You should have seen his shoulders drop! Either our kids have over burdened the ‘new system’ or found a way to bring it down!

Score update: Networking - 25, Us - 1

At least we’re not at zero anymore!!!

My cousin was in town last night as he made his rounds around the country to install a new networking device at several of his company’s remote locations. We got into some networking ‘talk’ (or jargon, for those looking up the technical reference) and I mentioned that networking is all about CONTROL. He smiled, nodded his head and said, ‘yep, I LOVE control!’ It’s neither good nor bad - just the nature of networking. The more you can control your network, the better off you are.

So, that leads me to my sad morning. I knew it was coming… but I still pushed on until the last minutes that it could hold its breath… Networking has been discussing a ‘new product’ - very secret, very hush-hush - that will give them more control over the network. I won’t even say the name of it (it’s pretty hard to even research on the internet - doable, but hard) for fear of being repremanded. I’m sure you can picture my complete and utter joy at this news.

Firefox has officially been blocked district-wide. It is an apparent danger to society and therefore must be shut down. I first punched my left palm and growled when I jumped over to IE and didn’t have my tabs. (we can’t install the new version for compatibility reasons.) I will miss my tabs sorely. I vaguly remember the days of right clicking to ‘open in new window’ in IE and feel a dull, angry burning in my stomach knowing I will have to go back to that. My second palm-punch/growl-combo came when I realized I lost my built in spell check that was SUCH a great feature in Firefox 2.0. You see, I know when I misspell a word and I LIKE the fact that I get to recognize the words that I misspell on a regular basis. I look FORWARD to those little red dots under my misspelled words! I even LEARN from them and force myself to learn correct spellings of those words… so much for THAT. I now have to copy this whole freakin’ post into Google Docs (cause I SURE as heck ain’t gonna us MS WORD on this sad day!!! $#%#$()%*#$) just to check my spelling, and I’ll have to update my Wordpress Blog to the latest version to get the new spell checker. *sigh* The final time I ‘went inside to my angry place’ was my realization that I no longer had my wonderfully integrated bookmark tool - de.licio.us. I have scrapped bookmarking and need to get myself setup to most effectivley us de.licio.us within IE. I know, I know… It’s a few extra clicks - BUT THOSE CLICKS ADD UP, dangit!

Oh, Firefox… you are out there, but I can not access you. Miguel Guhlin says in a recent post:

Why should we continue to invest millions of dollars in school technology if it has already been established that schools aren’t changing? Wouldn’t it be better to accept schools as they are–institutions as flawed as the people who spend significant amounts of time in them, trying to justify those hours by any reason/research possible? Of course, the answer is really about whether any of us can change who we are, how we think for the children we serve.

I know it isn’t a ‘big deal’. I know I can use another browser. Something just doesn’t feel right, though. I’m feeling like I can’t get off the highway these days… Is it worth trying? Is it even possible?

~ I miss you, Firefox…

Darren Wilson and I recently presented a session on Inspired Classrooms at the Texas Computer Education Convention (see my post below about the conference and/or read a brief review of our session). Towards the end of the presentation and during the time for questions, it was asked if we had any research to prove that Inspired Classrooms is correlated with an increase in test scores. Oh, SNAP. No you di’n't!

Folks, a computer is just a tool. That’s it! It isn’t magical, it doesn’t make people smarter or dumber and it sure as hell does not, in and of itself, increase standardized test scores! Beyond that whole thorn in my side, I am FLAT OUT TIRED of the Potemkin village that is ‘research based decision making’. But, I get ahead of myself. (BTW, I first heard the phrase ‘Potemkin village’ from Bernie Dodge. It creates such great imagery, and you might enjoy his quick post that describes his application of the word)
Let’s come back to the pencil. The pencil, according to Wikipedia:

The archetypal pencil may have been the ancient Roman stylus, which was a thin metal stick, often made of lead and used for scratching on papyrus. The word pencil comes from the Latin word penicillus which means “little tail.”

Some time prior to 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), an enormous deposit of graphite was discovered at the site of Seathwaite Fell near Borrowdale, Cumbria, England. The locals found that it was very useful for marking sheep.

WHAT?! Marking sheep? Ahh… the irony. But, let’s continue - lest I get sidetracked down a different road.
This is my standard response to those that go and throw the question of laptop/computer research in my face:

‘The pencil is a tool, just like the computer is a tool. Just because a student receives a pencil to use in class, does not mean that they will score higher on a standardized test. Granted, they will be able to TAKE the test, but their score will only be impacted by the learning processes that they undergo while at home and at school. The same holds true for a laptop. It has no ‘provable’ impact on student achievement, only the teacher and how he/she teaches will do that. The difference that the laptop/computer offers (as a tool in a classroom) is that a teacher can now design LESSONS where students can output products never before imaginable, where students can locate information never before accessible and where students can develop social networks of knowledge never before possible. BUT, it isn’t the laptop that does that - it all comes down to HOW the laptop is used. It all comes down to the teaching.’

If it all comes down to (imagine this)… …THE TEACHING, then surely there is research out there that shows that TEACHING BETTER equates to HIGHER TEST SCORES. Now, I know by this point that you are shaking in your boots with anticipation that such a revelation may be, well, REVEALED to you - and I do not plan on letting you down! There is actually a little bit of quality research out there that does support the notion that teaching better DOES increase test scores. Take this excerpt, for example:

In data validated unanimously by the Program Evaluation Panel of the National Diffusion Network, HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills Program) students achieved spring to spring gains on standardized test scores that were 67% higher in reading and 123% higher in mathematics than national averages. These results were generated with an earlier, less refined version of the model. Second-year gains were also greater than national averages. These continued gains indicate that the results were not Hawthorne effects. Since then, we have not been able to do another systematic study, but schools are now reporting results that substantially exceed the best gains reported in the earlier study. Students in one site gained 5.6 years on the Stanford Diagnostic Reading test (fall to spring) in the first year, and 20% of the 5th and 6th grade Chapter 1 students posttested beyond the high school level. Tapes of these students reveal them to be highly articulate and sophisticated learners, an indication that the extent of the gains was not a statistical fluke. (1992, p. 88)

By now, I expect that you are standing, applauding and nodding your head while you continue to read. Please keep doing so - the standing ovation, that is, and while you continue to applaude, I would like you to consider the major point of that excerpt - teaching ‘better‘ means teaching kids to THINK. Teaching kids to think, means designing lessons that move students up through ALL of the different levels of Blooms Taxonomy. Designing lessons at ALL levels in Blooms Taxonomy is what we believe Inspired Classrooms should be all about - and the computer as a tool in that environment is simply an enabler, or catalyst, for a teacher who is GOOD at teaching. So, stop asking the wrong questions, and start asking the right one. It is a simple question, really:

‘How do we teach more effectively?’

While there is a plethora of research out there on the topic above, I feel the need to make you aware of one final thorn in my side: ‘Research based decision making’ has been to the education world what ‘Inside Edition‘ or ‘E! TV‘ is to pop culture - a shallow way to justify popular fetishes at the state, regional and local levels. There, I said it. Growing up with a father who taught Statistics (picture me as a 4th grader getting upset with my teachers for not knowing what APA was), I feel comfortable looking at published research and making a decision as to what is good and what is not. Even with good research, it is more than easy to make it say what you want it to say (after all, I found the above research excerpt in just around a minute or so!). Far too often, I see decisions made, and then the research is found to support it, OR the ‘research’ that led to the decision is nothing close to valid (in the news, at the state/local educational levels, etc). Be wise in your quest and let us throw in the unimaginable as we make our selves better teachers in this world today: common sense. When we combine common sense with qualified and validated research, it is easy to realize what is best for kids - when are we going to do it?

I must say that I was pleased with my response to the person that posed the question at the end of our presentation. Darren told me that I did a nice job of withholding the sarcasm that you may/may not have felt from the above. I did, however, hold my ground and tell that person that asking for research to prove the effectiveness of computers in the classroom is the wrong question to ask. Next time, I’ll be sure to have an arsenal of research at the ready that does support quality teaching, which is what I want to see in both Inspired Classrooms and 1:1 laptop programs. Until then, I wait with baited breath…

Well, it appears that I am becoming all too familiar with the ‘rant’ writing style these days, which may be a clue to a variety of things. Never-the-less: DO NOT take the pop culture interstate as you journey through life and through teaching others. It is boring, filled with predictability and gives you no way of getting out into the exciting places where the left lane ends.

OH - AND DON’T GO THROWING LAPTOP RESEARCH IN MY FACE!!!

(are you looking for a good tool that cross references Bloom’s Taxonomy with Technology Integration? Check out LoTI.)

Mr. Meyer recently posted an interesting perspective on an equation he developed regarding the instructional worth of any given ‘lesson’. It looks like this:

Darren and I have discussed this briefly, and Darren even incorporated it into his presentation on INspired Classrooms. However, I propose some dialog on a possible modification, or on a concept that could lead to modification. I am thinking about a factor that I call the ‘xFactor’.

First, however, to get us started I will briefly review Mr. Meyer’s intention with this equation. Basically, he is saying that any decision we make regarding instruction in our classrooms should be based on the relationship between its final instructional value and how long it takes to accomplish the instruction (development and deliver, I assume). I totally agree with this as a general principle. If you can do a worksheet on paper, why in the world would you want to generate a self-graded Excel spreadsheet that does the same thing but takes more time for the teacher to create and for the student to fill out? Another way to think about this is to ask what the technology (or other instructional tool/method) brings to the lesson. If it adds something that can not be achieved without it, then it will be more worthwhile. If the technology is serving the purpose of just being there for technologies sake, then it is probably taking more time and interfering with the final intent of the instruction. That, at least, is what I interpret him as saying - and I completely agree.

Here is where I see a problem, though, and it can be described with a simple example:

Teacher ‘A’ and teacher ‘B’ both use the same lesson to accomplish a state-aligned instructional goal. After the instruction, teacher A’s students perform well on the given performance based assessment, as well the state assessment. Teacher B’s students, however, do poorly on both the given performance based assessment and on the state assessment. Again, both teachers taught the same lesson with the same final instructional goal - Teacher A did it well and Teacher B, well, stunk, but probably blamed the failure of the lesson on the students (’those kids’).

I think we can all agree that the above example is a very real possibility - after all, we all have different teaching styles and teachers have different levels of experience. My hesitation in embracing Mr. Meyer’s equation is that the instructional value, as perceived by individual teachers, will be different for everyone. Thanks to my own bias, I can easily justify any given technology or lesson as not being worthwhile - even though my perception of the quality of my own teaching may not be on target. And that, is the ‘xFactor’. Hence, my proposed equation for discussion is:

I am not really sure if this is the right way to put it, but I hate to provide a teacher looking for an excuse to avoid a powerful use of technology just because they don’t know the practice that is quality teaching. I think we all need to work to understand the level and quality of our own teaching so that we can, additionally, weigh our own xFactor into the original equation and know when it isn’t the technology that is the problem, but the need for improvment in our teaching. This would mean that we could see the net instructional worth, even if we took more time as we learned how to apply the instruction/lesson/technology to our final instructional goals. Self perception is a squirrelly thing, but one we should all work to identify so that we constantly apply that perception of strengths and weakness to challenging new knowledge about our teaching practices.

I have no clue if that came out how I heard it in my brain, but I do know that when we become more aware of who we are and reflect on the quality of our own practices, we’ll be moving down the path where the left lane ends.

I’m back at my adopted coffee shop. I bought a mug and the coffee is on the house… why don’t others care as much!? Time to learn…

…BUT - before I do, I have to share a thought I had during my run on the Town Lake trail this morning. Coming down the elevator to exit the hotel (and minding my own business I might add), there was a man and bell hop taking his stuff down to check out. He was built, aged and dressed in a suit like you might expect Ross Perot to be and they were talking politely about the weather. As I was about to step off the elevator, suit man said, “I always say that the weather is like a woman in menopause - you never know what your going to get!” Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. I cocked my head, glared with my meanest teacher look (and ask my wife, I have a pretty mean teacher look) and walked off the elevator. I wanted to say back, “I always say the weather is like an old, white-haired [XXblankety-blankXX] - easy to predict because they’re always showing you what an idiot they are. (or something to that effect).

So, then I had the thought - with the advancement of GPS enabled social networks, what if we had human tagging?!?! This would be great, because then I could add some choice tags to this guys profile (that floats above his head in my imagination) so that the next woman he encountered that was going through that part of her well deserved life would know how this chauvinist SOB really feels about her. Enter tags here: ____ , ____ , ____ , ____ .

Then I started wondering what my tags would be…

If you do nothing else with this post, check out the artist (Brett Dennen) that I link to below. He is GREAT - in concert and on CD. In fact, you can bet that his Mosaic Project CD (which can also be found on iTunes) will be a staple in my children’s playlist’s! How can you RESIST a CD titled: Children’s Songs for Peace and a Better World???
This is a really spontaneous post, originating from a dialog in my head, an entirley separate (forced) conversation and my own personal feelings on the matter. Read at your own risk:

Open source in education has been on my mind this week and I keep wondering more and more - why do we not make the move to open source software in schools? Every day, I do more of my work on Internet based applications then the day before, so what is holding us back? A working browser? I can boot up a version of a Linux operating system off of a CD and do everything I’m doing now (writing, posting, email, etc) on it. (AND, I am NOT a person with very much knowledge on open source!!) I’ll toss out two reasons that I believe are the primary factors in keeping us from using open source.