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My limited understanding of public vs. charter schools

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Education, Leadership, Professionalism, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on September 7, 2012| 10 Comments »

I was a public-school educator for 34 years. While I recognize many of public education’s shortcomings, I am a staunch supporter. More than ever, I believe that this country needs its citizenry to be more than just educated, but also critical thinkers and lifelong learners.

Our country is a representative democracy dependent on leadership, and the direction for our country is placed in the hands of our elected officials who are our politicians. In our government, all leaders are politicians, but not all politicians are leaders. That would make a majority of our government officials, politicians and not leaders. Ideally, leaders make decisions based on the needs of the people. Politicians see the same problems and make decisions based on their needs, or the needs of their political party, or the party’s special interest supporters. This holds true for both political parties.

I first became aware of the charter school movement in 2004. It was my understanding that it was determined that public schools were not meeting the needs of students and people wanted an alternative, but they felt locked in to the public school system. Private and parochial school tuition were out of reach for many of these families. If I was understanding this correctly (not always a given), it seemed to me that the movement was taking place in urban districts, or more to the point, districts that were impacted by poverty.

An easy solution would be to attract businesses to move into the multi-million-dollar arena of education. Profit could be a great motivator to the right people in order to deal with these issues. To make it more attractive many of the restraints placed on public schools were waived for charters. The reason given was that these restrictions stifled innovation and charters needed to innovate. They never relieved the public schools of those same restrictions, but still blamed them for lacking in innovation.

Of course the cost of education could be reduced with the elimination of some of the more expensive components. The cost of educating students with disabilities is always a high-ticket item, so some charter schools develop admissions’ policies or other requirement that may exclude this student population. This may be different in individual states today.

Teacher unions ensure fair pay and reasonable working hours for teachers, but charter schools can work union-free. To further make the transition easier, many politicians and business people began to target teachers and unions as the primary reason why these schools were failing. The perspective of the politicians was probably to get the costs down to make the problem more profitable for business. It had little to do with addressing the needs of schools in areas of high poverty.

Urban schools in areas of poverty have unique problems in great numbers. Most teachers are not prepared in their teacher courses to deal with the problems that they face in these schools. Problems of poverty, absenteeism, safety, hunger, violence, lack of support and overcrowding are not the topics of undergraduate education courses. They are also not the problems addressed by politicians and businesses. Business plans do not address tackling problems of education, but rather problems of profit.

In my limited and admittedly biased view of charter schools, I see them as massive siphons. They siphon money from public schools. They siphon young teachers to burn them out with long working hours and high demands. They siphon the good will and support of the public for public school teachers. They siphon any initiative to address the real problems of poverty on education. Of course this is a generalization. I am sure that there are some charter schools that are doing the right thing. If in comparing apples to apples, charter schools are not doing any better than public schools, why not concentrate on solving the problems of the public system instead of complicating the system for the sake of corporate profits?

Of course this is my limited understanding of public vs. charter schools. This is a topic that does not have a shortage of opinion. Please feel free to add yours here.

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How Does #Edchat Connect Educators?

Posted in Administrator, Assessment, Blog, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Internet, Leadership, Professionalism, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on August 7, 2012| 6 Comments »

For educators who have been connected since the early days of social media, it is difficult to understand the reason people would ask, “What is #Edchat?” We must remember that many educators using social media for professional reasons have joined only recently. The idea of using social media for professional reasons is a relatively new concept. One would hope that it is having a positive effect because the Department of Education declared August Connected Educators Month. In our technology-driven culture, sometimes we need to stop where we are and take time to consider how we got here.

#Edchat began on Twitter three years ago. Like dog years, three years in social media time is much longer. Back then, there were far fewer educators exchanging ideas on Twitter. Twitter was only beginning to emerge as a serious method of collaboration for educators. Celebrities dominated the network and got great media coverage about their tweets. Serious use of Twitter by educators for collaboration was never covered by the media. It was not media worthy.

The popularity of Twitter for many is a result of its simplicity: Tweets are limited to 140 characters, so the writer isn’t required to say much. Of course, this was not an attraction for educators, who found the limit constricting and not welcoming for people who often have much to say. The secret that had not yet been exploited was that many tweets strung together focusing on a single topic create a discussion. In Twitter terms, this is a “chat.”

Shelly Terrell (@ShellTerrell), Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) and I (@tomwhitby) created such a chat to focus on topics for educators. We used the hashtag #Edchat to aggregate all of the tweets in one place so people could follow #Edchat-specific tweets and focus on the chat in real-time. By isolating all #Edchat tweets in a separate column on TweetDeck, we were also able to follow and archive the entire discussion. #Edchat certainly was not the first “chat,” but its quick acceptance and growth among thousands of educators within weeks ensured its place in Twitter history. We held the original #Edchat at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays. Tuesdays became known as “Teacher Tuesday,” a day that teachers recommended other teachers to follow on Twitter. Participants used the hashtag #TeacherTuesday or #TT. We quickly learned Twitter’s global reach as European educators requested an earlier #Edchat to accommodate their time zones. We added a noon Eastern #Edchat in response.

The power of the hashtag was still developing in those days. #Edchat, however, began to appear on any tweet that had to do with education. The idea is that if a person on Twitter is connected to 10 educators, every one of his tweets goes to and ends with those 10 followers. This is the basic premise of Twitter. There were many educators who recognized and began to follow the #Edchat hashtag. By tacking #Edchat onto a tweet, the person can extend the range of his tweet beyond his 10 followers to the thousands who follow the hashtag. This potentially increases followers and expands his professional learning network.

There are about 70 education chats working for specific focuses. There are several hundred hashtags used to identify education-specific tweets. #Edchat continues at noon and 7 p.m. Eastern each Tuesday with different topics. The topics are determined by a poll including five topics that is posted each Sunday and remains open until Tuesday. The No. 1 choice becomes the 7 p.m. topic, and the noon #Edchat covers the second-place topic. A team moderates each #Edchat to keep things moving and focused. In addition to those already mentioned, the team consists of Kyle Pace (@kylepace), Mary Beth Hertz (@MBteach), Bernie Wall (@rliberni) and Nancy Blair (@blairteach). You can access the poll. There are hundreds of educators participating globally each week. Jerry Sweater (@jswiatek) maintains the chats, which are all archived.

Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) maintains other education chats. He also offers a solid list of education hashtags.

These are methods that educators have developed using social media in general, and Twitter specifically, to connect for the purpose of personal and professional development and advancement of the education system. The effect of many #Edchat discussions can be seen in blog-post reflections in the weeks after the original #Edchat discussion. Topics tend to reflect education concerns that have most recently been tweeted or blogged about to maintain relevance. That should be all anyone needs to become part of the #Edchat experience.

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What’s the big deal about Blogging?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Education, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, Mentoring, PD, PLN, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on August 3, 2012| 60 Comments »

A short time ago I attended a meeting where members of a college English department were doing a presentation to the faculty about their writing program. As I listened to about a 30-minute presentation of the types of writing required by this program, it became obvious to me that two words in this presentation of a college writing program were never uttered. They were two words that as an educator I come in contact with almost every day. Two words that have changed the way information is exchanged. The two words, never mentioned, have transformed the publishing industry. The two words have revolutionized journalism. These two words have moved authentic learning to the fore in writing classes across the country, or rather the world. These professors of writing had developed a program which by all accounts was very effective, but overlooked and did not even mention either of the two words that had changed forever how society views and consumes and disseminates the written word in the 21^st Century. Obviously, someone did not do their homework, or maybe they were just not connected. If it is not yet apparent, the two words are “Blog” and “Post”. Sometimes they appear as one, “Blogpost”.

I was a reluctant blogger. I needed to be pushed into doing it. I saw no need to put myself at the mercy of the public scrutinizing: my every idea, my every word, my every mistake. I also did not believe that, even if I managed to start a Blog, I could sustain it with any substantial ideas over a period of time. That was 136 blog posts and two years ago. That number does not include guest posts done for other Blogs. What I learned and appreciate more than any other thing that I get from blogging is that I write for me. It is a reflective, personal endeavor. I made the choice to open my blog to public scrutiny. I encourage comments to my ideas, to affirm, or further reflect on those ideas based on the reader comments. Testing my ideas in public is testing I can believe in. Of course I can take that position because pretty much most of what I have written has been fairly well received in over 2,000 comments.

As an educator I believe kids should be introduced to blogging early. A writer’s work will quickly improve with a real audience. Writing for an audience of only one is a tedious process. This is the preferred method in education. The writer needs to wait for the composition to be graded. Of course the student writer can always shake off the teacher’s criticism; because the writer is convinced the teacher hates him anyway. With comments from a real audience providing proper feedback, the writer gets a better sense of impact on the audience as well as recognition for accuracy and focus. Of course it is also on the teacher to teach kids how to responsibly comment and respond on other’s posts. We can’t hold students responsible for things that we don’t teach them.

As an educator I believe educators should be blogging. We need to model that, which we are demanding of our students. It also opens the teacher to the effects of transparency. It goes without saying that teachers must be thoughtful and responsible in what they post. We have to remember that any idiot can write a blog and most do. This is why we need more educators modeling and contributing to the pool of responsible blogs. Teachers who abuse their responsibility by irresponsible posts are for the most part just irresponsible adults who were never taught about the responsibilities or the impact of the blogging.

As an educator I believe that administrators should be blogging. Administrators in theory are our education leaders. They have an obligation to tell us where we are going and why we should go there. Education can no longer be an isolated profession. There is too much at stake. I continually try to convince administrators to blog. Many have the same trepidations that I had at first. Most, after taking the plunge, become blogging advocates. Check out the Connected Principal’s Blog. This is a collaborative blogging site for principals, most of whom are recent bloggers.

The whole idea of Connected Educators is to break down the barriers that have prevented us from exchanging ideas in a big way. Technology has provided us the tools to share and collaborate in astounding ways. We do that on a daily basis with existing content. Blog Posts provide us with: original thought, new ideas, questions, reflections, and much, much more.

This is not just a job for writing teachers. The computer is the today’s publisher. Computers do not send out rejection letters. If we as educators recognize the position blogging now has and will continue to have in our society, we need to take responsibility for teaching proper use in whatever our academic field of choice. We need to model for the next generations. We need to use the Blog as a tool to connect and communicate. We need to blog in order to openly reflect and challenge. We need to blog for ourselves while opening our ideas to others. For many this is a scary thought, but for many others it is a challenge.

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Defining Definitions for ASCD

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, Education, Linkedin, Literacy, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Teachmeet, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on July 27, 2012| 3 Comments »

This was originally posted in SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Education http://smartblogs.com/education

I was lucky to have scored an invitation to the ASCD Leader to Leader Conference. ASCD is a premier education organization that engages a membership of about 150,000 educators internationally. This particular conference concentrates on the leadership of ASCD. It is a great effort by this organization to bring together its leadership as well as invite, introduce, promote and revere new leadership along with tried-and-true leaders. This is a great way for any organization to transfer power from the old guard to the new.

My invitation was somewhat of a mystery to me. I am not a leader within the organization or interested in becoming one. It is not that it is a position that I would not be honored to hold, but my career has taken me down another path. I am a blogger, and one of my platforms is ASCD EDge, one of several websites that ASCD uses to expose members to blog posts, discussions, media and events of education. My assumption is that my invitation was linked to my blogging, which is a gutsy thing for any organization to do. It opens the inner workings of the organization to the scrutiny of someone who can expose its blemishes to the world. It is a true acceptance of transparency.

In my role at this conference, I found myself at times an observer and other times a participant. What was obvious to me as an observer is that many tools of technology have changed the definitions by which the organization tries to govern itself — a dilemma not foreign to the system of education. The most obvious of these definitions is that of “connectedness.” In terms that leaders of this group understand, they are connected by e-mail, websites, cellphones and state-of-the-art conferences. Compared with 20th-century methods of connectedness, these newer methods should be taking the leaders to a higher level — and they do, but they don’t meet the expected goal.

What was obvious to me in all of the leadership discussions is that the leaders were viewing connectedness as a static position that they had reached. They expected that after they created websites and organized conferences, they could get the message out to more members than ever before. All of that is probably true, but the real question is whether they are reaching everyone possible and necessary to be relevant. We can’t use standards of the 20th century to determine success in the 21st. Developing technology will continually move the mark forward. Our definitions will continue to evolve as technology changes the methods and intensity of things we do. Our goals become moving targets, and if we don’t adjust our sights, we can never hit those goals.

My view of the missing piece to the puzzle for this group and many others is the integration of social media and the ability to strategize their use to maximize communication, involvement and creation by members to advance goals of the group. This can also apply to education. Educators can use social media to connect, communicate and create with other educators to advance their goals.

Of course, the obvious stumbling blocks are large and multiple. First, we need to convince people that social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn are serious and effective for professional connections, as well as learning. Second, we need to teach the basics of these tools so people can use them. Third, we need to apply strategies to use these tools effectively to maximize their potential for ongoing, continuous connectedness. Again, all of these obstacles are not limited to organizations such as ASCD and its members; they also apply to educators and education.

We cannot continue to act using definitions from the past to address today’s goals. Technology is rapidly and continuously changing what we do and how we do it. Being truly connected is the only way we can maintain relevance. Education has traditionally been a conservative institution, with change coming slowly. That is no longer an option for educators. Technology is the game changer. If we are not moving forward, we are falling behind. If our leaders and professional organizations are not staying relevant, the revolution many of us are hoping for in education might arrive too late to help.

This is what I had to offer ASCD as a result of my participation in its forward-thinking conference for leadership. Additionally, I hope we can apply some of these lessons to an education system that needs leadership to define itself in relevant terms to effect change. I am tired of having educators and education being defined by businesspeople, politicians and tax reformers. We are the education experts, and we can define ourselves in relevant terms.

Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) is an adjunct professor of education at St. Joseph’s College in New York. He came to that position after 34 years as a secondary English teacher in the public school system. He was recognized with an Edublog Award for the Most Influential Educational Twitter Series, #Edchat, which he co-founded. Whitby also created The Educator’s PLN and two LinkedIn groups, Technology-Using Professors and Twitter-Using Educators.

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#ISTE2012 and the Importance of Educator Connections

Posted in Administrator, Blog, conference, Connected Educator, Education, Elementary, Email, Internet, ISTE, Leadership, Ning, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Twitter on July 8, 2012| 6 Comments »

I recently attended a complete immersion of education philosophy, education methods and pedagogy, technology tools for learning and connectedness with education thought leaders from around the world. All of this took place at one of our premier annual education conferences, ISTE 2012 in San Diego. Educators attend these conferences with their own focuses. They select the sessions they need from a smorgasbord of high-quality presentations on education topics given by practitioners and authors, all vetted by a screening committee of educators.

A majority of the comments that I heard from attendees were positive, with one exception. There were some presenters who adopted a stand-and-deliver lecture style — the death-by-PowerPoint presentation. Many educators simply hated this type of presentation and were fairly vocal about it. Of course, I am but one person talking to a small sample of people, so there might be less to this than I was led to believe.

Of course, individual presentation styles cannot be controlled by screening committees. It will only be through feedback that these methods will dwindle and die. We will always have a lecture form of method for teaching, but we can hope for it not to be a focus for all lessons. The more engaging give-and-take, discussion-oriented presentations seemed to have been more popular with the folks with whom I spoke. This should be a lesson to all educators to take back to their classroom practice.

My personal focus for this conference was to make connections. Connectedness among educators is something you will be hearing quite a bit about in the upcoming month. It has been so declared as a national month of observance. Of course, the irony is that many of the national organizers have not been connected educators. Educators who have been connected and working those connections were contacted late in the process. That is another post for later.

ISTE 2012 is one of the best sources for connecting with education experts and education thought leaders. My goal was to touch base, connect or reconnect with as many of these folks as possible. Fortunately, each time I connected, a valuable conversation resulted.

Many educators use various methods to connect with other educators for the purpose of professional exchanges. These exchanges include ideas, information, websites, webinars, videos, advice, connections to other educators and personal relationships. Connected educators use conferences such as ISTE 2012 for face-to-face meetings with those digital connections.

All of this is valuable to a profession that before digital connections was somewhat isolated. Digital connections can provide a bridge to cross that void of professional and personal relationships. The connectedness of ISTE attendees is most prevalent, and there appeared to be a high percentage of connected educators in attendance. This, of course, is my opinion, but with all of the social media tools at my disposal, I am probably directly or indirectly connected to 40,000 to 50,000 educators.

Who should I connect with?

That’s the question that I always get from people new to digitally connecting with other educators. I went to ISTE to seek out and connect with education thought leaders I hold in high regard. My standard was to connect with those who not only have great ideas in education but also are willing to share those ideas. An idea not shared is only a passing thought that will never become an idea. The best part of ISTE 2012 for me is that no one was unapproachable. As in social media, ideas at ISTE 2012 were the focus, and a person’s position and title took a back seat. My interest was to interact with many of the folks who are public supporters of those ideas. These are the people I follow and interact with daily.

I always hate putting out lists because there are too many people who might belong on that list but are left off. I will say that this is a partial list of those with whom I connected at ISTE 2012. Most were presenters and keynoters. Feel free to use this as a starting point or an additional resource for educators to follow on Twitter.

@dwarlick, @shareski, @teach42, @djakes, @adambellow, @dlaufenberg, @joycevalenza, @mluhtala, @willrich45, @mbteach, @web20classroom, @cybraryman1, @kylepace, @thenerdyteacher, @coolcatteacher, @shannonmmiller, @stumpteacher, @BethStill, @chrislehmann, @kenroyal, @SirKenRobinson, @smartinez, @garystager, @stevehargadon, @ewanmcintosh, @InnovativeEdu, @amandacdykes, @2footgiraffe

My apologies go to the many whom my faulted memory has omitted. I am sure they will be included on some follow-up lists.

ISTE 2012 provided many things to many educators. My best take-away is the great face-to-face connections with people with whom I have been digitally connected, as well as with those with whom I want to be connected. In a profession that relies on teaching relevant information to ready students for the world that they live in, we must maintain our own relevance as educators and citizens. Being a connected educator is the best way we can maintain that relevance. ISTE 2012 reinforced that position for me, and my personal goal is to connect the dots and help all educators to be connected.

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Educators Need to Discuss and Learn…?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, Education, Elementary, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, Parents, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Standardized test, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on June 18, 2012| 5 Comments »

My last post, Hypocrisy in the Profession of Education, seems to have gotten quite a few people talking about educators needing to learn more. Of course there were some who disagreed, which is an inevitable consequence of blogging. One of the comments that caused me to think even more about this educator/learner topic was a comment that I had received concerning the methods I suggested might need a revisit of learning. Authentic learning and project-based learning were two that were specifically mentioned by a commenter. The comment was to the effect that these were methods of teaching that have been with us for years, so why would educators need to learn them? That set me to examining why, or even if, we need to revisit any of the things we should be teaching. What is different about: communication, collaboration, collection of information, critical thinking, and creation from 20, 50 or 100 years ago? Obviously, the function, and purpose of those skills remains the same, so what is different? Why are we being told our students need better preparation in these skills? If we have always taught these skills before with success, what makes it different now?

We always taught kids how to write and encouraged them to get published. This was the goal of any good writer, the success of publication. The idea of submitting transcripts to publishers in great numbers as a buffer against the inevitable rejection slips was also advised. For many English teachers their greatest pride came from having a published student. What’s the difference today? The computer is the publisher. There are no rejection slips other than an audience response. Kids understand this, but many educators are playing catch up if they get it at all. I recently listened to two college professors describe their writing program and not once did they mention the words “Blog”, or “Post”. Writing for a post for an audience is different than writing a composition for your teacher to read. This is an area that all educators need to discuss and learn.

We always taught critical thinking, and how to vet sources. We taught which newspapers and magazines were reliable, trustworthy sources. Today newspapers and magazines are disappearing. They are being replaced by 24/7, cable news cycles, websites, blog posts, and social media. There is much more of a need for critical thinking skills than ever before. There are fewer reliable sources to count on. The super-pacs have proven that sound bites and images are more persuasive than facts. Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

Communication has always been taught. We have always had kids stand before the class and deliver reports and presentations. Science fairs in every county in America have kids communicating their data on poster boards. That happens with such frequency that Poster Board manufacturing became an industry in this country. How many job seekers will put “great poster board skills” on a resume’? Yes, I know there are other important things kids learn from this beyond the poster board, but why not take them beyond the poster board? Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

Creation is the highest point on Bloom’s Pyramid. Some educators think that it is the peak of the pyramid because it is so hard to get to without mastering all the other skills. Some people may not think everyone is capable of getting to that peak of higher order thinking skills. We might find that the reason many students don’t reach a point of creating is that we have always limited the means they had to do so. We were only equipped to receive prescribed reports, oral projects, and an occasional video project. That has all been blown up by the evolution of technology and social media. Justin Bieber was barely in his teens when he launched and promoted his creations into a multi-million dollar industry. He did not use a report, oral report, or a video tape to do this. When it comes to creation, we as educators shouldn’t limit our students. Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

Technology has evolved at a rate which has changed our culture as a society, and has had a profound effect on education. Society’s demands on what it expects from contributors has evolved, so that what we turned out as literate in the past, is no longer literate in today’s world. Even with that being said there are many who doubt it. There are schools that refuse to recognize technology as a factor in education. Again, this is an area that educators need to discuss and learn.

I am not attacking educators on this. Our society in general needs to discuss and learn. We need more people to be connected. Technology is not going away or standing still. It will continue to evolve whether individuals accept that or not. If it is a factor in our society as a tool for: communication, collaboration, collection of information, critical thinking, and creation, then we must teach our citizens how to use it as a tool. Our kids will be required to do so in their world, which is not here yet. It should change priorities in education as to what we teach and how we teach it. Authentic learning and critical thinking are now huge factors because kids are learning and interacting without the benefit of a classroom or a school. Education must not be limited by standardized testing. Our responsibility as educators is too great. These topics of discussion would best be served through leadership. Education administrators may need to prioritize these discussions over those of budgets and tests. These are the concerns that need to be driven by Professional Development. This is an area that educators and parents need to discuss and learn.

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Hypocrisy in the Profession of Education

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Education, Leadership, Literacy, online learning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on June 12, 2012| 92 Comments »

Whenever I think of a teacher, I also think of a scholar. It has always been apparent to me that if one is to be an effective teacher, one must continually learn. Of course that is not always a path that individuals are able follow as a straight line. Often things, or situations get in the way over the course of a lifetime and many stray from that path for the sake of time, money, or most often family. I attended a retirement party recently for some retiring colleagues, and I engaged in several conversations with a number of teachers who were attending the party about various education topics. I was most surprised on the lack of depth of knowledge on the part of most of these teachers about topics they should at least have had at the very least an opinion.

I brought up topics like authentic learning; project based learning, the flipped classroom, and connected educators. Most of the teachers I spoke to, young and old had little idea about what I was asking. More often than not, they would offer reasons why they were not up to speed on these topics: No time, small kids at home, another job, not techy enough to follow stuff on the internet, or just a lack of interest, were all excuses that surfaced in these conversations. These were the reasons these educators were not in on the many conversations taking place with “connected educators”.

I clearly understand that teachers are under attack, both locally and nationally. I clearly understand that morale for educators is at a low point that has never been experienced before. I clearly understand what a pain in the ass it is to try to defend ourselves as educators to anyone who has bought into the mindless and baseless sound bites put out by mindless and baseless attackers. I am under no illusions that education is under attack by large numbers of people. That is why I find it so unbelievable to come across educators, so willingly abandoning any position of defense for education through learning or more precisely, not learning.

As educators, we strive to create life-long learners in our students. Many schools make mention of life-long learning in their mission statements. But why, I ask, does it only apply to students? As teachers, should we not be scholars? Should we not continue to learn in order to maintain relevance as a teacher? Do we not have a responsibility, or more, an obligation, to offer our students the most up-to-date education, adhering to the most up-to-date methodology based on the most up-to-date pedagogy? Should we not base our lessons on the most up-to-date information and employ the most up-to-date methods of acquiring, analyzing, understanding, creating, and communicating this information? Educators did not secure a diploma or a teaching license with all of this etched and updating in their brains. This stuff evolves almost daily. Most educators are not evolving at the same rate. Staying relevant is not a passive endeavor. It takes work, time, and effort.

As educators we must be learners first. If we are to be better educators, we must first be better learners. We may not always have a choice in what we learn. After so long not being involved with learning, many educators do not know how much they do not know. How can they make decisions on what they need to learn, if they are unaware of the existence of many of the things they need to know? If teachers are reluctant to leave their comfort zones, why will they choose to do so, even if leaving that comfort zone would make them better for it? Yes, educators should help decide what they need to learn and take ownership of their learning when possible. There will be times however, when this is not possible. It is also incumbent on districts to make all of this learning or Professional Development a priority. We need educators to be learned people, and that does not end at any point. It is a continuing process and Professional Development must reflect that. It can’t happen once a year in a workshop with a lunch break and discussion to follow. If teaching is to be ongoing, so is learning, both for the teachers and the students.

With technology today teachers can be connected to the information, sources and other educators to maintain relevancy. Before you ask, no I do not think you can be as effective as an unconnected and irrelevant educator. Yes, there are those who read journals and books and write magazine articles without the use of technology and maintain relevance. Chances are good that is not you. Most educators today need to be relevant and being connected through technology is the best means to do that. It takes time, work, and commitment. That is what we demand of our students, yet excuse it when it comes to us. Making Professional development a priority to teach educators the most up-to-date ways to teach should be one the major aspects of education reform. The biggest hypocrisy of the Education Profession is that the educators too often have become poor learners unwilling to leave their comfort zones to improve their learning. They are not “bad teachers” they are however victims of bad practices of a complacent education system. To be better educators, we first need to be better learners.

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Twitter Ties

Posted in Administrator, Blog, conference, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Thought Provoking, Twitter on May 18, 2012| 14 Comments »

For the “Connected Educator” Twitter can be a mainstay for information and sources. In order to build up a steady flow of information and sources, one need only to establish a list of people to follow on Twitter who put out the tweets, or messages, that contain links, URL’s, to that information or source. In Twitter terms these people are called “Follows”. They are the people one follows. An educator using Twitter for professional reasons would follow educators, since they put out education information. I follow over 1,600 educators, so my stream of information runs constantly through my Twitter timeline. No, I do not read every tweet.

The other side of the coin here would be those educators who follow me. They would be my “Followers”. Once I got over 300 followers it got to be a bit heady. I had to keep things in perspective. It was not a third world dictatorship with me as the leader of my loyal followers who awaited my every word. If I put out useful information and thoughtful advice, I found that I would attract more followers. The very best method to do that was to follow really great educators and retweet what they tweeted. That means I would tweet their tweet, but give them credit for it. I was valued, because I valued someone else’s thought or information. How cool is that. Kudos all around!

There are many ways to follow people. There are lists that people offer. Bloggers now have “Follow me on Twitter” icons located on their blogs. There are recommendations of people to follow from other tweeters. Twitter dedicates Friday as the day to recommend people to follow with a hashtag #FF placed on tweets making follow recommendations. The #FF stands for Follow Friday. Of course for the more popular or specific people to follow, there is always the “Search People” tool on Twitter. Probably the best method is to check who each of your follows follow. Take people from their lists of follows. The point is that one can strategically make a vast number of follows with far less effort than was once required.

The real connections with all of the follows, and followers however, come with the personal exchanges made between follows and followers. These are the important, meaningful connections. Exchanges of ideas and information are the goal, but more often the personal and social aspects are the things that bind individuals. Many of these digital connections become much more. This has added a whole new dimension to Education conferencing. Educators who are connected through social media will meet face to face with people they have been attached to online. Without ever having before met face to face, it is like old friends reuniting. It is truly a unique experience.

It is with this backdrop that I now address my latest experience with my Twitter emotions. As I said, my follow list exceeds 1,600, so I was looking for a quick way to cut that down in order to eliminate some of the noise created by huge numbers on my Twitterstream. That means that I was getting a great deal of chatter distracting me from more meaningful tweets and that was becoming less efficient. Of the 1,600 follows I may have 1,000 people with whom I have never ever had an exchange other than the initial “Hello, I am now following you”.

I happened upon an Application, or Twitter tool called Manage Flitter. It was designed to identify from a list of follows those who do not follow back. Now, I do not expect Regis Philbin, Chris Matthews or Anderson cooper (I know they are not educators) or any celebrity to follow me back. There are even education celebrities to be followed on Twitter and I have no problem with them not following back. My problem became evident when I saw how many people whom I admire, have retweeted and have interacted with, no longer followed me. Of course my head immediately said, “You have disappointed these people and let them down, so they dropped you and your offerings”. Of course that was totally irrational, but nevertheless I had to deal with that in my head. Although I was disappointed to be dropped by Daniel Pink, Deborah Meier, Alan November, and Sir Ken Robinson, I really should have been elated that they even followed me to begin with. Twitter is an amazing tool because people, for the most part, are accepted for their ideas and not their titles, but there is still a star system and a fan base culture below the surface. The really hurtful “no longer followings” however were those people who I spent many tweets on exchanging ideas and giving out sources. Of course it is ridiculous to feel this way, but this entire system is based on connectedness. When you lose that connection, questions come to mind.

While expressing my concern about Twitter on Twitter, two of my follows stepped up to console me. Mark Barnes, @markbarnes19 a great ASCDEdge blogger and Jerry Blumengarten, @cybraryman1, one of my long time connections. Mark suggested I Blog about the issue, which resulted in this. Jerry pointed out that Twitter has had problems with a bug that has people unfollowing others without permission to do so. You’re Not Crazy, After All: Twitter Confirms Unfollow Bug. Both of these guys helped me through this self-created crisis.

I think the whole point of this post is that the connections made on Twitter for the purpose of professional enrichment carry with them more than the idea of people just swapping links. Twitter is more than wanting to share what was for lunch. Of course that is part of Twitter, but it is more about personal connections. Unfortunately, that cannot be seen by looking at Twitter from the outside. I am always astounded at the number of people who have never used Twitter, but feel compelled to offer up their opinion of it. Now, would someone like to point up the Irony in the fact that I was upset at all those who were no longer following me, as I employed a tool to unfollow people?

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How We Teach Trumps What We Teach.

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Assessment, Curriculum, Education, ISTE, Leadership, Literacy, Observation, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Seniority, Social Media, Standardized test, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, unconference, Video taping on May 10, 2012| 17 Comments »

I was fortunate and honored to be asked to speak at a recent conference for The Software Information Industry Association (SIIA). They are all wonderful people in a group that represents a major portion of education software developers and manufacturers. I had some great discussions with some very smart and driven education-minded, business people. As I stated in my last post, many of these people have come from the ranks of educators. My big take away from this conference however, was not about all of the great new products coming from the companies that these folks represented. What was most evident to me was the driving force behind all of the great stuff being developed: DATA. In this world of monetizing education data is King. It is what business understands.

Knowing that makes it easy to understand the point of view of many of our industrial, or business-background, educational leaders, who are leading the way in education today. They are data-driven leaders. They believe that we need Data to analyze, and adjust, so that we may move forward. Of course, if we analyze, adjust and move forward according to the Data, and change doesn’t happen, there must be a reason that requires us to think through that reason in order to adjust. If there is no improvement, someone must be held accountable, because the data is always reliable. All things considered the fingers of the data-readers begin to point to the variable in the equation; the teacher. Of course Business oriented leaders will additionally include the Bane of any business leader’s existence; the unions.

Now before everyone gets their backs up, let us consider another possibility. Let us consider that maybe the merging of the mantras of education and business are not working out together. Maybe “Content is King” merged with “Data is King” does not add up to a learned individual. Maybe the focus on content, so that education can be easily assessed by Data is really the wrong thing that we should be analyzing. Maybe, how we teach, is a much more important element in learning than what we teach. Maybe the data is totally correct about what it is assessing, but what it is assessing is not what we should be looking at.

I always go back to the way technology is assessed by some schools. They test kids out, interject some tech stuff, test the kids again, and check the results. If the results are poor, or if there is no difference, then it is deduced that the tech has failed to make a difference. Hence, Tech does not work. The questions not asked are important. Was the teacher properly prepared to use the tech? How were the students trained to use the tech? Was the culture of the class supportive of the tech? Was the tech that was selected the best tech to achieve the teachers goals? Was the teacher involved with creating the lessons using the tech, or was it packaged lessons? How much support did the teacher receive during the project? Of course we could go on with even more questions. The point is that the right questions and conclusions need to be applied to the data.

I met many, very smart, and successful people at that conference. I did not ask one of them what the data said about their personal competence as a learned individual. I judged that for myself by their accomplishments, communication skills, social skills, and even appearance. Not one person had a name tag with their test scores evident as a means of introduction. I only hope they were equally impressed with the opinions I expressed as an educator who is more than somewhat opinionated. I am sure my Hawaiian shirts gave them some mixed ideas.

As teachers, we all have our specific content to teach. That has been our goal since public education was introduced. It is what we do with that content that makes the difference. We can put it out there and have the kids commit it to memory. We can put it in video form and have the kids commit it to memory. We can put it in a PDF form and have kids commit it to memory. That would all make it easy to do a data analysis. We could probably require specific things be covered by all teachers, so our kids would all get equal educations in every state in the country. We could even develop a single test everyone could take at the same time. That would help standardize education. Then we could compare apples to apples as well as oranges to oranges around the country.

Another way to look at it would be to use that content to teach skills of collaboration, communication, and the ultimate “ation” of all; creation. Memorization of content (although difficult for many) is the thinking skill requiring the least amount of thinking. As a skill it is needed, but not coveted. Having the facts is helpful, knowing what to do with them, and adapting them to any situation is priceless. If teachers focused on teaching learning instead of the more easily assessed content memorization, we would have a population of critical thinking, creative, innovators who continuously learn even after leaving school.

At the final presentation that I attended at this wonderful conference, I gained a little more insight into the direction of Tech in education today. This was a panel of some very impressive, forward thinking presidents of tech in education companies. My first insight was that there are a great many companies developing gaming for education. My second insight into the Edtech direction was not as hopeful, at least to me. The two phrases that really caught my attention were “classroom instruction” and “BYOD (bring your own device)”. Both of these told me that the tech companies, like many people in general, believe that kids need to go to a specific place to learn, the classroom. If we are to be successful as educators, than how we teach kids better involve a way for them to learn outside the classroom. No student should be limited by the content knowledge of their teacher. If I taught all my students everything I know, it wouldn’t be enough for them to live in their world. What we are teaching will be irrelevant. How we teach kids to learn will serve them for a lifetime.

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What If School Was More Like Twitter?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Blog, conference, Edcamp, Education, Email, Leadership, Linkedin, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Standardized test, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter, unconference on April 17, 2012| 22 Comments »

Every educator knows what their school is like, but few really understand what Twitter is like. The Twitter experience, like school, is different for everyone. One’s contribution to the effort in either of these endeavors has a great deal to do with producing the outcomes. Simply put, the more you put in, the more you get out. That at least is the theory.

I am fortunate to have a very large base of educators that I follow on Twitter and an even larger number of educators follow me. This affords me an ability to see a great deal of activity on Twitter in regard to how educators use it on a daily basis. I wish all educators had Professional Learning Networks like mine, but it is not a style of learning suited for everyone. Nevertheless, I began wondering what it would be like if the types of sharing, collaboration, reflection and discussion that are continuing activities on Twitter could at least be attempted in the school building environment.

A bulk of the information exchange available on Twitter for instance comes in the form of links, or URL’s, which are internet addresses to pages of information. They could be announcements, articles, posts, videos, podcasts, webcasts, personal opinions, or books. I guess in a school setting each teacher could take articles, videos and books to exchange and discuss with other faculty members. Admins could find education links run them off on paper, and insert them in teachers’ mailboxes daily. Of course personal opinions are the mainstay for faculty rooms.

Another thing that Twitter offers us is the ability to respond to ideas and have a general discussion about those responses. Often times the authors of the ideas participate in those discussions. In a school setting, I imagine that the administrator could offer ideas for discussion, or bring in speakers and lecturers for the faculty. This is usually done at the beginning of the year to get everyone pumped up for the New Year. It would need to be done more frequently however in order to emulate the Twitter experience.

Reflection is very big on Twitter. Many tweets cause people to discuss and reflect. After a short period of time some educators address those same issues on blog posts. That of course is shared, commented on, reflected upon, and the process repeats itself. I guess in the school setting the Admin could propose a topic for discussion and afterward people could respond and reflect and if they chose to do so, come back with articles they had written on the subject to present to the faculty or place a copy in everyone’s mailbox.

Twitter offers a great deal of variety in opinion. An obviously unique element to this is the fact that Twitter is a global effort. Educators from around the world offer their opinions on some of the many subjects that educators have in common around the world. As an example, I am amazed at how universally standardized tests are recognized by educators to be counterproductive in educating kids. In the school setting it would be difficult to get a global perspective on issues unless the guest speakers were flown in from other countries. Skyping might be a great alternative.

A big, big Twitter plus is the access educators have to education experts. Conversations are had between regular teachers and education luminaries on a daily basis. Many of education’s leaders actively participate on Twitter in order to stay on the pulse of education, as well as education reform. Many of the people forming the national and international education discussions are gathering and sharing information over the internet using Twitter. In a school setting Admins could probably make calls to these same education leaders and set up at the very least Skype calls. The faculty could be assembled in the auditorium for the Skype call. The discussion after would be great.

Twitter is a gateway to many free online webinars and online conferences. It also keeps educators posted on local and regional Edcamps and conferences. Edcamps are a product of social media and a great form of Professional Development for educators. In a school setting the Admin could post a daily, weekly, or monthly calendar of events for professional development. The mailboxes again would be a wonderful method of delivery for this.

On Twitter there are constant discussions and references to pedagogy and methodology in education. As one example Twitter has been discussing the Flipped Classroom for almost two years at this point. I imagine that admins should be the education leaders of their schools and be up to date on all things education. Once they get any new trends they could present the idea at a faculty meeting. Hopefully, the discussions of pedagogy and methodology will spill over into department meetings and faculty room gatherings.

I know that schools are doing the best that they can, given the restraints of time and money, to involve their teachers with as much as they can, but it is not enough in a world where new information is formed by the ton in a matter of minutes. The idea of using technology as a tool for professional development has not caught on. The idea of being a “Connected Educator” is too foreign to too many educators. If this post is to be effective it will have to be printed out, reproduced, and circulated in teachers’ mailboxes in order to reach them. In this age of technology, that should be an embarrassment to the most educated people this country or any country has to offer.

Twitter is only one source for teachers to connect. It is the easiest to use, and the hardest to understand. Teachers need to get started connecting to other teachers. If Twitter is too difficult, try Google +, or LinkedIn, or start a blog that accepts comments. If what we are now doing as teachers was keeping us relevant and effective as educators , the words “Education” and “Reform” would not be linked together so often in so much written about education today. We have a need to connect with other educators. It must be an imperative! In the words of Ben Franklin, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”