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Archive for the ‘Teacher’ Category

How do I go about Blogging?

Posted in Blog, Leadership, Ning, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on January 23, 2013| 10 Comments »

If there is one thing that Social Media in education has taught me it is: Never answer for someone else’s need to know! In a world of discussions using tweets and posts there is an audience for discussion on any level of experience on any given subject. The subjects that I deal with most often involve Education, Social Media, or Social Media in Education.

The Posts and Tweets I ponder the most are those that deal with the very basics of these subjects. I always worry if a basic explanation is just too basic for an audience of professionals. I too often make an assumption that what I am about to write in my post is too basic, and therefore no one will have any interest. To my surprise, almost every time, those are the posts that are more often, the most read on my Blog. Writing a blog is a subject that I have covered before, “What’s the big deal about Blogging?“
Doing that first post was the biggest hurdle for most bloggers. There are a number of ways to start that first post. I started by doing a guest post for Shelly Terrell Sanchez, @ShellTerrell. She encouraged me and took a chance that my post would not turn off those who followed her Blog. Step one then might be to find a Blogger and make a friend. There is another way to take a first step. Many Ning communities have a page for Blogpost contributions. Contributing a post to one such site enables one not only to see an idea published, but it may elicit responses from other community members as well.

However one gets there, the ultimate final step is to create a personal Blog. There are a number of Apps one can use to house the Blog. I use WordPress. Many friends use EduBlogger. Google now offers free Blogging space. All of these Apps walk a novice through the setup with easy to follow instructions, and prompts. It is far less complicated than creating a website.

Creating the Blog is the most work one will need to do. After that it is all Reflecting, Writing, Promoting, Rinsing and Repeating. It is amazing how with a little time the subjects keep popping into one’s head. I did not put myself on a schedule, but I attempted to think of something to write each week, sometimes two weeks.

Reflecting and writing should be reward enough, but any idea not shared is just a passing thought. The whole idea of the Blog is to publish one’s ideas for the purpose of sharing. With that in mind, promotion of one’s site becomes a part of the experience. Twitter for me is the tool that I use to drive people to my site. A quick description, title, link, and the range-expanding hashtag #Edchat combined go a long way in attracting readers.

Once I publish a post on my blog, I also return to those Ning communities of educators. I place my post on The Educator’s PLN, ASCDEdge, and School Leadership 2.0. at the very least. I sometimes go to other sites as well. There is no single path to the success of a Blogpost. I have offered the strategies that have worked for me. However one gets there, there will be benefits of learning along the way. Once the Blog is established however that is when a learning transformation can take place. The computer is the 21st Century publisher. Blogging has now become a large part of our culture as educators and citizens. Those who participate in the writing posts, benefit much more than those who only read posts.

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My 2012 @tomwhitby

Posted in Administrator, Awards, Blog, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Internet, Leadership, Linkedin, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Teacher, Twitter, unconference on January 1, 2013| 3 Comments »

It has come to that time of year that we all sit back and reflect on what went on in our lives over the last 365 days. For some of us older folk this yearly indulgence has become more of a legacy measurement than just a checklist of what was done last year.  At this stage of my life I find myself in a unique position to help connect and engage educators in huge numbers and using methods that were not imagined a few years ago. I might say that this is an assessment of my digital footprint. I guess that this post is more for me than it is for others, unless some people view it as a possible model of accomplishment in a second career after education. The open secret to all who know me is that I am not a Tech wizard, and it is only through the use of Social Media and technology that any of these accomplishments could have been created having the effect that they have had.

SmartBlog on Education
One of my proudest accomplishments this year has come from my affiliation with SmartBrief. SmartBrief launched a new Blog for educators this past August. I was given the task of recruiting the best education bloggers available to contribute to the Blog. I viewed it as an opportunity to engage educators back into the national discussion on education that in my opinion had been hijacked by politicians and business people. The blog has been very well received getting 25,000 hits daily. Contributions from many of our best educator bloggers provide one or two posts daily.

http://smartblogs.com/education

Educator’s PLN

The Educator’s PLN continues to grow. It was conceived and constructed to offer sources and connections to educators so that each educator has a source to develop a Professional Learning Network. The Ning site is fully funded by a not for profit philanthropic organization. The membership now exceeds 14,000 members. We have added a number of additional Pages this year to meet the need for additional sources for the members.

http://edupln.ning.com/

My Island View

I am still astounded at the way this Blog has been received by educators. It is a project that was originally for my own reflections. I was micro-blogging on Twitter and I needed a larger platform to expand ideas and vent frustrations. This was an experiment. I never expected anyone else to take an interest in what I had to say. (So much for my insight)

https://tomwhitby.wordpress.com

#Edchat

Edchat has been a great force in education through Social Media for over three years now. Thousands of educators recognize Tuesdays as Edchat Day. Over the last three years educators each week have been able to discuss the issues in education that were close to them. The discussions often started in the Edchat discussions seem to spill over to education blogs in days and weeks later. Five Topics are presented each Sunday with the top two selected topics being presented for the two Tuesday Chats.

#Edchat on Twitter Tuesdays Noon & 7 PM EST

#Edchat Radio

My latest endeavor is in the area of Internet Radio. The folks at the BAM Radio Network approached the Edchat team about creating a show for Edchat. Our idea was to analyze and comment on the Edchat discussions taking place each week. We are also going to invite participants from each Edchat to participate on the shows. Each of the Edchat team members will be featured on the shows. Steven Anderson @Web20classroom, Shelly Terrell Sanchez @ShellTerrell, Nancy Blair @Blairteach, Kyle Pace @Kylepace, Jerry Swiatek @jswiatek, Jerry Blumengarten @Cybraryman1, Berni Wall @rliberni, and Mary Beth Hertz @MBteach.

 

http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=86&Itemid=249

Wise Summit

I was both fortunate and honored to be invited by the Qatar Foundation to attend the WISE Summit, The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). I attended this international summit in the company of fellow blogger, and friend Steven Anderson. This was an eye-opening experience for us to begin to understand the needs of education on an international basis. The worldwide need for education to reach all children in consideration of all of the hindrances and obstacles can be an overwhelming task. Through the efforts of many of the dedicated people at this summit there are inroads being made. I was humbled and proud to be part of this endeavor.

http://www.wise-qatar.org/content/2012-wise-summit

 

 

LINKEDIN: The Technology-Using Professors Group

I started my Social Media adventures as a user of LinkedIN. www.linkedin.com/in/thomaswhitby/

Today I have almost 1,000 connections, mostly educators. This has become my professional Rolodex. I started my first education groups on LinkedIn and they are all still up and running. The first Group I ever started was The Technology-Using Professors Group. It has always been an active group for higher Education educators. Today its membership numbers at about 7,000 professors.

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?viewMembers=&gid=934617&sik=1357063095108

 

Twitter

The one thing that has enabled me to accomplish any of what I have done is TWITTER. It is the backbone of my Professional Learning Network. I have tweeted 44,475 tweets. I am following 1,983 educators. I am listed on 2,111 lists of Tweeters. I have 26,964 followers. I view this all as a big responsibility to all to whom I am connected.

Thank you all and Happy New Year!

@tomwhitby

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Arm Teachers?

Posted in Accountability, Administrator, Education, PD, Professional development, Professionalism, Teacher, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, tagged , on December 21, 2012| 36 Comments »

I hate the fact that this country has been thrown into this discussion the way that it has. The events leading to this discussion were costly and horrific. As I have stated before we need to discuss the facts and not propaganda or demagogy. We should also examine the facts without emotion which, in light of events and the victims, seems an impossible task. Educators have now been thrust into the discussion as a result of so many schools being victimized. There is also a consideration by some to arm teachers.

In a recent discussion on BAM radio three education groups, a national teacher group, a national principal group, and a national superintendent group were asked about their position on arming teachers. The lens that we use must influence our opinions. The teachers’ group, whose members are closest to kids, was against it. The principals’ group, whose members are closest to the teachers, was against it. The superintendents’ group whose members are closest to outside forces of education supported it. These are groups and not individuals. I am sure that most educators of any title are willing to look at all of the facts and considerations before supporting anything that will profoundly affect our children. This is merely my observation.

Our military and police, in order to be armed and effective at defense, undergo extensive weapons and tactical training. It is not a single PD day at the beginning of the school year. They are continually trained and updated and not left to self-train. An ongoing battle in too many schools across this nation is to get Professional Development for teachers. Teachers want, but often cannot get the most relevant training in methods, tools and pedagogy in order to be a relevant educator. PD too often falls victim to declining budgets. It is not prioritized as it should be. Now we have a suggestion to arm teachers knowing that we need to initially and continually train teachers in weapons and tactics. How much time will it take them from their classes, and at what cost? Will we need to eliminate more teaching positions to support arming teachers?

What about police response teams answering the call to a mass shooting at a school? Most police first responders today train in sweeping schools for the purpose of eliminating armed threats. With armed teachers in the schools, response teams will need to hesitate with every encounter. This will take more time to clear a school. Time is an enemy in these situations. The other unanswered question is where are the hundreds of students when response bullets from armed teachers begin flying? Do armed teachers leave their students?

What about the mental perspective of these armed teachers? Most teachers that I know have the idea of helping and teaching in their DNA. That is what motivated them to be teachers and not soldiers or policemen. What does the responsibility of having to carry a gun to protect the learning community do to a teacher? Will these armed teachers need to undergo some sort of psychological testing to see if they can withstand the stress of this new responsibility, or do we rely on some imagined vigilante strength to carry them through?

I continue to come up with questions about arming people? Will the “Stand Your Ground “Law pop up in teacher defenses in cases where armed teachers felt that the community was threatened by an intruder wearing a hoody? The police and military have a great incidence of suicides because of the demands of their work and incidents these dedicated people are forced to deal with. Should that be a concern for schools? Will we need ongoing counseling to help cope with stress?

There are three things that all of these mass shootings have in common, Guns, a person who is not responsible for his actions, and victims. In order for the idea of defense to succeed here, it would be the goal to reduce or eliminate any of these components. The answer is not to add guns, or add shooters, or add victims. I think arming teachers may not fall in line with that vision.

An emotional response from any teacher would be “I would do anything to protect my students.” Most teachers think of their students in terms of family. This however is an emotional response and possibly not couched in reality for most educators. The idea of shooting someone in theory may be an easier task than doing it in reality. The intent may be there, but the ability might be lacking for many reasons.

I am not opposed to the Second Amendment. Gun ownership is not the problem. A gun, in the hands of a person not responsible for his/her actions, is a problem. That is complicated by the number of guns in America. We represent 5% of the world’s population, but we own 50% of all of the guns in the world. That is only one part of the problem. Maybe instead of the expense of arming and training teachers in every school in the country, we might want to use that money for a gun buy-back program. Australia spent $500 Billion dollars in buy backs with great success. Maybe each community could decrease the possibility of an illegal gun falling into the hands of a local person in need of help. Of course this is not the answer to the problem, but it is not adding to the problem either. Now we need to extend the discussion without regard to special interest groups that are focusing on their concerns and not the needs of the American people.

My only hesitation about doing a post on this subject is the scary people who are drawn to it. I encourage discussion, but I will not entertain comments claiming our president is enslaving us. I do not believe we need guns to fight our government. I will eliminate any comments from this post that are not advancing the discussion. I have never had to say that with any other post I have ever written. Some of the comments by some people give credence to the argument that not every person is mentally capable of gun ownership. By the way Columbine had an armed guard. The answer is NOT to Arm Teachers.

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Are we preparing students for life?

Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Common Core, Curriculum, Education, Leadership, Literacy, Reform, Teacher, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on December 12, 2012| 17 Comments »

We are preparing our students for life. I hear so many educators use this sentence when asked, what is the purpose of education? Many years ago I believed that to be true as well. Maybe many generations back it may have been true. In consideration of all that I observe, even with some great innovation,  and a whole bunch of technology integration that is taking place in so many schools across the country, I don’t believe “preparing our students for life” is the focus or goal of education today. The real irony is that school for kids is real life, a fact often overlooked by educators.

The most obvious reason this is not the case is that we don’t have a clue what the future holds for our children. We will have them in public schools for 13 years. Try to envision what it was like looking backwards to the world as we knew it then. 1999 was quite a different world. We had scarcely a clue of what to expect to find in 2012. The only way to prepare kids for life was to make adjustments every step of the way. The education system does not favor on-the-fly adjustments. The education system needs to weigh, deliberate and consider each and every change. It must all be research-based and research takes time. Education is not ahead of the curve in incorporating technology in learning, it continues to play catch up.  A technology-driven society does not allow the luxury of catching up. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

Content in past decades was slow to change. Even as advances were made in science, history, geography, and literature, the world itself moved at a slower pace, so time and change were less critical. We had a print media that was driven by time sensitive events, but the time was stretched out by print deadlines. Textbooks were relevant for longer periods of time. Today, whole countries that were in existence a short while back have changed names boundaries, populations, and cultures seemingly overnight. Our outdated textbooks that we continue to use cannot hope to keep up with the rapid change of the world today. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

We have research showing us different modalities of learning. We embrace differentiation in teaching. We strive for inclusion of all students to learn in a single teaching environment, while addressing individual strengths for learning. We talk about personalized learning for each student. We use individualized learning plans to maximize learning. We recognize that all kids are created differently. Even in consideration of all of that, we standardize their assessment. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

We hold up the innovators as models. Innovators are our 21st Century heroes. We encourage out-of-the-box thinking while restricting our teachers to in-the-box teaching and assessing it with in-the- box tests. We want our students to be innovative, but require them to be compliant with teaching methods of the past. Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

Why do we continue to limit the learning time of our students in order to do test preparation?  How can we continue to insist that kids limit themselves with the cramming of content for a test instead of using their skills to get that content anywhere and at any time? How can we continue to prepare our students for a tech-driven culture demanding critical thinking skills and the ability to problem solve by assessing their content retention? We are not matching up the skills that our children will need in a future that we know little about to the education that we provide today?  Yet, we still claim to be preparing kids for life.

We cannot continue on the current path of education if we want to prepare our children for their future. Our children will not live in the world that we grew up in. We need to prepare them to be flexible, critical thinking, problem solvers. They need to be able to get beyond the limitations of their teachers and parents. Our kids are not empty vessels to be filled with content in order to pass a standardized test. Each day, as technology moves faster, that fact is driven home with more emphasis.  Will we ever be able to truly claim that we are effectively preparing kids for life?

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Again; Relevance, Why Twitter?

Posted in Accountability, Connected Educator, Curriculum, Internet, Leadership, Literacy, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on November 29, 2012| 18 Comments »

Twitter has been a topic for educational Bloggers for several years now. I believe that those educators using Twitter are drawn to those posts, while other educators, not using Twitter, are driven away. Maybe the problem is the emphasis, or focus of the blog posts. Maybe the focus should be on relevance and no mention of twitter. Are educators relevant in our technology-driven society?  The obvious answer is that some are, and some are not. A more important question is which of these two groups is growing?

I earned an advanced degree in Educational Technology over 30 years ago. From the day that I received that degree, things have evolved at an unbelievable pace, driven by technology. Not one piece of the hardware or software, that I used to earn that degree, existed five years later. How does any educator keep up with the changes not only in technology and methodology of the profession, but the content of subject matter itself, as well as worldwide change? The world today is not the same world of even five years ago. How do educators keep up with all these changes?  Relevance today is much more elusive to educators than when public education was conceived and introduced. We have gone from incremental changes over long periods of time to huge almost systemic changes, in some cases, in a matter of months.

In the distant past, teachers were able to maintain their relevance based on printed journals, newspapers, and magazines. Annual or semi-annual workshops often tied things together. Change was slow and it was simpler to keep up with things with these simple methods. As change began to speed up, the methods of maintaining relevance remained unchanged. The methods of information have now almost totally shifted from the print media to the digital media. Web sites and blog posts have replaced education journals. The print media, as an industry, has drastically shrunk in size, as digital the media has expanded. Educator relevance has fallen behind as a result of a fast-paced, ever- changing, technology-driven society, combined with an antiquated method of relevant professional development. The evolution of change is faster in the world than it is for the system of educators who teach about that world.

Educators need a better way to communicate about change in order to maintain their relevance. Collaboration may be the key to this problem. If we could connect those educators who have managed to maintain their relevance in this new reality to those educators who need to be brought up to speed, we will be well on the way to needed reform. Educators could connect, and discuss what works, and what doesn’t. If we only had a way to share the websites, or, better yet, free online webinars? If we only had a way to engage educators in real-time discussions on topics of education not going on in their school settings? If we only had a method to provide the latest methodology in things like blogging, BYOD, the flipped classroom, portfolio assessment and authentic learning? If we only had a way of doing all of this with little impact on precious time?

Too bad an application of Social Media like Twitter was developed for such a frivolous purpose. It was set up so that people could quickly send stupid, unimportant information to other people. It allows celebrities to conduct meaningless discussions with fans. It allows fans to keep up with up-to-the-minute facts about any celebrity they have an interest in. It enables an exchange of useless and silly websites, blog posts, videos, and live, celebrity interviews. It is really a waste of a good application.

If only an educator with the highest of degrees would invent such a collaborative tool for educators to do all of the same collaboration with real valuable education stuff? Maybe, until that time arrives, when a prestigious application designer develops a prestigious education tool for education collaboration that receives the approval of all educators for use in their noble endeavors, maybe, just maybe, we could consider using TWITTER. It might be the quickest and best method to acquire and maintain the relevance necessary to be an effective educator.

I must admit that this post comes from the frustration of listening to the many excuses from educators who choose not to use Twitter. Relevance is the prime consideration for using it. Twitter is used by many educators as the backbone to their Professional Learning Network. Why would any educator argue for his or her irrelevance? If Twitter is not for all educators, what applications or methods are they using to maintain relevance?

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What is a WISE Conference?

Posted in Back channeling, conference, Connected Educator, EdChat, ISTE, Leadership, PD, PLN, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teachmeet, Teched, Technology, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on November 14, 2012| 2 Comments »

A few weeks ago I received an email invitation to attend an education conference with all expenses paid. This is done to get the conferences noticed in the education community. It is an expense and a necessary element of Public relations. Depending on the quality of the conference, sometimes it pays off, but sometimes it exposes flaws of a conference to the world of connected educators. This is not an uncommon practice, and as a connected educator, I look upon it as an opportunity with each occurrence. I have been afforded a number of such opportunities since becoming an education Blogger.

What really struck me about this invitation however is that it came from an organization called WISE and it took place in the organization’s home city of Doha, Qatar. I consider myself an educated person, but like many Americans, I am only familiar with maps of vacation destinations, and war locations. With the advent, and exception of the GPS those are the only real maps I ever look at. Sad commentary, I know. My ignorance of the geography of Qatar was complicated further by personal prejudices stemming from it being, in my mind, a country of the Middle East. I am not consciously prejudiced against, or do I hold responsible, the Muslim religion for the events of 911. I am however, a New York educator who was personally and profoundly affected by the events of 911. I did have to overcome some personal hesitation, as well as family concerns in order to accept the invitation. The world is a much more dangerous place. All of that being said, I am very glad that I accepted the invitation, and flew to Qatar for the International Conference of the World Innovation Summit for Education, WISE 2012.

Of course the icing on the cake was that my close personal friend, connected educator, and fellow education Blogger, Steve Anderson, @web20classroom, was also invited, and accepted the invitation. I did need to prompt him a little, but I did not need a cattle prod to do it. I am sure that Steve had many of the same reservations, so travelling together helped ease those trepidations for both of us. We were even able to schedule our 13 hour flight with adjoining seats. Life is good.

Qatar Airlines was very impressive, but it was the organization of the logistics team of Wise that was really impressive. Our sole contact was a young woman named Nandita, who was a delight. Her team was able to invite and move and collect educators from all over the world, while jumping through every international hoop placed before them to complete their task. They were also able to accommodate the individual needs and desires of the educators as well. It was a daunting task, well accomplished.

My next question was how does a plane with over 400 passengers get off the ground? My second question was how does it stay in the air for 13 hours? Answers to both questions were stated to my satisfaction through the accomplishment of both. The Airline was incredible, and the meals, snacks and beverages were all included and expertly delivered on the flight. The crew of over 20 people was wonderful. The passengers were a truly international representation with Americans in the minority. Since the flight left at 9:30 PM New York time, most of the 13 hours involved us trying to sleep. That was not an easy assignment.

At one point I managed to get about an hour into a really great snooze when I was half awakened by a beep. This was followed by a male flight attendant tapping me on the shoulder saying, “ Sit Lower”! Of course even in my twilight sleep, I wanted to immediately comply with each command, so as not to appear to be The Ugly American, so I attempted to sit lower. I had no idea what that meant. My seat was all the way back, and I was as scrunched down as low as I could get, but I tried to scrunch down further. I only hoped my attendant would be pleased with my best attempt to comply with his command to “sit lower”. As he came back down the aisle I could not contain myself any longer. “What did you mean by “Sit Lower?” I asked.

He answered, “I am sorry sir, I said, ‘Seat Belts On’, as the seatbelt light went on.” I was very grateful the lights were out and most everyone continued sleeping, including Steve seated next to me. I really felt dumb at that point and not at all like an international education blogger.

Upon arrival we were herded to school buses which would rival most upscale buses in America. They were air-conditioned with comfortable seats, seatbelts and an information display at the front of the bus. The bus ride took us through a city that was lit up to show some of the most interesting architecture I have ever seen. Although we had just eaten breakfast on the plane three hours earlier, it was now 8:30 PM and we were at an alcohol-free cocktail party with incredibly delicious finger foods. That would be the eating with fingers, as opposed to the eating of fingers.

At this mingling event we got to talk to educators from around the world. They were interested in what Steve and I had to say about what we did as connected educators who Tweet and Blog and present at education conferences. We were interested in how WISE provides money for innovative education programs and recognizes educators. This WISE 2012 conference will hopefully prove to be a most productive event. It again underscores the fact that in today’s world everything global is local and everything local is global. I look forward to Tweeting and Blogging more on this as the week progresses. Watch for the Hashtag #WISE2012!

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PD: How do educators get to know what they don’t know?

Posted in Administrator, conference, Connected Educator, cooperating Teacher, Edcamp, Education, Internet, PD, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Skills, Social Media, Standardized test, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking on October 9, 2012| 24 Comments »

When it comes to education reform, there are in general two major camps, but there are also several variations of each. The first camp would like to blow up the system and start all over. The other camp wants to continue the status quo while working to change it in directions governed by whatever dominant force of change has the ear of the public at the time. I find my own inclinations falling somewhere between the two camps. I want to blow some stuff up while improving upon some existing stuff. Like most educators, or any people with a basic understanding of authentic assessment, I do want to blow up any notion or hint of compliance with high stakes, standardized testing. The area of improvement that I think will get us the biggest bang for the all-important, tax buck is professional development.

It has long been my position that to be better educators, we need to be better learners. Since I have worked in higher education now for a while, many teachers have said to me how they love having student teachers in their building, because they can learn so much from the “young people” about all the new stuff in education. Some variation of that phrase has been repeated by more than one educator every year since I have been working with student teachers. To me that is a big RED FLAG. It causes me to ask, “Why does a veteran teacher need to have a student bring them up to date on the latest methodology, pedagogy and technology in the field of education?” If our students are to get a relevant education, should we not have relevant educators? Why on earth would experienced educators need students to provide that which every school district in the country should be striving to provide teachers within their system?

We need to examine the way we approach professional development in education. Too often it is left up to the educators to seek out their own PD. That is good for some, but not all educators have an understanding of what they do not know. If you don’t know about something, how would you know to seek PD in that area? This is especially true of learning with technology. I have a master’s degree in educational technology. The fact is that not any of the applications or computers that I learned on, as well as the methodology in the use of those components, exists today. Very little of that degree would be relevant, if I did not continue to learn, adapt and progress with what I know. The same holds true with any degree in any profession. From the day one gets a degree, things in that area of expertise begin to change. With the influence of a technology-driven culture, things move at a much faster pace than years past causing a more rapid rate of change. Therefore, the pace at which things change has increased exponentially, while the way we provide PD to deal with these changes is relatively unchanged from years past in many, if not most schools.

PD is offered by many schools in an annual or semiannual teacher workshop day. The other method is to allow teachers to seek out their own PD on their own time, often at their own expense. Technology training for teachers is often addressed in schools. The method of choice, however, by many schools is what my friend Brian Wasson, an IT guy, refers to as the “Home Depot Method.” The district goes out and buys all the cool tools from the vendors and then tries to teach, or force feed them to the teachers. That is a sure formula for failure.

We need to change PD. It must be part of an educator’s work week, and that includes administrators. We need educators to connect with other educators to collaborate and maintain relevance. Educators need to explore their needs and address them with solutions of their choosing after exploring the options. Faculty meetings can address procedures in shared documents with educators, while using the time in meetings to discuss pedagogy, methodology, best practices and new ideas. Educators need to be supported in trying new endeavors. When we address PD as evolving and continuous, and not as a teacher workshop day, we will begin to bring relevance back to education. Schools that do this now will be the first to tell us this. Of course, we need to connect with them for that to happen. Connecting educators is a first step.

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Does being connected help in being recognized?

Posted in Administrator, Assessment, Awards, Back channeling, Blog, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Leadership, Professional development, Professionalism, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Thought leadership, Truth, Twitter, unconference on September 26, 2012| 3 Comments »

This is a difficult subject to write about without being labeled smug, arrogant, conceited, or all three, but that is a risk I take. The Bammy Awards took place recently. If you never heard of The Bammy Awards for educators, there is good reason. They were invented this year. From the Bammy Awards site  we have this: “The Bammy Awards acknowledge that teachers can’t do it alone and don’t do it alone. The Awards aim to foster cross-discipline recognition of excellence in education, encourage collaboration and respect in and across the various domains, elevate education and education successes in the public eye, and raise the profile and voices of the many undervalued and unrecognized people who are making a difference in the field.” This was a first time event sponsored by BAM radio. “The Bammy Awards is organized by BAM Radio Network, which produces education programming for the nation’s leading education associations. BAM Radio is the largest education radio network in the world with 21 channels of education programming available on demand and hosted by the nation’s leading educators and advocates.”

I was doubly honored at the Awards in its first year. I was asked to present an award in the Most Outstanding Education Blogger category, and I was recognized along with 19 other Bloggers as Outstanding Education Bloggers to be recognized by the Bammy Awards. The stage was filled with educator bloggers who I read, respect, and from whom I try to recruit guest Blog posts for SmartBlog on a regular basis. A great number of those recognized are regular contributors to SmartBlog for Education.

Connected educators from around the world would recognize the twitter names of those honored. These are their real world names: Adam Bellow, Angela Maiers, Chris Lehmann, Deven Black, Erin Klein, George Couros, Joyce Valenza, Kelly Tenkley, Joan Young, Kyle Pace, Lisa Nielsen, Mary Beth Hertz, Nicholas Provenzano, Patrick Larkin, Shannon Miller, Shelly Blake-Plock, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach, Shelly Terrell, Steven Anderson, Eric Sheninger, Joe Mazza, and Tom Whitby. I know and respect each of these people as individual educators. They each continually contribute and share ideas to move education forward.

And now to the point, I asked most of them a single question that has always plagued me ever since I became connected. Do the people in your own district know who you are in the connected world? With few exceptions the answer is “No, they have no idea”. The very people, who connected educators look to as the contributors of ideas to the global discussion on education, are not recognized by their own peers. They have to fight in their own districts for the same things we all fight for. Their notoriety and celebrity in the connected world carries no weight whatsoever in the unconnected. They struggle to get permission to attend the very education conferences that they power with their presentations. They are looked up to by connected superintendents, yet may go unrecognized and undervalued by their own principals. How did we get here? What is it about being an unconnected educator that sets out a different set of values than those for connected educators? What makes a person valued in one education setting and unrecognized in another? What makes the connected world of educators so different from the unconnected?
I also recognize that the conversations are different between connected and unconnected individuals. Often, the unconnected need to be brought up to date on many things, which usually cannot be accomplished in one conversation. I was stunned that at a recent faculty meeting where people (unconnected) were intrigued by this new idea of a flipped classroom. “What’s that?”

It is upsetting to me that there are two conversations going on in education. There are two sets of values now in education. Of course, I am counting on the readers of this post to be connected and understanding and appreciating all that I have said. The sad truth is that a majority of our colleagues don’t get it and never will until they become connected. Being connected is an opportunity for educators to learn and maintain relevance. It is not arrogance or conceit to think this way, but rather the result of a technology-driven world where collaboration through social media can be a tool for the common good. We need to work harder at getting people to connect, if we want to move forward at a faster pace to reform. I also like the celebrity sometimes.

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The 6 P’s for Education

Posted in Administrator, Assessment, Back channeling, Connected Educator, EdChat, Education, Elementary, Internet, ISTE, Literacy, Observation, Parents, PD, PLN, Professionalism, Reform, Seniority, Social Media, Standardized test, Student teaching, Teacher, Teacher assessment, Teched, Technology, Tenure, Thought leadership, Thought Provoking, Truth on September 21, 2012| 10 Comments »

Dell Computer has sponsored four education Think Tanks over the last year, or so, and I have been fortunate to participate in three of them. At each get-together educators, education related organizers, education industry executives, and most recently students, were brought together in an open discussion on the weighty topics of education and education reform. All of the discussions were video-taped, and live-streamed, and even animated on a mural to a viewing audience. The final production was archived to a special website maintained by Dell. During these discussions the participants were even tweeting out discussion ideas in real-time, which reflected out to the growing community of connected educators on Twitter. Transparency abounds at these Dell Computer think tanks.

Each of the groups is given four to six general topics of concern in education to discuss for about forty-five minutes to an hour. Since the members are all invited guests, they are usually intelligent, passionate, and well-versed in aspects of education specific to their profession.

What I love most about this latest group, and others similar to it, is that if you put a number of intelligent and reasonable people together in a room to come up with a goal for the common good, the results are usually positive and helpful. This is a real teachable-moment lesson for all of our politicians in Congress today.

Dell has provided a great platform for getting to the heart and identifying some of the pressing problems of education through the eyes of these educators, but it doesn’t provide a means of enacting solutions to those problems. If it were a question of educational problems being identified and solved by educators within the education system, there would be far less a problem. But, like all complex problems, there is more to it than that. Progress is being stymied by the 6 “P’s”. By this I am not referring to the military expression “Proper Planning Prevents P*ss Poor Performance”. I am talking about Poverty, Profit, Politics, Parents, Professional development, and Priorities preventing progress in Public Education.

Profit is a big deterrent for change in the system. Most educators agree that high stakes, standardized testing is one of the leading problems with the system today. The idea of changing that anytime soon is remote however. The leading education publishing companies are making a BILLION dollars a year alone on creating and maintaining standardized tests. The profits are even higher in the area of textbooks, so progress in that area, even with the advent of the Internet and endless sources for free information, will show little change soon. Of course these companies all have lobbyists working on the next “P” Politicians.

Politicians are very much influenced by money. Some may even distort the facts to support the interests of their financial backers. Since education itself is a multi-billion dollar industry, that until recently was not, for the most part, in the private sector, it has become the goal of some politicians to put more schools into the private sector. This has made public education a political football. Education for Profit is the new frontier. Along with that comes an initiative to publicly praise teachers, while privately and politically demonizing them. For too many individuals the words Education Reform are code words for Labor, or Tax reform, or both.

Business people and politicians are quick to solicit the help of Parents. Parents, who are familiar with the education system of the 19th and 20th Centuries, the very system under which most of us were educated, are easily duped into trusting the lies of standardized testing. The belief that test results are an indication of learning, and that if the scores are low, it is the fault of the teachers, is a concept delivered by politicians and profit conscious business people. This is a concept that is easily believed by those who are less educated about education. We need to educate parents that although it is true that the teacher can be the biggest influence in a child’s life, the teacher is not the only influence. This less emphasized fact, that the teacher is not the sole influence in a child’s life, brings us to another “P”, Poverty.

If we factored out all of the schools in our education systems which are affected by poverty, we would have a great education system. Poverty however, represents people. Children in poverty have many things acting upon them and probably the least influential is the school system. A child who is hungry cannot learn. A child who is sleep-deprived cannot learn. A child who is fearful cannot learn. A child who is not healthy cannot learn. A child who is not in class cannot learn. What does a standardized test mean to these children? How can we hold the child responsible for those test results? How can we hold the teacher responsible for that child’s test results?

And finally, we arrive at the last “P”, Professional development. To be better educators we need to be better learners. We live in a technology-driven culture that moves faster than any we have ever known. We need to educate our educators on how to keep up to be relevant. Professional Development must be part of the work week. Skills have changed in the 21st Century, but many who are responsible for teaching those skills have not changed themselves. They need education and not condemnation.

My final “P” is for Priority. If education was more than a lip-service commitment from the American people, we would not be having these discussions. We tied education to taxes and that will never bring us together on needed solutions. That is the very reason National Defense has less of a problem. If we are determined to fix education, than we will need to fund it differently. Public education is our National Defense. It is too important to privatize for political gain or profiteering. Educators need to educate Parents, Politicians and Business People about education and not the other way around. Educators must also educate themselves on what education is, as we move forward, because it is, and from now on will always be a moving target.

As always this is just my humble opinion.

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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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