Tag Archives: schools

Thoughts on Shelly Wright’s Blog ntitled “Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay” By Rick Davidson

I have just finished reading Shelly Wright’s blog entitled “Blogging is the New Persuasive Essay”. http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/blogging-is-the-new-persuasive-essay/ The article suggests that many students lack effective writing skills because our educational system is not producing independent thinkers. Without the ability to articulate an informed opinion, it is difficulty to develop and defend a thesis statement. Ms. Wright’s thesis statement is the title of her blog entry. If blogging is indeed the new persuasive essay, it is yet another example of how technology is in the process of changing how we define literacy.

As a technology integrator in a middle school, I have spent a great deal of time pondering how to encourage our students to begin to function on the upper level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/curric/newtaxonomy.htm This has been especially challenging given that the standardized testing movement stresses the lower two levels in the cognitive domain. The lowest being remembering retrieving and recalling. The next lowest being understanding. While we should not ignore these skills, the challenge of “21st Century Education” is to help our students develop the ability to apply knowledge, analyze concepts, evaluate information, and create a product. In other words our students need to become independent thinkers.

The traditional dictionary definition of literacy tends to look like the following:

literate – able to read and write

literate – versed in literature; dealing with literature

literate – knowledgeable and educated in one or several fields; “computer literate”
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The National Council of Teachers of English has developed the following guidelines for what is needed to be literate in the 21st Century:

  • Develop proficiency with the tools of technology

  • Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross culturally

  • Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes

  • Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information

  • Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multiple-media texts

  • Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by those complex environments”

http://www.ncte.org/governance/literacies I would suggest that visual media has become at least as important as written media.

The International Society for Technology in Education ISTE points out that “societies are changing, expectations are changing, teaching is changing and educators must lead”.

The ISTE student guidelines mirror the NCTE literacy guidelines:

“Demonstrate creativity and innovation

Communicate and collaborate

Conduct research and use information

Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions

Use technology effectively and productively”

http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students.aspx

The teacher guidelines are”

“Facilitate and Inspire student learning and creativity

Design and develop digital-age learning experiences and assessments

Model digital-age work and learning

Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility

Engage in professional growth and leadership”

http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-teachers/nets-for-teachers-2008.aspx

The ability to read and understand is simply not enough to claim literacy in the modern world. Being versed in literature certainly adds to the quality of one’s life. It also helps us understand the human condition. My favorite English teacher was wont to point out the literature is the highest form of communication. It is still right up there, but technology has kicked opened so many new doors that all of us can access information that was only available to “experts” in the past. Many forms of publication that were only available to the highly trained are now accessible to everyone. Newspapers and magazines are no longer the sole purveyors of editorial content. Witness the proliferation of blogging. Would be movie makers can purchase high definition digital cameras for less than $1000. Inexpensive editing suites can do more than what Hollywood was able to do only a few years ago. Photography enthusiast can now create high quality images without needing a degree in photo technology. If the tools available to our students are to be used in a competent manner, the NCTE and ISTE guidelines need to be incorporated into all curriculum areas and into every level of education. Shelly Wright is absolutely right. Blogs are the new persuasive essay. They are the new editorial column. They provide the opportunity to reach a large audience. They provide me, as an educator, with a platform to attempt to convince others to accept the value of the new paradigm of cognitive learning. This will enable our students to became ethical independent thinkers capable of collaboration, expressing themselves, and creativity. If we can accomplish that, our place as a nation in the world, will take care of itself.

In spite of the fact that I am a published novelist, I wonder if I would use the written word to contemplate and persuade if I had to adhere to the formatting of traditional essays. The above ruminations are very effective way for me to keep my goals in mind. If I can convince others of the importance of these goals, so much the better.

Random Thoughts on Returning from the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Manchester New Hampshire by Rick Davidson

Random Thoughts on Returning from the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Manchester New Hampshire

I have just returned from the three-day Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference.  I have been attending and presenting at this conference for a number of years and as has been the case in the past, I am experiencing the frustration of trying to reconcile the ideal with real.  The new paradigm espoused by experts from all over the world has been encouraging us, as teachers, to use technology to move away from the 19th century concept of the instructor centered talking head in front of the classroom in favor of a student based project oriented approach.  Back to actuality, I feel like the ride from Manchester was in fact time spent in a time machine.  The enthusiasm created by attending the conference is tempered by the reality that change takes time.

Recently I watched the US Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, speak about innovation and education.  I believe that just about everyone believes in the importance of these two concepts. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy creates the following hierarchy of applying knowledge.  Starting at the bottom, they are: remembering-understanding-applying-analysis-evaluating-creating.  While I agree with many of Mr. Duncan’s points, it baffles me that the initiative coming from the department of education seems to stress the lower applications of learning.  Because of the time spent preparing for lower level standardized testing, we are failing to provide our students with the opportunities to conduct authentic research, and to analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and create.  Mr. Duncan speaks of the “dumbing down” of American students. We as educators need to consider that this implied “lowering of the bar” may be the result of our resistance to accept the fact that today’s young people are learning differently from students from past generations.  The modern world demands that its citizens be critical thinker.  Today’s students more than ever must learn how to learn.  They must be adaptable to change and understand and have a command of digital media.  The day of the solitary expert at the front of the room has passed. Access to the Internet is morphing today’s students into independent lifelong self- learners.  Top-down teaching and standardized curriculum is  reactionary. Citizens of the digital age don’t need to memorize information; they need to learn to differentiate between what information is reliable and valuable and what is not. It is difficult to see how NCLB and standardized testing is helping to promote this new paradigm of teaching. Standardization does not promote creativity. Do we really want all of our future citizens to be the same? Our greatness in the United States has been traditionally based in its diversity and its ingenuity.  Students need to be given the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with other students, teachers, professionals, and enthusiasts that share the students’ interests. Knowledge and tolerance of other cultures is not optional in Thomas Friedman’s “flat world”.

Change is taking place in my district.  The International Society for Technology Education guidelines have been accepted in all of our schools.  More and more of our teachers are integrating computer technology into their curricula.  We need to work on providing access to computers to all of our students all of the time.  Computers are today’s pencils.  The technology should be available when it is needed, not only when it has been planned. The greatest irony is that while schools all across the country and the globe are debating on how to use technology in the schools, some students are bypassing formal pedagogical institutions in favor of educating themselves on line.  I know because I am one of them.  Why should I pay thousands of dollars to listen to the “expert” at the front of the classroom when I can find anything and everything I need to know on the Internet? The real challenge in the 21st Century is to provide the opportunities for our students to be motivated to learn for themselves.

Links to Christa McAuliffe Conference Presenters and Keynote Speakers

Links to Christa McAuliffe Conference Keynote Speakers:

http://www.practicaltheory.org/serendipity/   Chris Lehmann

http://web.me.com/tammy.w/Tips/Tammys_Technology_Tips_for_Teachers.html

hhttp://wiki.wesfryer.com/Home/handouts/ipads-in-edu

http://wiki.wesfryer.com/Home/handouts/viral-video

http://wiki.wesfryer.com/Home/handouts/digitalleadership

Link to Christa McAuliffe Presenters handouts:

http://nhcmtc.org/Extensions/

Reclaiming the Language by Jim Bower from Red Deer Alberta

Have you ever taken part in a conversation about progressive education or school reform and left the dialogue wondering if you were even talking about the same topic? Often I’m left wondering how this can happen. How can two people talk about the same topic with very similar vocabulary, and yet be having two separate conversations at once?

It would be convenient if we could simply differentiate the discussion via politics; however, it would also be inaccurate. There’s a reason why Rep. John Kline (R-MN) recently remarked with chilling accuracy that the Obama-Duncan education game plan is “straight from the traditional Republican playbook.” The larger point to be taken here is that it doesn’t matter whether you are speaking with a liberal, a conservative, a Democrat, a Republican, reading the Washington Post or Newsweek – when it comes to education, most of them are indistinguishable from Fox News.
So how do we differentiate between the authentic and the rhetoric? In his article The Case Against ‘Tougher Standards’, Alfie Kohn states, “Today, it is almost impossible to distinguish Democrats from Republicans on this set of issues — only those with some understanding of how children learn from those who haven’t a clue.” So who has a clue?

To sort out who does and who doesn’t, I think we need to understand how one Washington DC activist put it, “It’s gotten to the point where I’m almost embarrassed to be associated with the word ‘reform'”. There is nothing inherently wrong with school reform – but there is something amiss with the way the word has come to be defined. Words like achievement, data, 21st century skills and accountability have been bastardized by those who haven’t a clue about real learning.

A real discussion about 21st Century education would require us to understand how wrong we got it in the 20th Century. Some might say that there is a war going on in schools between behaviourism and constructivism and the kids are losing while others have written “One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward K. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost.”

If we really want to have an authentic discussion about 21st Century education and data-driven accountability then we better be crystal clear what we mean by these concepts.

ACCOUNTABILITY: in it’s current context, accountability is simply a code word meaning more control for people outside the classroom over those who are inside the classroom. Ever wonder why we can’t get school reform right? I won’t profess to have the definitive answer, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that education is being run by people who have no practical experience or professional training in how children learn. What’s worse is that these clueless dictators have the audacity to enforce their ignorance through manipulative legislation, and when those who know better speak up, they are beat down by the accountability club.

So how do we reclaim the word accountability? We need to redefine it. John Spencer, a teacher from Arizona, says “accountability should mean that when you wander off too far, there is a group of people calling you back and saying, ‘Look, you belong here. You are important to us.'” For those who claim we need accountability in its current form, I encourage them to look to Finland who don’t even have a word in their language for accountability, so they use responsibility – the difference being much more than simple semantics.

DATA: Number crunching, data mongers see children as data-in-waiting. Their bodies are simply transportation devices for their number two pencils. And yet, one test isn’t even enough for these spreadsheet junkies, so they feed their mania for reducing everything to numbers by having tests that prepare kids to take a benchmark test before they take the test. Sadly, the worst teachers don’t teach to the test any more, they test to the test. The problem here is that if their goals are simply higher test scores (raise achievement) then their methods are not going to be worth much. In other words, even if we achieved all the test scores the policy makers could ever want, we would end up providing the kids with nothing they really need. Things go very, very wrong when a teacher knows more about how to raise a kid’s test score than how to raise a kid.

If we want to reclaim data, and we do need to, we need to stress that real learning is found in children not data. The best teachers never need tests to gather information about children’s learning nor do they need grades to share that information with others. They know that there is no substitute for what a teacher can see with their own eyes when observing and interacting with students while they are learning, and any attempt to reduce something as magnificently messy as real learning will only ever conceal more than it will reveal. I might go so far as to say that the best educators in the 21st Century understand that “measurable outcomes may be the least significant results of learning” except that this has been true in every century. Anyone using data must understand that what we see largely depends on what we look for and there’s a huge difference between valuing what we measure and measuring what we value – but again, this is true regardless of the date on the calendar.

21st CENTURY SKILLS: Unfortunately, most people who speak about 21st Century Skills actually think that something changed because the date on the calendar advanced. They also (mis)assume that we are in some competitive race for the finish line – except there’s no competition and there’s no finish line. Education reform built on the foundation of competition is a house of cards just waiting to be toppled over.

If we really care about getting school reform right in the 21st Century, then we have to go back to two men from the previous century who have framed how we think of truly progressive education – John Dewey and Jean Piaget.

Dewey’s message focused on democracy as a way of life, not just a form of government, and that “thinking is something that emerges from our shared experiences and activities.” Piaget taught us that “even very young children play an active role in making sense of things, ‘constructing’ reality rather than just acquiring knowledge.

If we take the work of Dewey and Piaget seriously, we have to acknowledge that the best kind of education we can provide our children has nothing to do with the date on the calendar and more to do with understanding how children learn.

In the end, I have one question about the 21st Century: will the politicians and policy makers figure out what Dewey and Piaget figured out in the 20th Century, and will they listen to the modern day education experts such as Linda Darling-Hammond, Deborah Meier, Alfie Kohn, Yong Zhao and Constance Kamii before we get to the 22nd?