When I read a recent article entitled Can Technology Fix Education, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I could tell from the article that the authors never set foot in a school and had no idea of the current context in which schools operate.

The following are key points made by the authors and my comments:

• Why not harness the "power and popularity" to boost student achievement? School leaders would love to provide each student with his or her own computing device. However, we don't have the money and we have not had the money in the last twenty-five years to do so.
• Schools are currently restricting the use of (personally owned) devices because they are considered to be a distraction. Until we go one-to-one, we are merely playing or dabbling around the edges of technology integration. And don't give me the line about giving every student an iPod. iPods and iPhones are band-aids and a poor man's replacement for real learning technology. Sure, I use my iPad and iPhone to send emails, but neither is my primary device and neither is it the primary computing device for the authors. Can you imagine going to work for a company and being shown your desk and given nothing but a phone?
• Educators are viewed as restricting what is perhaps the "best way to reach and teach our kids." Today's students are not impressed by textbooks, whiteboards, or projection screens. Today's teachers are making do with what they have. Many are feeling fortunate just to have a job. Many have not had a raise in years. It is clear that the authors have not been in schools to view firsthand the negative impact long-running budget cuts are having on school facilities and equipment.
• "Technology has succeeded in reshaping other industries, including banking and travel. Technology can transform education as well." Technology has reshaped the administrative processes not the training of and development of employees. Schools are not banks. Technology has not replaced the doctor in a hospital and it will not replace the teacher in a classroom. Technology does not make the doctor a better doctor, but technology does help the doctor provide better care. Technology will not make the teacher a better teacher, but technology will help the teacher provide enhanced instruction.
• "But it (technology) can’t be used willy-nilly. If we want to realize technology’s full potential it needs to be used in a “closed-loop” system that uses technology at every level to provide continuous improvement in instruction and outcomes, with real-time feedback, and one-on-one intervention, where necessary." I agree wholeheartedly. We cannot fairly evaluate something that we have never fully implemented. We can't say that a diet didn't work if we never tried it. Until every student has his or her own device, we have not fully implemented technology. We are still dabbling around the edges of technology integration.

Why has the technology revolution bypassed education?

• Investment is at too low of a level. Schools spend about 1.6% of total spending on technology, while comparable industries spend 4-6%. Correct. We have not and do not have the funds to fully implement technology in our schools, period.
• Schools use technology to automate and support administrative tasks and not to support learning. "The chief opportunity for innovation in education doesn’t center on automating the status quo, but redesigning the process." The reason why technology has been used primarily to automate and support schools is because the business side of education must interface with other business, who also use technology. In addition, technology saves money by replacing support staff.
• The "sheer number of companies now in the education IT business, will most likely encourage school systems to take advantage of reduced costs. Virtual schools and classrooms will also further encourage the acquisition and use of technology. If we were in a strong economy, schools would be investing heavily in technology for the reasons stated. There is a perfect convergence of declining unit cost and rising computing power. Less expensive devices can finally begin to do what teachers need them to do, but we don't have the money.

And what about social media "Of course, we can’t let technology become the distraction many educators fear. We don’t want kids texting or engaging with friends on Facebook when they’re supposed to be studying. There need to be guardrails." Sure, let's enter the "modern era," but let's ban social media. The authors tip their naive hats on this issue.

"There’s no legitimate reason education can’t adapt to the modern era. When it does we’ll see students who are more engaged, more proficient, and more likely to graduate and succeed as adults." Correct, there is no "legitimate reason" except, of course, money. After all, it's only money.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:13 PM | Permalink

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

In a recent post Mel Riddile discussed the adverse effect of educators failing to fully utilize available technology.  He pointed to the fact that too often various tools are bought for schools and then are not used effectively. 

“We cannot fairly evaluate something that we have not implemented. We can't say that a diet didn't work if we never tried it…We are still dabbling around the edges of technology integration.

“In fact, we educators are unintentionally doing more harm to the argument for more technology than we are doing any good.”

In a follow-up post I endorsed those sentiments by contrasting his concerns with the manner in which the calculator has been integrated into the high school math classroom. 

“By introducing 21stcentury technology into math, the course became alive and intriguing for 21st century students.  Regardless of the price tag it was an educational bargain. 

And more importantly, it had, in the words of Mel Riddile, become a "necessity."   The incorporation of the graphing calculator in math should serve as a role model for the rest of school-based technology.”

When good technology goes bad

While it is clear that tools like the graphing calculator can enhance the educational experience and need to be utilized fully, there is no guarantee that all technology is of equal benefit in the classroom.  One of my former colleagues was quick to inform me that a blanket endorsement of the utility of every device is a mistake.

“No one loves technology more than I do; I use it whenever I can.  But there is one thing that too many people don’t understand about employing it in the classroom—if it’s not ‘plug and play’ it is often not worth the effort.  If something is unreliable, complicated or ill-conceived it will most likely be abandoned or discarded.

“For example, I loved “Logger Pro."  It allowed the kids to collect and analyze data quickly.  It made labs more informative, allowed students to use data rather than to just collect it.   It was much like the graphing calculator. It basically involved an “on” and “off” switch to operate.  Instead of spending time fighting with balky equipment, the time was spent with the students analyzing the information they had obtained.

“That is not always the case.  Many of the innovations that are offered to teachers either don’t deliver the advertised results or don’t work at all.  To be effective in a classroom it has to be ‘plug and play’ and that means play effectively.”

Going off the “deep” end

She is not alone in her experiences.  For all of the good results that the calculator brought to the math classroom there were tech horror stories as well.  In the mid-nineties my school district made a huge financial investment in a particular software program, which was advertised as a self-guided learning tool for Algebra 1.  For weeks the teachers tried in vain to make the system work.  Untold hours of class time were lost.  Finally, in frustration I called the company’s educational liaison to explain the nuances of the program at a math department meeting.  Twenty minutes into the planned presentation she was still struggling to get the software functioning.  As the room became restless she asked for ten more minutes. It was to no avail; as teachers began to drift out of the computer lab she promised to come back at a later date when she was better prepared.   We never saw her again.  The software was “deep-sixed” by the department.

Lessons learned

Wasting thirty or forty minutes of a teacher’s afternoon is unfortunate but not disastrous.  However, fumbling with recalcitrant software in front of 30 adolescents for even half that amount of time is an educational nightmare.  Likewise trying to set up a complicated piece of technology in the seven minutes of passing time between classes is a formula for a classroom meltdown.   Patience is not a typical characteristic of high school students.   Any new method of instruction is usually allotted only one opportunity to fail.

Making classroom technology work

Mel Riddile is correct in setting a goal of fully implementing technology in the classroom. Such an approach is essential for preparing students to be successful in the world of 2011.  Classroom instruction must reflect the tools available both inside and outside the school.  There are, however, several guidelines that need to be followed:

1. Training requirements must be centered on the teachers not the students.  Teachers can afford to invest time in learning how to effectively use new technologies.  What they cannot afford is spending large amounts of time in class to instruct and reinstruct 30 individuals on how to employ the equipment.  Effective technologies should require little more than a flip of a switch by students.
2. Equipment must be dependable.  A lesson plan based on a piece of software or a data-gathering device that fails, results is lost class time – a precious commodity in education.  Therefore a high level of reliability is a key requirement for any piece of classroom equipment.
3. Technology must enhance instruction.  Too many pieces of expensive equipment can be found gathering dust in storage rooms across the nation.  Some new innovations represent marvelous technological breakthroughs but often do little to actually improve instruction.  Before purchasing any new teaching tools, districts should seek input from teachers who have extensively used the devices under consideration.  Something that is essential for a Social Studies class may have little or no value in a Physics lab.
4. Customer service must be effective and readily available.  When the inevitable problems with technology arise, teachers must be able to obtain quick and reliable support.  The in-school specialists are rarely equipped to help with such specific questions.  Quality help should never be more than one phone call or email away.
5. The equipment must be easy to set up and take down.  Teachers may need to utilize a specific technology for one class but not for the one that precedes or follows it.  It must also be portable.  Teachers move from one classroom to another and/or share equipment with multiple teachers, the technology has to be equally mobile.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:58 AM | Permalink

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

Mel Riddile recently lamented the failure of educators to embrace the use of technology.  His angst was ignited by a comment in an article published in the New York Times.

“In a recent New York Times article, Matt Richtel put it bluntly. ‘Schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.”

Dr. Riddile agrees that technology is not having the intended impact in education but for very different reasons.

“Because we are so used to "making do" with less, we are actually doing technology integration a disservice by allowing people like Matt Richtel to believe that we have fully implemented technology in our schools when, in actuality, scarce resources are forcing most schools to tinker around the edges giving lip service to technology integration without the tools needed to make it happen school wide.”

His final point is that items that are designed to augment classroom instruction fall into one of three categories:  novelty, nicety or necessity.   The argument is simple—until technology becomes a necessity in the daily activities of a course, it will never reach its full potential. 

An example of a "necessity"

As a math teacher from 1968 until 2008 I was witness to the evolution of the real “new math”.  Not that stuff that was talked about in the run-up to the Apollo Space Program.  I am talking about the introduction of the graphing calculator into the high school classroom.   It began as a trickle when a few Casio and Texas Instruments products began to appear in the classroom.  But as the capabilities of these hand-held devices became clearly evident, math educators began to take notice.  More than fifteen years ago Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia decided to invest millions of dollars to ensure that every Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 student in the district had 24/7 access to a TI-83 during the entire school year. 

Weighing priorities

The use of any technology has downsides.  “Spell Check” has created a nation of poor spellers.  Doctors are no longer the only folks with illegible handwriting.  Automatic dialing has left most of us helpless when trying to remember a phone number in an emergency.  And don’t get me started on passwords.  So not surprisingly the influx of graphing calculators met significant resistance.   They quickly diminished the ability of students to mentally do fundamental calculations.  Many parents and teachers were appalled.  The comment “We are turning out a generation of math illiterates” was spoken in a variety of forms.  But the reality was just the opposite.  Instead of producing students who could do simple arithmetic in their heads, we were now capable of creating mathematicians. 

In my own classroom I was observing the profound difference such technology could make.  Instead of spending three weeks learning how to find a logarithm, students were spending that time using logarithms to solve complex math problems.  Graphs that would require a class period to create were now instantly available to analyze and utilize.  Topics once considered too complex to be discussed were now routine work.   The entire subject matter had been revitalized.  Real world problems were not only being solved they were being demonstrated on a screen.  For years I had been envious of the power of the lab experiment in Science classrooms; that was no longer the case.  Students in my classroom were launching rockets, discussing world population growth and determining the probability of winning the lottery without ever leaving their seats. 

Questions, questions, questions

The implementation of any technology always raises concerns.  For many parents the fear of the calculator was that it would somehow allow students to do well without working hard—in essence level the playing field for unmotivated students.  Actually, the converse was true.  Virtually every technology favors the individual who knows what they are doing.  The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” is appropriate in this conversation.  I would explain this situation to students and parents by saying, “A calculator is really quite stupid.  It will do whatever you tell it to do.  It will never tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Are you really sure you want to input that?’”  But I could assure them that in the right hands it could perform mathematical magic.   

After a few years I became downright strident in my support.  When unenthused parents would ask “But what happens when the batteries die in the calculator?” I would answer “Buy new batteries.”

Use it or lose it

In the typical math class at my school the graphing calculator became a critical part of the daily lesson.  It was utilized to intensify the curriculum, bring the real world into the classroom and produce accurate and meaningful work.  By introducing 21stcentury technology into math, the course became alive and intriguing for 21st century students.  Regardless of the price tag it was an educational bargain.  And more importantly, it had, in the words of Mel Riddile, become a necessity.   The incorporation of the graphing calculator in math should serve as a role model for the rest of school-based technology.   

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:42 AM | Permalink

Technology and diets have one thing in common. Neither works unless you work them, and, when it comes to school technology, for the most part, we educators are more like dabblers than implementers.

In a recent New York Times article, Matt Richtel put it bluntly. "Schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning."

I'm not sure what approach Richtel is talking about. I will be just as blunt. We cannot fairly evaluate something that we have not implemented. We can't say that a diet didn't work if we never tried it. Until every student has his or her own device, we have not fully implemented technology. We are still dabbling around the edges of technology integration.

In fact, we educators are unintentionally doing more harm to the argument for more technology than we are doing any good. Because we are so used to "making do" with less, we are actually doing technology integration a disservice by allowing people like Matt Richtel to believing that we have fully implemented technology in our schools when, in actuality, scarce resources are forcing most schools to tinker around the edges giving lip service to technology integration without the tools needed to make it happen school wide.

Novelty, Nicety, or Necessity?

Twenty years ago, computers where a "novelty" in schools. Teachers would tell students, "We're going to the computer lab tomorrow." A few innovative teachers were willing to take a risk to use computers and technology as a "special" part of the learning experience in their course.

Since then, technology and computers have evolved to "nicety" status. Schools have both fixed and portable computer labs, but, in general, students don't use computers in most classes on a daily basis. Computers are "nice," but not a integral part of the teaching-learning experience. In other words, we can do without them.

I have even gone into schools where students did have their own laptop and I would see signs on the classroom doors "bring your laptops today." I remarked to one administrator that when those signs disappear, you will know that you have moved from "nicety" to "necessity."

In the "necessity" stage, computers are just as essential as paper and pencil used to be. I knew that we had reached the "necessity" stage when our teachers started complaining that the repair desk "was not turning around laptops fast enough, and my students can't participate without their laptop. They are lost without them!"

Learning Is a 24/7 Process

Learning doesn't stop when the students leave the classroom. If the students are denied access to the resources they used in the classroom, how can they be expected to carry on with the learning process? In most schools, students share computers or they have the use of a computer. In all but a handful of schools across country, we simply aren't there yet. Until each student has his or her own device 24/7, we haven't fully implemented technology.

Think about it! What would the classroom be like if we had no paper and not enough pencils or pens to go around? We already know. Students would be writing on pieces of slate with chunks of chalk. Can you imagine a teachers wheeling a cart into a classroom once or twice a week and telling students, "come up and pick up your pencil and paper?"

How extensive would your personal use of technology be if you had to share a computer with two or three other people in your office? My guess is that you would be years behind where you are right now. I know that I would. The fact is that, when it comes to adults, we know that they need their own computing device. Why not our students?

I have believed for a long time that, until each student has his or her own computing device, we have not fully implemented technology and we cannot claim to be serious about integrating technology into instruction. Going from a high school with an excellent computer to student ratio that took years to achieve, my move to a school in which every student had a laptop confirmed for me that my dreams of a paperless classroom and 24/7 learning could be realized.

For example, our district had made a sizeable investment in a well-known content management system (CMS). I was committed to having all our teachers trained and actively using the system. After going to my new school, which had a one-to-one initiative, I realized that my previous efforts were window dressing. Not until I personally witnessed what we could do with a CMS when every student had his or her device, did I realize what a waste of time my efforts were.

All means all, not most!

As long as fixed or portable computer labs are the best that we can do, technology will be a "novelty" or a "nicety." Only when every student has a personal computing device will technology become a necessity. Until then technology integration is only an experiment, and a partial experiment at that.

To Matt Richtel, I say give every student his or her own device and give us three to five years to fully implement tem and to change the culture of the classroom, then evaluate technology in the schools.

Next: Is BYOD the answer?

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:46 PM | Permalink

Posted by Mel Riddile at 01:07 PM | Permalink

Background: Back in 1995, I was teaching an Internet course for our teachers. When I look at the syllabus for that course, I have a good laugh. Sad to say, we could do things in 1995 that would be difficult to pull off today. Yes, we were using ftp and a beta version of Netscape, but we were regularly videoconferencing with people around the world. Today, I would have to get special permission from our district to conduct those same video-conferences. The reality is that "brute force" filtering of Internet content has resulted in us regressing rather than progressing.

School leaders are unintentionally killing the motivation of our teachers and students to make the most use of technology in our schools, not by our actions, but by our inaction on the issue of web filtering.

Teachers repeatedly complain to me that their students cannot do research at school because so many web sites are blocked. Students are resigned to the fact that doing research on a school computer is next to impossible. So, they just wait until they go home.

Scotomas

To put it bluntly, many of our colleagues have developed scotomas or blind spots in relation to certain practices in their schools, and content filtering is one of the most prevalent examples. Instead of asking why, they simply shrug their shoulders respond with a deer-in-the-headlights look. I have asked a number of my fellow school leaders about policies and practices in their school and school system relating to content filtering. Most have no idea what is going on in their school regarding filtering or the frustration experienced by their teachers and students.

Flat World

No, the world isn't flat, but when it comes to content filtering in schools it might as well be. Most school leaders react to my questions relating to filtering in much the same way that Europeans must have reacted when Christopher Columbus challenged the prevailing wisdom of the day by proposing that the world was not flat but was round. School leaders generally accept the status quo related to content filtering with a 'that's the way it is' response.

A Good Day In IT Land

In fact, many school leaders are allowing IT folks to do what we used to allow some librarians to do--keep the kids out and the books in. Keep in mind that, for some, a good day in IT Land is when no one is on the network, and, thus, there are no problems. From my experience, IT folk are among the usual suspects who are practitioners of ABC management practices--Administration By Convenience.

Over-Compliance

In an April interview, which is a must-read for all school staff and parents, Karen Cator of the U.S. Department of Education takes on what she calls "brute force technologies." According to Cator, many schools are simply over-complying with federal guidelines.

What you must know about content filtering

In the interview, "Cator parsed the rules of the Childrens Internet Protection Act, and provided guidance for teachers on how to proceed when it comes to interpreting the rules. To that end, here are six surprising rules that educators, administrators, parents and students might not know about website filtering in schools."

1. Accessing YouTube is not violating CIPA rules.
2. Websites don’t have to be blocked for teachers.
3. Broad filters are not helpful.
4. Schools will not lose E-rate funding by unblocking appropriate sites.
5. Kids need to be taught how to be responsible digital citizens.
6. Teachers should be trusted.

The Solution

If you, as a school leader, don't advocate for your teachers and students, who will? Content filtering is an important part of any school-wide technology effort. I should know. In my former high school, every one of our 3,200 students had a laptop.

Yes, we blocked inappropriate sites. On occasion, our IT staff blocked appropriate sites, but we had a simple remedy. If a teacher came across a site that she wanted unblocked, she simply emailed me the name of the site and the URL. I forwarded a request to our IT people and, within minutes the problem was solved.

The key here is that, as the principal, I got involved and assumed responsibility.  IT people are simply doing what they think is best. If they never hear from us, they have no idea that a problem exists. It is true that some IT people practice the ABCs (Administration-By-Convenience). However, I have found most IT people to be particularly helpful, especially when the school leader is willing to take the time to show interest and to get directly involved.

Don't wait another day! Meet with your IT staff and discuss content filtering. Work out a plan to address teacher issues and advocate for improved student achievement through the effective use of technology.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:44 AM | Permalink

"No one is arguing we shouldn't use technology in education anymore. The question is how."--Chris Lehmann, ISTE 2011

Education Week reports that data released by Project Tomorrow, the Software and Information Industry Association, and technology company CDW-G reveals a "perception gap" or "disconnect" between educators and students and between school-based staff and district staff.

Better But Not There Yet

"School districts are becoming more sophisticated in their approach to implementing online education but are still struggling to meet the increasing need and desire of students to learn online."

More Taking Online Courses

The proportion of high school students who had taken an online course as of last fall tripled from fall 2008, from 10 percent to 30 percent.

Online Courses Becoming Mainstream

Two in five students believe online classes are an essential component of education and administrators' concerns about funding online courses are fading. On the other hand, concerns about course quality are rising.

Teachers: No thanks to online learning

26 percent of teachers surveyed expressed interest in diving into online teaching if they hadn't already done so.

Who is the "cork in the bottle?"

"District-level administrators were found to be more supportive of online learning than on-campus principals were. The district-level superintendents or administrators are much more visionary thinking [about] what the long-term implications are. Principals are more narrowly focused on living right now, today, and dealing with today's issues."

Can't Keep Up

"Educators don't feel as if they are keeping up with technology, even if their actions would appear to show otherwise. "The more they do, the more they're aware of how much more they should be doing."

Up-to-date Classroom

What constitutes a "21st Century Classroom? "Any Internet connection, teacher computing device, and LCD projector are characteristics of a modern classroom."

Unsatisfied Students

64 percent of IT administrators rated their districts' technology as "cutting edge," only 45 percent of faculty members and 39 percent of students reported being satisfied with their classroom technology.

A Thought: The Common Core Assessments will involve extensive use of technology. They will all be computer and Internet-based. We have a lot of work to do before 2014-15.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 11:28 AM | Permalink

Are we in the midst of a “major shift in educator’s opinion regarding technology as an education tool?”

Classroom Use Increases

According to a new survey of 294,399 K-12 students, 42,267 parents, 35,525 teachers, 2,125 librarians, 3,578 school or district administrators, and 1,391 technology leaders, “the number of educators incorporating technology such as podcasts and videos into their lessons has increased 50% since 2008.

Personal Use Increases

The Project Tomorrow survey also found that the use of personal technology by educators is on the rise, with many more teachers using smartphones and social-networking tools such as Facebook.”

The latest Speak Up Survey reveals the following:

- More than twice as many educators have a personal smart phone today than in 2008

- A 33 percent increase in the number of teachers who are active Facebook users.

- A 50 percent increase of teachers using podcasts and videos as part of their classroom instruction.

My Take

The survey sends a clear message to those who have been hanging on to old modes of communication and old technologies: It may be time to make a shift!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:35 AM | Permalink

Teachers repeatedly complain to me that their students cannot do research at school because so many sites are blocked. In a recent interview, which is a must-read for all school staff and parents, Karen Cator of the U.S. Department of Education takes on what she calls "brute force technologies." According to Cator, many schools are over-complying with federal guidelines.

What you must know about content filtering

In the interview, "Cator parsed the rules of the Childrens Internet Protection Act, and provided guidance for teachers on how to proceed when it comes to interpreting the rules. To that end, here are six surprising rules that educators, administrators, parents and students might not know about website filtering in schools."

1.     Accessing YouTube is not violating CIPA rules.

2.     Websites don’t have to be blocked for teachers.

3.     Broad filters are not helpful.

4.     Schools will not lose E-rate funding by unblocking appropriate sites.

5.     Kids need to be taught how to be responsible digital citizens.

6.     Teachers should be trusted.

My Take

Content filtering is an important part of any school wide technology effort. I should know. In my former high school, every one of our 3,200 students had a laptop. We blocked inappropriate sites. On occasion, our staff blocked appropriate sites, but we had a simple remedy. If a teacher came across a site that she wanted unblocked, she simply emailed me the name of the site and the URL. I forwarded a request to our IT people and, within minutes the problem was solved. The key here is that the principal get involved and take some leadership. IT people are simply doing what they think is best. If they never hear from us, they have no idea that a problem exists. While it is true that some IT people practice the ABCs (Administration By Convenience), those individuals are rare. I have found most IT people to be particularly helpful, especially when the principal is willing to take the time to show interest and to get directly involved.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 09:53 AM | Permalink

by Stuart Singer, The Teacher Leader

The students in the 11^th grade English class were given an assignment that would have been impossible to complete in February, 2006.  They were told to respond to a reading based on the work of Ernest Hemingway.  While the literature being studied was available well before 2006, the method of delivering the homework was not.  The students in this class had to send in the assignment using Twitter and as prescribed on that site, keep their responses to 140 characters.

Some positive responses

The teacher who made this assignment is very enthusiastic about the outcomes.  “Part of my job is to get the students engaged,” she related. “It’s easier to do that if I can link the homework to Twitter and Facebook. The hope is that when it’s time for the AP exam, what started as a novelty will translate into a real skill.”

Her students were equally positive.   One describe her writing as more efficient, declarative, even staccato. “It was a total breakthrough,” she said.  Some sentiments match precisely with the thoughts expressed in a recent Mel Riddile post—concise writing equals better writing.

Other teachers have embraced additional aspects of social networks for instruction using a powerful combination of Facebook and the Canterbury Tales to study Chaucer’s work.   One senior English student was so excited by such an assignment she said, “I had to write interests and status updates for the friar in the story — he was like a total frat guy.” She then added, “It’s the kind of assignment I found interesting because I could relate to it.”

Other Facebook groups have been formed to relay information, have discussions and encourage inter-active study. 

Making it relevant

I found that one of the greatest obstacles in teaching mathematics was the abstract nature of the curriculum.  It soon became clear that academic success increased significantly by making the subject more applicable to a student’s life experiences.  In my own classroom we would weave topics such as probability, parametric motions and sequences and series to events familiar to the students.  The mathematics of television shows like “CSI”, price selection in clothing, and calculating successful field goal attempts would be studied at length. 

The English teachers in this article are doing the same.  They are bringing 14th century literature to life using 21st century technology.  Not surprisingly, many of the students have embraced this new approach.

Not everyone is convinced

In sharp contrast to the enthusiasm of the teachers and students, many educational policy makers are not quite ready to endorse the use of Twitter and Facebook.  Many states, including Virginia, are concerned with one of the more highly publicized, negative aspects of social networks - sexual predators.   

Education officials in that state are primarily concerned with the possibilities that this approach will give potential offenders greater access to students.   In the past decade the state has averaged more than a dozen cases per year of inappropriate relationships between teachers and students.  According to Virginia Department of Education spokesman Charles Pyle, the “vast majority” of those cases included texting and other forms of digital communication.

Some people do not see a direct correlation.  “It’s not about the technology, it’s about how it’s used, about acceptable behaviors,” said Kathy L. Smith, chairwoman of the Fairfax County (Virginia) School Board. “Somebody who wants to relate in that way is going to find a way to do it.”

No one, of course, would take the potential of sexual misconduct lightly.  But the larger question is whether using these technologies in the classroom would contribute to any increase in such behavior.  The reality is that adolescents in huge numbers are already engaged in significant activity on these sites.  Demonstrating a positive and responsible utilization of these tools may send a message that could elevate their personal adventures on the web.  There would be no guarantees of such an outcome but the potential for increased academic success must also be considered.  

High school students live in their own unique world of social networking, video games, homecoming floats and YouTube.  The more connections that educators can make between that universe and education the more likely it would be that the message of the importance of academic success will be received.  Ignoring the social network will not make it disappear and will only serve to widen the cultural gap between teachers and students.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:52 AM | Permalink

A few days ago I introduced my wife to the new iPad app The Daily. Yesterday, she wanted to show me how amazing The Daily was and how she was using it. She particularly liked the videos imbedded in the articles.

"What if you could make a textbook look like this? she said.

I told her to go to the Kahn Academy website and then check out this YouTube video featured on the PBS NewsHour.

A few minutes later, she came back, "This is amazing! This is a dissertation! How long have you known about this?"

I replied, "I tweeted about this a while back. Don't you follow me?"

"I don't know how to do Twitter," she replied.

"Do you know how to use YouTube, I asked? There are some great Twitter tutorials there."

She retorted, "I don't tweet!"

So, you are not interested into tapping into the collective intelligence of hundreds of other people? You think it is better to do it alone?

The Bottom Line

No more excuses - If you have an Internet connection, there is no excuse for not learning about something that you really want to learn about. Look it up!

Check out the Khan Academy. What began as the founder "making a few algebra videos for his cousins has grown to over 2,100 videos and 100 self-paced exercises and assessments covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history." It is a great resource for teachers and students.

Twitter is the best way to tap into the collective intelligence of many people with whom you share common interests.

Next: Revisiting Reverse Instruction

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:14 PM | Permalink

Winnie Hu of the New York Times, recently wrote about the increasing use of the iPad in American schools and, in a short time, there have been a number of follow-up articles, some supportive and some negative.

Hu's article mentions a pilot program at Roslyn High School on Long Island, which distributed 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students.

I recently had the opportunity to visit a small, rural, high-poverty school system and observed pre-school and kindergartners using iPads. I have recent experience with both iPads and one-to-one computing. Even though I was the principal in a large urban high school in which each of our students had their own laptop and I have my own iPad, I had some questions about iPads and how they could be integrated into classroom instruction to actually enhance student performance. In other words, were the iPads toys or personal computing devices?

Any doubts that I held were quickly dismissed by the effortless manner in which these four and five-year-olds and their teachers have integrated used the iPads into the learning experience. For these beginning readers, the iPads were a normal part of their learning experience. In fact, if I hadn't known, I would have thought the iPads had been around for years, instead of months.

The students used the iPads both individually and in pairs. As is their custom, the teachers had students working in groups of 6-8 students. While one groups was using the iPads, another was working with an instructional aide and another was working with the teacher. The iPad group required little or no direction from the teacher or her aide. They simply launched the app as instructed and proceeded to work.

I was particularly impressed by one specific app that cost a mere 99 cents because, several years ago, our school had purchased a software package that addressed the very same literacy skills. The difference is that that software cost tens of thousands of dollars more.

Additional thoughts on iPads and technology intergration:

- iPads are durable enough for use by even the youngest users.

- The software/apps are low-cost and are getting better all the time. So, the teachers can afford to experiment to find the apps that are best for their students. Furthermore, if they have a student with a specific need, they can find an app for that.

- Those favoring a "back to basics," pencil and paper approach to classroom instruction would be impressed by the fact that the students were actively engaged and on-task. The iPads were not being used as toys, but to support personalized student learning.

- iPads have long batter life, ease of mobility, and a screen large enough to allow for active social interaction. Battery life was a big issue for us in our one-to-one project.

Novelty, Nicety, or Necessity?

Think about it! How extensive would your personal use of technology be if you had to share a computer with two or three other people in your office? My guess is that you would be years behind where you are right now. I know that I would. The fact is that, when it comes to adults, we know that they need their own computing device.

I have believed for a long time that, until each student has his or her own computing device, we have not fully implemented technology and we cannot claim to be serious about integrating technology into instruction. Going from a high school with an excellent computer to student ratio that took years to achieve, my move to a school in which every student had a laptop confirmed for me that my dreams of a paperless classroom and 24/7 learning could be realized.

As long as computer labs are the best that we can do, technology will be a novelty or a nicety. Only when every student has a personal computing device will technology become a necessity. Until then technology integration is only a dream.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 04:37 PM | Permalink

You can get a more detailed explanation on the five Internet technologies that all administrators should know about, but here is my take:

1. Classroom Management Applications - Every lab should allow the teacher to monitor, control, and share every monitor in the lab. As we move to a device for every student we need CMA's that work in wireless environments.
2. Lecture Capture - Customization and review are two factors in raising student achievement. Students need to be able to review lessons on their own time. Check out the Khan Academy for a preview of how this might increase practice time.
3. Parent Portals - One way to encourage parent involvement is to provide them timely information on the progress of their child.
4. Skype - We were doing a lot of videoconferencing in 1995. We are doing less in 2010 because Skype and other services are filtered out. Somehow, we need to get this filtering thing figured out or we will kill the golden goose.
5. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) - You probably has seen TV commercials about "The Cloud" and cloud computing.

The future is here. All aboard!

Posted by Mel Riddile at 12:20 PM | Permalink

Guest blogger: Bob Farrace, NASSP Senior Director for Communications and Development

Typically, educational technology documents don’t make much of a splash outside of the educational technology community. The final National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) released earlier this month is the exception. Unlike so many educational technology documents that romanticize new tools for narrow tasks, the NETP is so much more about education than technology. The plan proposes a new model of learning enabled by technology but driven by the student’s individual educational needs. Language of personalization and engagement and student empowerment are a familiar echo of the Breaking Ranks framework that NASSP has promoted for the past 15 years. So this might be just the opportunity school leaders need to shatter the ed-tech echo chamber and join—perhaps even lead—the conversation about technology as a transformative force that enables and accelerates the attainment of educational goals to which we have aspired for years.

The plan comes at an opportune time. At last count, 43 states are poised to adopt Common Core standards, complete with technology-enabled assessments—a key element of the NETP. Prior to taking the assessments, though, students will benefit from a likely new explosion of open educational resources, or OERs, whose development will be focused by the Common Core. The new model of learning requires access to these new multiple resources—not just content, but teachers, mentors, and learning communities.

Certain new realities might push us this direction, ready or not. A recent National Coalition for Teaching and America’s Future report details one reality that boils down to this: Boomers are leaving the teaching profession more quickly than we can replace them, and half of those new teachers leave the profession within five years. If we plan to hang on to the industrial-era model of replacing an outgoing body with a new (and cheaper) body, we might as well ring the crisis alarm now. We’re not going to recruit our way out of this one. Otherwise, we can take the opportunity to remodel the teaching profession along the lines, for instance, of the NETP “connected teaching” model, in which teachers act less as content delivery agents and more as superconnected conductors of the various content sources and learning networks that contribute to the student’s education.

The NETP is a rich document with big aspirations for transforming the learning enterprise. Its success will require the coordinated efforts of everyone with a stake in schools. And we have a 2015 deadline to pull it all together. So there’s a new urgency for principals to do their part and take a crucial first step: Create the conditions for connectivity in schools. First, this presumes all kids can access connectible devices—one small part of the infrastructure overhaul NETP calls for. Schools with 1-to-1 laptops or other mobile learning devices (MLDs) are the exception, so the norm remains students who occasionally visit the computer lab or wait their turn to use the classroom computer. Such access is not nearly enough to fulfill the NETP aspirations, yet principals can reallocate their small discretionary budgets only so far. Thankfully, there are a number of favorable precedents—the state of Maine, in fact, even figured out how to institute a 1-to-1 policy statewide. So we’ll be keeping an eye out for the policies and funding sources that will replicate that success throughout the nation.

In the meantime, principals can prepare for the advent of MLDs by beginning the crucial conversation about connectivity. NETP will see no progress while we continue to debate if schools should give students (and teachers) access to social networks and other Web 2.0 tools. They should. They must. Now. Some schools have figured out how to make it happen without the CIPA police tapping at their doors. And while some potential dangers are real, frameworks are emerging for principals to lead stakeholder conversations that set expectations for responsible use of social media and accountability for misuse. (Here’s one, to get you started. And NASSP will continue to identify and share them.) Those conversations are overdue. And the only real investment is the decision by an enlightened leader to make the conversation a priority.

What are the other ways principals can prepare now for the NETP to get traction in schools?

Posted by Bob Farrace at 01:19 PM | Permalink

Yesterday’s USA Today article contended that online harassment of teachers and school officials was protected speech and an opportunity for “payback time”—a golden opportunity to get back at teachers and school administrators. An informal poll of my friends and acquaintances confirmed my shock and dismay that any reasonable adult would believe that it was acceptable and even justifiable for students to engage in such despicable behavior. One said it best, “I’m sure glad that I don’t have that person’s child in my class.”

The author would probably use the “payback time,” free speech argument to defend the same student behavior directed, not at teachers and administrators, but instead to other students. You don’t like someone so you publish your attacks on the Internet for all the world to see.

Fortunately, reasonable minds may yet prevail. Today’s Washington Post properly acknowledges the grave impact that online misbehavior can have on lives of students. The Post points out that the “LACK OF MATURITY, lack of supervision, and technology that can transmit messages instantly to millions of people: This is the volatile cocktail that lies at the root of cyberbullying.”

While students may be “digital natives” who have been using technology as a normal part of their lives since birth, skill doesn’t necessarily translate into wisdom. Simply knowing how to use technology does not mean that students know how to us it wisely. When “extensive technological knowledge combines with the raging hormones, limited impulse control and failure to understand consequences that mark the teenage years, the results can be devastating.”

Cyberbullying “can be a minor annoyance or, drawing in strangers through hate speech or provocative images, it can escalate far beyond the schoolyard.” Furthermore, as the Post points out, “this bullying, following students out of school hallways into the privacy of their homes, can have a debilitating effect on daily life. To combat it, parents and educators must stay vigilant and establish clear expectations for conduct online.”

Instead of viewing cyber attacks as “payback time,” the Post points out that “Schools can help themselves combat the problem by clearly banning cyberbullying in their acceptable-use policies and honor codes, as they do traditional bullying.

Schools can’t fight cyberbullying alone. “Ultimately it is the role of parents to establish the terms of their children's activity online, setting clear limits and responding supportively and definitively if things go awry.

Instead of viewing cyber attacks as protected speech, the Post points out that schools and parents work together can create “clear expectations for student behavior and teaching teens and tweens about the consequences of their online actions can go a long way toward changing the culture in which such bullying thrives.”

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A recent article in the Washington Post questioned the wisdom of using scarce resources to purchase interactive whiteboards, which will soon be a fixture in one of every three classroom across the country. The article refers to the interactive whiteboard as nothing more than a “giant interactive computer screen that is usurping blackboards in classrooms across America -- locks teachers into a 19th-century lecture style of instruction counter to the more collaborative small-group models that many reformers favor.”

According to Larry Cuban, "There is hardly any research that will show clearly that any of these machines will improve academic achievement," said Larry Cuban, education professor emeritus at Stanford University. "But the value of novelty, that's highly prized in American society, period. And one way schools can say they are 'innovative' is to pick up the latest device."

Nancy Knowlton, the chief executive of SMART Technologies, a leading supplier of interactive whiteboards, countered “schools are desperate to find ways to engage multi-tasking, tech-savvy kids, who often play video games before they can read.”  Knowlton goes on to describe engaged students. "[Students] are engaged when they're in class, they are motivated, they are attending school, they are behaving and this is translating to student performance in the classroom," she said.

Whiteboards From a Principal’s Perspective

I must admit up front that I love gadgets. However, I am also a utilitarian. If a “gadget” will perform a task that I need doing, it has value to me. However, gadgetry for the sake of novelty is a waste of time and money. Next, I am an early adopter not an innovator, which simply means that I usually like to wait for the second iteration of a new product before I jump on board.

As a principal, I didn’t drink the whiteboard kool-aid. First, I didn’t have enough money to equip our classrooms. Second, I wasn’t sure if they would help to raise student achievement. So, I did what I always did. I asked the experts. No, I didn’t ask the company reps, nor was I able to find any research on the effectiveness on interactive whiteboards. It was simply too early in the products life to find any quality studies. Instead, I asked the real experts, our teachers.

Our Business teachers had been using interactive whiteboards, obtained through grant funds, for several years. So, they were the likely candidates for a small action research project.

Actually, what initially drew my attention to the issue of whiteboards was a request from the Business teachers for a rather sizeable purchase of expensive rubber mats most often used by clerks in retail stores, who are required to spend long hours standing in one spot. When I asked about the need for the purchase, the Business teachers told me that their constant use of the whiteboards forced them to stand in one place for most of the class period.

Stand in one spot in the classroom? That brought up the first red flag. Our school was one of the very few high schools that had defined instructional practices one of which was a Madeline Hunter-derived instructional delivery model. This model had a clear, specific vision of how a class should begin and how it should end. Standing in one spot on a rubber mat with a 2,000 lumen bulb shining in the teachers eyes all day long was not in our instructional model.

I had recently attended a conference where I saw a demonstration of a portable tablet-like device that allowed teachers to do the same things that they could do with an interactive whiteboard with some important differences. First, the teachers were no longer physically constrained and required to stand adjacent to the whiteboard. They could now move around the room. Second, while the teachers still needed an LCD projector, they didn’t need the expensive whiteboard. Third, they didn’t need to continually recalibrate the portable device. Fourth, they could hand the device to a student, who could then continue the work without the need to leave his or her seat. Finally, the cost was less than one-fourth the cost of the interactive whiteboard.

I was able to obtain a few of the portable devices on loan and I asked the Business teachers to use them in place of the interactive whiteboards. After a few weeks, I asked them for their opinions. All of them wanted to keep the portable devices, which meant that that interactive whiteboards would become high-priced low-tech whiteboards.

A Tool For Every Purpose

This is not to say that our school had no interactive whiteboards. We did. However, we purchased them based on need and intended use, not on the fact that is was more convenient to have every classroom in every department exactly the same. We didn’t believe in the “one size fits all approach” or in trying to squeeze a round peg into a square hole—force teachers to adapt their instruction to the technology instead of the technology serving the teacher.

We differentiated our approach just as we asked our teachers to differentiate their instructional approaches. No, this wasn’t convenient for us, but very little of what we did that worked helped students in our school was about our convenience. Convenience was about adult wants not student needs. Our choice of a course of action was always based on the fact that it would improve learning.

Technology: What Good Is It?

Technology is a tool to improve student learning. Technology can increase student interest and motivation, reinforce learning, offer self-paced practice, and create a low-threat, high-interest learning environment. Technology cannot replace the teacher. Technology is not a replacement for a quality teacher-student relationship. Technology cannot make a bad teacher into a good teacher. However, technology can help a good teacher become an even better and more productive teacher.

What is Engagement?

Whiteboards don’t engage students. Teachers engage students!

I was on a panel discussion at a recent literacy conference. Also on the panel were Dr. Michael Kamil of Stanford, and Dr. Anita Archer. Dr. Archer made a point of defining student engagement in a way that every school leader can understand. She said, “Students are engaged when they are interacting with the teacher and with other students.” I like Dr. Archer’s definition on engagement much more than Nancy Knowlton’s.

While students might enjoy “energized, multimedia” productions, I am not sure that that is how we want to define student engagement. Student engagement is lot more than students attending school, sitting in their seats, and behaving.

Classroom management expert, Fred Jones, always reminded us “It is not our (teachers’) job to have the students watch while we work. It is our (teachers’) job to watch while they (students) work.” Students don’t learn by watching the teacher. Students learn when they are doing/interacting. If technology, properly used and implemented with fidelity, increases student engagement/interaction, it should translate into increased academic achievement. If not, then it is merely a novelty. In these tough economic times, we need to focus on the necessities and all the novelties and niceties need to take a back seat.

Whiteboards are neither good nor bad. They are either useful or not useful in improving student achievement. Whiteboards are a tool not an end in and of themselves.

Note: A technology integration specialist told me that K-6 teachers liked the interactive whiteboards because their students loved to come to the front of the class and touch them. According to this specialist, this was the reason high school teachers did not like them as much. They didn’t want their students walking around the classroom during class.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 08:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Social media and video games may have more value than simple entertainment. They may be a valuable source of information and communications for school leaders.

The Vancouver Sun reports that “A conversation a B.C. man had online with a stranger while playing an Xbox game raised some alarm bells, and the man’s quick thinking may have averted a high school shooting in Texas, police say.” Participants in an Xbox Live chat session overheard another participant threatening friends and staff members at his school. One alert individual notified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

“A conversation started with one player who spoke about being a high school senior who was failing academically. The chat then took a more ominous turn as the student detailed plans to take part in a shooting at his school the following day.

“The suspect indicated he was a senior at his high school, had failing grades and mentioned names of students he was targeting, along with plans about how the shooting would proceed,” said Port Alberni RCMP Staff Sgt. Lee Omilusik. The RCMP alerted Microsoft Security, who traced the source to San Antonio, Texas.

According to a San Antonio News-Express report, the suspect was identified as 16-year old student attending Marshall High School, which is in the Northside Independent School District.

“Pascual Gonzalez, a spokesman for Northside Independent School District, said the boy and his mother met with the high school principal and said authorities searched the boy's locker and found nothing. “The boy was very remorseful and very scared,” Gonzalez said. “We believe that the boy truly was sorry for what he was doing, but in this day and age you have to take all of these kinds of verbal statements, these verbal threats, very seriously and he's going to have to learn that the hard way.” The student was suspended and is not allowed to return to Marshall.”

Because the threat involved a school, the San Antonio police indicate that the student will be charged with a felony.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 10:50 AM | Permalink

by Mel Riddile

The L.A. Times editorial staff believes that kids are naturally mean, and, when they are mean to each other, school officials should mind their own business. “Mean girls—and mean boys—have been terrorizing their classmates since the first schoolhouse was built.”

The editorial points out that some courts are refusing to back schools in their efforts to reign in the reputed bad online behavior because it did not occur on school grounds and because the schools failed to prove that the behavior could reasonably be expected or did cause a substantial disruption to the operation of the school.

According to the Times, “It isn't just students who are targeted by the online equivalent of "slam books," the notebooks furtively passed around playgrounds in previous generations in which children inscribed insults about their classmates. In Pennsylvania, a student was suspended and shifted to an alternative education program because he posted a parody MySpace profile that described his principal, among other insults, as a "big steroid freak" and a "big whore." A U.S. district judge lifted the suspension, saying that non-disruptive online speech couldn't be punished even if the offensive material could be accessed on school computers.”

A Principal’s Reaction

- Not my child – If it is my child being victimized, I want school authorities to protect her. If it is someone else’s child, she has the right to free speech. I wonder what the Times writers would say if it was their child who was the victim of harassment, cyber-bullying, or “sexting?” I bet that they would be contacting their attorney because the school failed to protect their child. The Times wants to paint this as schools attempting to extend their authority instead of what this really is - attempt by schools to protect their students and to meet their responsibility for the safety and welfare of the students.

- Power Hungry – The Times assumes that school leaders are power hungry bureaucrats seeking to extend their authority. This is not about authority. The issue here is responsibility. The first responsibility of every principal is to create a warm, safe, and orderly school environment in which students can learn and grow. Principals take their responsibility to protect all students very seriously. They treat their students with the same dignity and respect that they would want for their own child. When one of their students is threatened, harassed, intimidated, or bullied, they act to protect the student because they sincerely care for the student. Failure to do so could be considered negligence. Again we find dedicated, well-intentioned school leaders placed between the proverbial rock and a hard place. If they protect the student, they are violating the perpetrators rights. If they don’t act, they are found negligent.

- Only on school grounds - The editorial supports schools in their effort to prevent harassment and insults only when the behavior occurs on school grounds. Here is the crux of the issue. Where does the responsibility of the school begin and end. Is it, as some districts define, portal-to-portal—from the time the child steps out of the door in the morning until the child arrives home from school? Or, does the responsibility of the school begin and end at the border of school property during school hours? “…Educators should recognize the reasonable limits of their authority and confine their discipline to girls and boys who are mean to one another -- or to their principal -- at school.”

- I agree with the Times, “Schools aren’t hermetically sealed off from what students do at home.” Today, everyone has an electronic leash (cell phone) that connects them to the entire world. Those electronic signals know no boundaries. If you have a phone, you are connected. As the Times correctly points out, “the Internet has eroded an endless number of formerly clear distinctions, including those based on physical location. So, who gets the benefit of the doubt, the schools or the mean boys and girls?

What Can and Should Schools Do About Mean Online Behavior?

- First, schools must be safe havens where all students feel physically and emotionally safe and secure at all times.

- Schools need clear policies that define harassment, cyber-bullying, and “sexting,” and they need to consistently enforce the policies. Because the goal is not to apprehend and punish but to deter negative behavior and teach responsible behavior, the policy should contain a prevention component that contains provisions that students be taught “responsible use” of technology.

- When considering policies and practices, school officials should put the behaviors into context. Compulsory attendance laws require that students attend school. They have no choice. Unlike a cable TV viewer, students cannot simply change the channel whenever they like. They are compelled to be present and to be subjected to messages that they would normally tune out. Compulsory attendance places an added burden on schools to protect students. For years, one high school allowed students unfettered access to the public address system each morning. The simple act of standing in line allowed any student who wished to say anything about any subject. Not only did the morning announcements go on forever, but the entire school was forcibly subjected to frequent, inane rants. The new principal recognized his responsibility to all students by placing a staff member in charge of the announcements, which required prior approval and were delivered by trained student government officers.

- An enforceable school policy is not a board policy that passes the buck to the principal by simply stating that the school should have a policy. This provides board members with cover and wiggle room when parents complain, but it places school leaders in a position to have the rug pulled out from under them at any time that a constituent or board member disagrees. The result is usually an unenforceable policy.

- Schools would not allow anyone to print and freely distribute paper flyers that contained nude pictures, threats, or slanderous statements, nor should they permit those behaviors simply because they occur electronically.

- Schools must recognize that the Internet gives every student a license to print. A cell phone is literally an electronic printing press that sends messages to the entire world with the touch of a button. As such, the consequences of misdirected or inappropriate messages are instantaneous and virtually limitless in scope. In other words, one message can move faster and do a lot more damage than the printed word. One student with a cell phone can literally direct a “reign of terror” toward another student.

- At some level, students understand that electronic messages are impossible to stop and can be viewed by anyone. Consequently, they are quicker to anger and easily incited to violence when someone posts a derogatory message on social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. Some schools even refer to the resulting altercations as “MySpace fights” or “Facebook fights.

- Harassment is harassment whether it is electronic, verbal, or in print.

- Problems usually stem from how schools deal with the issues not from the fact they actually address the issue. Because most parents don’t want a suspension on their child’s record and certainly not a cyber violation, making suspension from school the first response will set everyone up for a disagreement. Attempting to use school authority to force someone to “take down” a comment or an inappropriate post will, more often than not, result in a confrontation. Many principals have found success by simply having a conversation with the parents of the offender. In my experience, the simple act of setting up a meeting almost always resulted in successful resolution because, it turns out, the parents were not aware that their child’s electronic behavior in the first place.

- If a student brought a Playboy to school in the 1970s, I confiscated the magazine and called the parents. Future violations would result in strict disciplinary action. Distributing inappropriate photographs of students would result in the same. In the case of “sexting,” schools must make it clear in writing that this behavior is harmful, probably illegal, and unacceptable.

- Any student who is bullied, harassed or “sexted” has been victimized. The behavior should be treated as serious and stopped. The victimized student should be given support from a student-services team consisting of an administrator, counselor, social worker, and a school psychologist.

- Like any other illegal acts, these behaviors should be reported to the School Resource Officer or the appropriate law enforcement personnel. Child abuse must be reported to the appropriate authorities in a timely manner. This should be explicitly stated in policy.

- Schools must have clear guidelines and policies that allow them to deal internally with bullying, intimidation, harassment, and “sexting,” separate and apart from any criminal or legal action.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

by Mel Riddile

With each passing day, we improve our chances of leveling the playing field for all students by bridging the digital divide. Despite tight budgets, the technology future for schools is bright. Overall, the cost of technology equipment continues to fall. The capacity and computing power continues to accelerate. Personal computing devices are getting smaller and smaller. Convenience and ease-of-use continues to improve.

THE Journal has announced the “5 K-12 Technology Trends for 2010.”

1. eBooks – With textbooks costs rising as fast as computer costs are falling, we are reaching a point where it will be more economical to provide electronics versions of textbooks to every student.

2. Netbooks  - These ultra-compact devices are very close to being able to replace laptops for students.

3. Interactive Whiteboards – These will soon be standard in every classroom.

4. Personal Devices are Ubiquitous – My wife claims that, other than grading the papers of her graduate students, she can do everything on her iPhone. Cell phones, PDAs and other personal computing devices are becoming useful learning devices with the potential for Disrupting Class.

5. Customized Learning – Clayton Christensen was right about customization but he may have overestimated the time it would take for technology to catch up with the needs of learners.

Posted by Mel Riddile at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)