e-Learning Evangelist

If Virtual Schools Came First

2011-12-26T10:33:00.000-06:00

Colleague and sometimes co-conspirator Dave Glick has an interesting post on his blog which comes at the issue of resistance to virtual education from a different perspective. It's worth a read.

Guest Post: Are Online Schools Evil

2011-11-21T08:21:00.000-06:00

Guest Post by Lindsey Wright.

[Lindsy asked if I'd be willing to post something she's written on the topic of online schools and I felt additional perspectives were welcomed on this blog, so, I apologize for the lack of posts over the past few months, the new position at Huston-Tillotson, plus some personal issues, have had me focused elsewhere. So it is with pleasure, that I present an interesting and thought provoking piece by Lindsey Wright. Ray]

Are Online Schools Evil?

Online schools represent one development of the growing trend of web-based education, which itself is far from a bad thing. However, care must be taken to separate the concept of a web-based school from the reality of the institutions that exist now. Unfortunately, many of the existing online schools are part of a pernicious cycle of exploitation that has given the very notion of online education a bad name. Despite this, it's important to keep in mind that the financial evils of these institutions are regrettably symptomatic of broader problems in higher education generally. While the issues with online schooling as it stands now can't be overlooked, educators and the public should nevertheless bear in mind that as a learning medium web-based education holds a great deal of promise if the institutions providing it develop and maintain better objectives and commitment to education itself.

Sadly, the public eye's view of online education has for some time been focused on the predatory tactics used by admissions personnel to pressure prospective students into enrollment at for-profit online colleges. Last year, some of these schools were even investigated by the Government Accountability Office, revealing that college representatives routinely misrepresented or unlawfully withheld information about the schools' programs. In some cases, the GAO's undercover prospective applicants were even encouraged to falsify financial aid forms in order that they (and in turn, the schools) would receive greater sums of federal aid money. These schools are consistently reported as deliberately recruiting low-income applicants for the large aid packages they receive. They've also been called out for targeting veterans eligible for GI Bill benefits. In both cases, the schools are said to have the aim of “churning” through as many students as possible: recruiting them, collecting their federal aid money, and then failing to provide sufficient support to prevent these students from dropping out.

Of course, there are students who successfully and happily graduate from some of these for-profit online colleges (as evidenced by comments posted in some discussions). Nevertheless, and putting aside the schools' own defensive responses, it's difficult to ignore the considerable amount of federal financial aid collected by these schools compared to their high dropout rates, as well as the deceptive recruitment tactics that are often disavowed, yet widely reported.

While these issues are troubling, what is perhaps more worrisome (and often overlooked when the spotlight of infamy falls upon online schools) is the fact that similarly problematic trends exist in American higher education as a whole. Public and private schools with brick and mortar campuses have been admitting larger overall classes each year, even as tuition continues to grow. In particular, state schools, notably the University of California, are admitting greater numbers of out-of-state applicants (who pay higher tuition than state residents) in the face of budget cuts and the economic downturn. Meanwhile, as of 2009 the average college graduation rate in the US was only slightly higher than 50 percent ─¬ and that's taking into account whether students in four-year programs managed to finish within up to six years. For those who do graduate, prospects are not so rosy today for the college-educated as they were even a decade ago.

Many are questioning the value of undergraduate education that leaves graduates without much competitive edge in the job market yet saddles most with tens of thousands of dollars of student debt. For-profit online schools are (perhaps rightly) vilified for grubbing student money and providing what's often said to be sub-par education at too high a price for those who make it to graduation, but it's hard to say American colleges generally are far from the same.

A difficult road lies ahead to address the financial, administrative, and academic issues with higher education. As we take the first steps, we mustn't do so with undue prejudice against web-based education. Undeniably, many of the for-profit institutions promoting online learning now are part of the problem. However, online education itself is good, and represents a medium that will be a part of the solution.

An online school is in principle a very good thing. As a learning institution, it can direct consumption of online content much as traditional schools have begun to do, and as they have long guided consumption of printed content. Web-based and web-facilitated schooling also embodies the greater flexibility, accessibility, and individualization widely recognized to be needed in education generally. Besides the infamous for-profits, a growing number of traditional colleges are offering online courses of study, and even some public school districts have begun to test the waters of online education.

The point to take away is this: online schools as we know them may well be in some cases as bad as their reputations, but online schooling is only a medium for learning, one that holds a great deal of potential for what education needs to become. Going forward, we shouldn't conflate the evils of exploitation and profiteering with the medium of web-based education itself.

What should all teachers know about instructional technology?

2011-09-13T09:53:00.003-05:00

I'm making an exciting next step in my career!

Beginning next month I'll be the Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology and Coordinator of Instructional Technology/Distance Education at Huston-Tillotson University.

Of course I've got my own ideas about what all pre-service teachers should be exposed-to/know when it comes to instructional technology, but I'd like to hear your ideas.

Please share your thoughts about both content and approach for preparing pre-service K-12 teachers to be effective advocates and users of instructional technology now and in the future.

My goal is to develop an IT course that HTU can point to with pride. I'd like your help.

Da Vinci Minds recognized by San Antonio Bus Journal

2011-08-22T14:57:00.002-05:00

The San Antonio Business Journal has recognized Da Vinci Minds in the 2011 Going Green awards for leadership in education. The recognition is connected to the WhyPower/WhyCareers project that helps students learn about green energy careers.

Online Teaching Endorsement -- Yeah or Nay?

2011-07-28T17:34:00.002-05:00

Michael Barbour and I have been having a fun conversation on his blog about Online Teaching Endorsements. He started the discussion by taking a position that there should not be an endorsement in teacher certification for online instruction. I've taken the opposing stand. Take a look and join the discussion. I think Michael is loosing, but you decide. And, more importantly, I'd like to see this discussion involve more folks than just me and Michael.

Join us at http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/2011/07/28/edtech597-%E2%80%93-discussion-question-entry-should-states-have-online-teaching-endorsements/

DAVINCI MINDS WINS NATIONAL GRANT TO ADVANCE MIDDLE SCHOOL MATH, SCIENCE AND CAREER EDUCATION

2011-07-08T14:09:00.002-05:00

Next Generation Learning Challenges grant will integrate math, science and

career education and cross to national math standards.

DaVinci Minds announced today it has been awarded one of nineteen Next Generation Learning Challenges grants by EDUCAUSE to advance DaVinci Minds' WhyCareers program and curriculum. The program provides integrated math, science and career education to middle school students based on Whyville, the learning-based virtual world for teens and tweens. Using the immersive experience of a virtual world, students will experience the simultaneous math and science of green and traditional energy activities in Whyville, earn virtual career badges, and explore real, local career pathways that lead to high-technology, high-wage jobs that require math and science skills, along with the critical thinking, communication and teamwork skills crucial to success in the marketplace.

"DaVinci Minds is thrilled to take our WhyCareers program and offering to another level," said Cliff Zintgraff, CEO of DaVinci Minds and the project's Principal Investigator. "Research indicates teaching and learning that is integrated across math, science and career education leads to improved learning and an improved ability by students to apply what they have learned. Integrated teaching and learning is fundamentally rigorous, and we are honored to be chosen by EDUCAUSE to advance this work, and to have the opportunity to learn from and contribute to the experience of EDUCAUSE, the Gates Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation."

"We need to enhance our country's educational system in ways that engage students both inside and outside of the classroom and provide them with the 21st century skills required for today's workforce," said Ira Fuchs, EDUCAUSE Executive Director of Next Generation Learning Challenges. "The innovative work of our grantees demonstrates how the thoughtful application of technology can help us achieve these goals."

"We look forward to seeing Whyville used even more in schools to teach middle school students," said Dr. James Bower, CEO of Numedeon, Inc., the creators of Whyville. "For 12 years, Whyville has engaged close to 7 million members in inquiry-driven learning. Through our partnership with DaVinci Minds and the support of EDUCAUSE, we will continue our mission to improve learning outcomes both outside and inside the classroom."

"WhyCareers is an interesting innovation in education" said Raymond Rose, WhyCareers Project Director, "because it incorporates gaming and simulations, both of which have been shown to be highly effective learning strategies, especially for middle grade students."

The grant will be used to expand use of the program in partnering schools, to deepen math content and connect that content to national math standards; add tracking of state and national standards in Whyville; and to rigorously evaluate program outcomes. As part of the grant award, DaVinci Minds staff has been invited to participate in a conference on College and Career Readiness. The conference will be hosted in late July in Seattle, WA by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Numedeon, Inc., the creator and developer of Whyville, is a partner in the project, as are multiple school district participants including: Northeast Independent School District in San Antonio, Waco Independent School District, and Beaumont Independent School District. Lopez Middle School in Northeast ISD has hosted the pilot site for an ongoing WhyCareers state grant awarded by the Texas Governor's Office with funds from the U.S. Department of Labor, with the grant managed by the Texas Workforce Commission. "Our many prior supporters and partners have made significant contributions to this work, which enabled us to win this highly competitive award. We want to thank the Texas Governor's Office, the Texas Workforce Commission and our state partners, Power Across Texas and Alamo Colleges, and Waco Independent School District, for their past and continuing support that helped make WhyCareers successful", adds DaVinci Minds CEO Cliff Zintgraff.

Next Generation Learning Challenges is a multi-year program that will help address the challenges facing students, teachers, and schools in the U.S. from grades six to 12 through higher education. It solicits proposals for technology-enabled solutions to critical educational challenges approximately every six to 12 months, through an open process assisted by experts and educators with deep experience in the field.

The initiative will evaluate the projects it supports to build evidence of their impact, and will bring together an active community of innovators and educators committed to driving next generation learning forward to dramatically improve college readiness and completion in the U.S.

Nonprofit educational technology leader EDUCAUSE, which works to advance higher education through the use of information technology, leads Next Generation Learning Challenges in collaboration with a network of organizations, including the Council of Chief State School Officers, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, and the League for Innovation in the Community College. Each offers deep, practical expertise in educational instruction, leadership, and management. The initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

DEPARTMENT OF ED ISSUES GUIDANCE ON RIGHTS OF STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES WHEN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS USE TECHNOLOGY

2011-06-02T10:02:00.001-05:00

from TCEB - June 2, 2011 - Volume 17, Number 21

On May 26, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance through Dear Colleague Letters to elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education along with a Frequently Asked Questions document on the legal obligation to provide students with disabilities an equal opportunity to enjoy the benefits of technology. This guidance is a critical step in the Department's ongoing efforts to ensure that students with disabilities receive equal access to the educational benefits and services provided by their schools, colleges, and universities. All students, including those with disabilities, must have the tools needed to obtain a world-class education that prepares them for success in college and careers.

The guidance provides information to schools about their responsibilities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The guidance supplements a June 2010 letter issued jointly by OCR and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The June letter explains that technological devices must be accessible to students with disabilities, including students who are blind or have low vision, unless the benefits of the technology are provided equally through other means. The new guidance highlights what educational institutions need to know and take into consideration in order to ensure that students with disabilities enjoy equal access when information and resources are provided through technology. More details are online.

The US National Education Technology Plan - Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology

2011-05-10T12:05:00.000-05:00

Just published at
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/elea/content/pdfs/8/issue8_2.asp

E-LEARNING AND DIGITAL MEDIA
Volume 8 Number 2 2011 ISSN 2042-7530

SPECIAL ISSUE
The US National Education Technology Plan -
Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology
Editors: MICHAEL A. PETERS & DANIEL ARAYA

Michael A. Peters. Introduction. Transforming American Education: learning powered by technology

Robert B. Kozma. ICT, Education Transformation, and Economic Development: an analysis of the US National Educational Technology Plan

Kathleen Scalise & Mark Wilson. The Nature of Assessment Systems to Support Effective Use of Evidence through Technology

Michael B. Horn & Katherine Mackey. Transforming American Education

Leonard J. Waks. Transforming American Education: revolution or counter-revolution?

Nalova Westbrook. Media Literacy Pedagogy: critical and new/twenty-first-century literacies instruction

Raymond M. Rose. The National Educational Technology Plan Doesn’t Live Up to its Call for Revolutionary Transformation

RESPONSE
Dan Atkins, John Bennett, John Seely Brown, Chris Dede, Barry Fishman, Barbara Means, Roy Pea, Candace Thille & Brenda Williams. Response to the Articles on the Draft 2010 National Educational Technology Plan

Access to the full texts of articles is restricted to those who have a Personal subscription, or those whose institution has a Library subscription. However, all articles become free-to-view 18 months after first publication.

don't depend on LMS providers to understand pedagogy

2011-04-29T15:33:00.002-05:00

There's an interesting post on Edutopia by Heather Wolpert-Gawron talking about the need for some synchronous F2F communications in order to have effective online learning. Of course, I don't agree.

One of the things I found interesting in her post was this line:

So, I asked a basic question to all the [LMS] vendors who were pitching their wares to my district: where are the teachers? I was told that we could always record our classes and post them for students to watch at their leisure.

I found it interesting that Heather would not only ask a vendor that question, then accept the response as knowledgeable. My comment about that was to compare her question to asking a school building architect where the teachers were, or if group instruction would be possible.

The LMS is the structure that holds the content -- the instructions, resources, and discussions, etc. There are some features of an LMS that restrict they types of content but what happens inside the LMS is under the control of the teacher/facilitator and course designer, and my experience in dealing with the sales folks is they know how to sell, not how to use the product they're selling.. Asking the LMS sales person about pedagogy is like asking the school building contractor about teaching.

I think I need to put Heather in the same category with most educators, of being bias toward the approach they're most familiar with, and the one they have the most experience with, that of face-to-face instruction. We need to find ways to expose more educators to high quality online learning experiences.

Our need to increase the number of folks doing cybersecurity

2011-04-10T11:24:00.002-05:00

Yesterday (April 9) I attended the Third Annual Cybersecurity Caucus in San Antonio. San Antonio is now officially CyberCityUSA, with the website to prove it. The Caucus was very eye-opening for me. Dr Fred Chang from UTSA presented information that was designed to wake people up:

There's a programming competion sponsored by ACM and called the "Battle of the Brains" that the US hasn't been on top in this decade.
He stated that 73,000 new strains of malware have been identified every day this year, and that these are the bullets in the cyberwar taking place today.
The Department of Homeland Security wanted to hire 1000 folks with cybersecurity skills and thus far has only been able to find 300.

Major General Richard Webber Commander, 24th Air Force is in charge of the U.S. Air Force's Cyber Operations. And he provided evidence that the cyber domain is the new battleground.

What I got out of this was the clear need to grow the pipeline for getting students interested in cyber security. There are a number of degree programs available through the academic institutions in San Antonio. There is a national high school competition called Cyber Patriot

CyberPatriot is the National High School Cyber Defense Competition created by the Air Force Association (AFA) to excite, educate, and motivate the next generation of cyber defenders and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates our nation needs.

I learned that while there's a desire to attract high school students to cyber security education and careers, no one had given thought to what could be done to prepare elementary students to become aware of the careers or to develop skills that would help them pursue careers in this field.

When pushed, one college educator thought the emphasis in computational thinking (see previous post) would help, and so might getting elementary students interested in, and participating in computer game design (that will be the topic of a future post).

My request to you is to broaden your thinking about 21st Century learning to include, not only computational thinking, and supercomputing, but computer game design and cyber security. The 21st Century is here, and has been here for a decade. We need to prepare our youth to be productive members of it.

Computational Thinking, Computational Science and High Performance Computing in K-12 Education: White Paper on 21st Century Education

2011-04-01T13:31:00.003-05:00

Raymond Rose, Rose & Smith Associates, Inc.
Henry Neeman, University of Oklahoma
Bonnie Bracey Sutton, The Power of US Foundation
Vic Sutton, Emaginos

Executive Summary (full paper, posted on etc journal can be found here)

The 2010 National Educational Technology Plan says “…technology is at the core of virtually every aspect of our daily lives and work…. Whether the domain is English language arts, mathematics, sciences, social studies, history, art, or music, 21st-century competencies and such expertise as critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration, and multimedia communication should be woven into all content areas.”

The US has, since the late 1990s, been trying to describe what a 21st Century education should look like. Futurists are trying to divine the skills that will be needed for jobs that do not yet exist, employing technologies that have not yet been invented. However, a careful look around can allow us to see many areas that have been virtually unnoticed by those who are focused on 21st Century Skills.

Supercomputing – sometimes called high performance computing – is not a new technology concept, but the supercomputers of 25 years ago were about as powerful as a cell phone is today, and likewise the supercomputers of today will be no better than a laptop of 10 to 15 years from now. As the world of the biggest and fastest computers has evolved and these computers have become increasingly available to industry, government, and academia, they are being used in ways that influence everyday life, from the cars we drive, to the food in our cupboards, to the movies we enjoy.

Supercomputing is not an end in itself, but rather the technological foundation for large scale computational and data-enabled science and engineering, or computational science, for short. It is a collection of techniques for using computing to examine phenomena that are too big, too small, too fast, too slow, too expensive, or too dangerous to experiment on in the real world. While problems with small computing footprints can be examined on a laptop, the grand challenge problems most crucial for us to address have enormous computing footprints and, thus, are best solved via supercomputing.

As a result, in order to be competitive as a nation, we need to produce knowledge workers in far greater numbers who understand both what supercomputers can do and how to use them effectively to improve our understanding of the world around us and our day to day lives.

The thinking about large scale and advanced computing has evolved, too. Today, we realize that, while not everyone will be using big computing in their jobs, they will need to understand the underlying concepts.

These concepts collectively are referred to as “computational thinking,” a means of describing problems and how to solve them so that their solutions can be found via computing (paraphrased from Jeanette Wing, Jan Cuny, and Larry Snyder). Computational thinking includes abstraction, recursion, algorithms, induction, and scale.

Our 21st century citizens, entrepreneurs, leadership, and workforce will be best positioned to solve emerging challenges and to exploit new opportunities if they have a strong understanding of computational thinking, how it applies to computational science, and how it can be implemented via high performance computing. These are true 21st century competencies that will serve our nation well.

ED's require online college certification in every state!

2011-03-29T14:54:00.002-05:00

According to an article on eCampus News, online colleges will need to get certification from every state in which they have a student. The regulation goes into effect July 1.

The online colleges are expressing concern. They are quoted as saying it means meeting a variety of different state certification standards, dealing with a range of fees and bureaucratic hurdles, and ultimately meaning they may not be able to offer programs in every state. It could also mean a student who moves to an uncovered state may not be able to complete their educational program.

The article quotes Eduaro Ochoa, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education as saying...

“We don’t intend to penalize institutions if they haven’t received” authorization from every state by July 1...

We want to foster innovation and not suppress it..."

I'm confused as to how this policy will foster innovation. I'm confused as to what the US Department of Education means by innovation. I've been un-impressed with what I've seen previously of ED's use of the term innovation, and Ochoa's use doesn't seem to fit with the new direction.

I'm also concerned, if ED is taking this approach with online colleges, will this policy become something that states begin to adopt for K-12 online learning?

CUE's Certification program

2011-03-25T13:44:00.002-05:00

In case you've missed the announcement, CUE, along with ISTE, iNACOL and 15 other organizations are creating something they're calling the Leading Edge Certification for online teachers. Michael Barbour in Virtual School Meanderings has the announcement that was posted in the iNACOL forum, my quick comment, and a longer more nuanced and thoughtful comment of his own.

I find it interesting that these folks are so willing to use the term certification to describe their program. I don't know if it's arrogance or marketing. In the late 1990s I was working with a colleague at University of Virginia to develop an online education program to prepare online teachers. It was clearly not a certification program because, at the time, there were no online teaching certifications for any states.

The program was offered through the Continuing Ed program because the School of Ed wasn't interested, so it wasn't offered as a Master's program or with connections to an existing degree program. That is a concern which Michael raised about these types of prgrams in general, and one I do agree with. (We do frequently agree) But, UVA was very careful about what the program was to be called because it wasn't a program connected to a degree, nor was it a program that lead to a (state issued licensure) certification.

For anyone who's interested in becoming an online teacher, follow Michael's warnings about selecting a program, and I have an additional concern. The leading virtual education programs created their own teacher preparation programs because there weren't online teacher education programs available; because they wanted a program that prepared teachers for their particular program, their particular pedagogy, and that was built to support their particular policies.

Other than the VHS program with Plymouth State, and a program in Florida connected with the Florida Virtual School, any online teacher training programs are generic. Michael should know more about the focus of some of these programs than I do, but I know, from helping to think about the UVA program, that there's not enough time to develop a good understanding of all the different pedagogies that can be found in the range of online education programs, so the choice is either to be narrow, or only provide a taste. That's not worthy of certification in my opinion.

Are Internet classes a viable alternative to the traditional classroom?

2011-03-21T14:56:00.002-05:00

How do students feel about online learning? Here's an interesting opinion piece where students write about teachers in online education. Unfortunately only one of the three writers indicates any experience with online education. Two of the three take the position that there is little, if any teacher presence, and while I'm perfectly willing to accept that is the case for the one student who clearly states she's in an online course, they of course use a very broad brush and declare that is the case for all online courses.

We need to not allow statements like that to go unchallenged. Unchallenged we provide tacit approval that such statements are accurate. We need to help folks understand that there are a range of approaches to online education, and trying to paint them all with a single brush is impossible.

Turn STEM to STREAM?

2011-03-18T12:57:00.003-05:00

This article on the National Writing Project site presents an interesting issue. They want to add an A and an R into the current emphasis on STEM education.

I've been an advocate for adding an A and turning STEM, not to STEAM, but into TEAMS, because that carries an additional connotation that I think is important in education for the 21st Century, but I'm afraid that adding the R in there -- for reading and 'riting tends to dilute the STEM push and put us back to emphasizing so much we loose focus.

Yes, we need students/citizens to be able to read and write to be effective in the 21st Century, but I don't think adding the R is helpful. There's already a good deal of emphasis on the need for literacy, and if there was anything to be added, I'd make it an L for that, but then we'd have STEALM or probably METALS.

As it is, what's really happening with STEM is much more SteM. There's little being done with engineering, and technology overall in K-12. Yes, technology is used, but the lack of understanding about technology, the computational thinking is missing. So, first I'd like to see SteM education be closer to STEM education, then TEAMS.

I think this discussion is important.

A National Benchmark for Online Course Design (?!) QM

2011-03-04T12:46:00.002-06:00

You perhaps, got the same email this week I did from Quality Matters Program looking for folks who want to participate in their program to become part of their trainer and peer reviewer program. "QM is looking to build our national database of certified G6-12 peer reviewers immediately." It sounds like once certified you'll be reviewing courses and paid to do so. "Both trainers and reviewers receive stipends for their work."

Of course you pay to take their required training first. And at least one of the courses they require is a self-paced course. Some have a f2f option.

What I found most interesting were the basic qualifications to participate; "To be eligible for certification as a G6-12 trainer, K-12 personnel must have taught or developed an online or blended course during the previous 18 months or participate in teacher education programs."

They apparently believe every school of education faculty knows about basic quality issues for online education. I don't agree. Last year at SITE (this year's conference is next week) I asked a group of about 100 ed school faculty how many were teaching at least one course online (more than half) and then asked how many of their programs included preparation to teach online as part of their programs (less than a handful!). I'll be asking the same question next week.

I don't have any faith in their selection criteria for higher education. And with that as the first flag, I have concerns that go wider and deeper. They cite, as background for the creation of their rubric, national standards from SREB, iNACOL, ISTE, and Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (BTW they list iNACOL but use the old organizational name which is another flag.)

If you've followed me at all, you know I have a concern that the standards may only truly be understood by some insiders. I'm concerned the Quality Matters workshops (can a self-paced course be legitimately called a workshop?) won't be enough to produce the type of understanding necessary to do an adequate job. (BTW not all are self-paced and there are F2F options too.)

Here's an example of the QM rubrics: General Standard 8: Accessibility The face-to-face and online course components are accessible to all students.

I know one virtual school program who now admits they didn't understand the implications of a similar statement in the iNACOL standards; approved lots of courses as meeting the standard; then had to go back and make the producers fix the courses when they better understood the standard. (Of course that also meant the producers hadn't understood the standard either.)

If someone participates in the QM program I'd like to hear about it. I can't tell if this is just a scheme to get folks to buy their workshops or if they really plan a big marketing campaign to review online programs.

If you'd like to have your courses or programs reviewed, please get in touch with me. I, and other colleagues I trust can do it, and we understand the intricacies of online course design and delivery.

TCEA 2011

2011-02-16T12:02:00.003-06:00

Okay, TCEA was last week, but I had three sessions, well 2 sessions and a field trip. Henry Neeman, Director of the OU Supercomputer Center for Education and Research, and Bonnie Bracy Sutton, Director of the Power of US Foundation joined me to present Supercomputing in Plain English (actually Henry had the lead on this one) and a reprise of the session we did at T+L The Real 21st Century Literacies. (The slides from the two sessions can be found on SlideShare; Supercomputing is here and here for 21st Century Literacies.)

I'd also submitted a proposal for a field trip to TACC (Texas Advanced Computing Center). TCEA was excited and we ended up offering two, one to the supercomputer site at research campus and the other to the visualization lab on the main campus. We only got the numbers to run the field trip so see the world's highest resolution tiled display. So along with Faith Singer-Villalobos from TACC we hosted the field trip.

We were told by many of our participants that this was the first time supercomputing had been a part of TCEA and we hope to continue bringing supercomputing to TCEA.

Obama pushing for new Ed-Tech agency.

2011-02-14T17:29:00.002-06:00

Here's an interesting article from eSchoolNews. Apparently the President has proposed a new agency to " support research on breakthrough technologies to enhance learning." (See if you can determine which comment is mine.)

This isn't necessary if we'd only revise some of the grant programs that both ED and NSF funded.

The Department of Education under the current Secretary has shown little interest in funding true innovation. The I3 program was basically doing more of the same, just in different locations.

We need to see real innovation, and we need to change the discussion about the fundamental models of education that we hope to see in really preparing students for the 21st Century.

The risk of shifting instruction to social media

2011-01-31T11:41:00.002-06:00

There's a blog post by Daniel Margolis on Chief Learning Officer about the risks of informal learning delivery. While the focus of CLS is generally on corporate training, many of their articles are relevant to learning in general.

The point behind this posting is that while informal learning has great stories to illustrate how learning can take place in social media settings, the lack of structure has risks. I think this is an important warning.

I see the excitement educators feel when they find a new tool. And while the instructional approach du jour may be fun to explore, I get concerned that the tools may be used without adequate study.

I have repeatedly commented about the lack of study on the most effective approach to the use of synchronous online education. I'm still looking for a research study on effective synchronous online instruction. If you know of one, or have conducted the research please let me know.

And, I'm always looking for examples of how to make online learning effective.

Will change in leadership at Google impact education?

2011-01-25T12:02:00.001-06:00

Here's an article on Google's change in leadership and implications for higher ed.

Upcoming events

2010-11-09T16:06:00.002-06:00

I'll be in Phoenix next week for iNACOL's Virtual School Symposium. I'll be focused on equity issues with a preconference workshop and a concurrent session on Monday afternoon.

Then the day following (November 17) I'll be part of the Virtual Tech Forum talking about Online Learning/virtual classes and schools with Maxine Fisher in the Leadership Pavilion from 5-7 Eastern/

Is Blending Computers into Classrooms Radical Redesign?

2010-10-18T13:43:00.003-05:00

Barbara Martinez wrote an article about a blended education program in New York's P.S. 100 and called the program radical redesign.

I thought the program sounded interesting, but didn't meet my standard for radical redesign, so I sent Barbara the following note.

Barbara:

Nice article and I get it, but don't drink the "kool aid" that this is radical redesign of the schools. Evolutionary restructuring yes, tinkering, yes, but not radical redesign. The students are still in brick-and-mortar buildings arranged in age-based groups (grades), that measure learning based on seat time. (Those kids got to the 4th grade by sitting in classrooms for the previous 3 180 periods of time called grade 1, 2, and 3.

Blended learning isn't new -- well maybe it is in NY City, but it's not innovative in education -- not when there's already research to show it's effective.

That's not to say that what you write about isn't good, won't benefit kids, and is something different in P.S. 100. But, I think you've got an obligation to your readers to not just incorporate labels given you by the school as fact. If you'd attributed the "radically redesigning" term to the school I wouldn't have bothered writing, but you accepted it and incorporated it into the article giving credence to this tinkering as radical redesign.

I hope, in the future, you'll challenge or at least attribute terms like that.

Does anyone think this is a good idea?

2010-08-24T11:23:00.002-05:00

15 Chicago schools could see longer days
Pilot program would add 90 minutes of online education using nonteachers
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-08...ine-initiatives

In an effort to extend what is one of the nation's shortest school days, Chicago Public Schools plans to add 90 minutes to the schedules of 15 elementary schools using online courses and nonteachers, sources said.

By employing nonteachers at a minimal cost to oversee the students, the district can save money and get around the teachers' contract...

The program's cost is expected to exceed $10 million, the majority of which will be spent on capital improvements like technological infrastructure, wiring and broadband, a source said...

I need to see more about this, but it doesn't pass the "on-the-face-of-it" test. For those of us concerned about quality in online education, this doesn't sound like it's an effort to improve student learning, just something to extend the "seat time" mentality of judging learning.

I hope there's more to it than it appears with this article. The journalist adds a nice sentence at the end of the article which is basically accurate:

While there is limited research regarding the effectiveness of online schools, what is out there is largely positive. In some cases, research has shown that online learning can be better than face-to-face instruction.

but I'm not sure how it applies to the program in Chicago.

Comments.

DoJ may put websites under disability rules.

2010-07-29T10:58:00.002-05:00

The Department of Justice is considering including websites under the ADA coverage. In 1990 when ADA was enacted the Internet wasn't what it is today. If they move forward with that action the impact would be far-reaching.

Some organizations today use the 508 standards when designing websites, but those technically only apply to government-owned websites. A decision by DoJ to apply ADA to websites more broadly, would have impact on higher education as The Chronicle article states, and also on public school websites as well.

This has been an issue I've been pushing for years. Public schools take federal funds, but many don't consider access issues when they put their websites together. I have taken to task, the folks at District Administration for a while on this because when they used to review school district websites they wouldn't mention accessibility. I think they got tired of hearing from me, because they've been better the past year. They also did mention the issue in an article they did a while back.

The problem however, is most folks don't have a good understanding of equity and access issues. I did a workshop this spring on equity and access for the Innovations in Online Learning conference sponsored by the UT Telecampus. After my session, one of the participants came up to me and said she'd not ever thought about color schemes for her online courses even though she has a son who is color blind. (I had started the session with some of those simple color blind tests.)

It's clear this is an issue that needs more than just a statement that websites should be accessible. There will need to be more training done to increase awareness of just what that means.

Virtual schools soon reality in Mass.

2010-05-10T14:59:00.005-05:00

The Boston Globe published an article on May 5th about virtual schooling. While Massachusetts has lagged behind other states in the adoption of virtual schools, the reporter seems to forget that Massachusetts is host to the Virtual High School, arguably the country's first virtual education program. The Globe has printed a number of articles on the Virtual High School going back to the mid-1990s.

Florida Virtual School, now one of the nation's largest programs, has been educating students in Florida and internationally for as long and is considered the nation's first state-wide program. So, the concept isn't new, though it's hard to tell from the article, and the comments. (If you read the article, be sure to look at the comments too.)

The proposed National Technology Plan supports virtual schooling. There's interesting research on the strengths of online learning as compared to traditional learning. It's too bad the reporter didn't pursue any of that information. That would have been interesting contrast to the quote by the State's Chief State School Officer: “...Learning at its heart is a social endeavor. . . . I think for most students face-to-face instruction is the medium that gives them most benefit.’’

It's unfortunate the Massachusetts Chief doesn't understand that good online education is a social endeavor, and there's research to show that online can be as good or better than traditional face-to-face instruction.

SITE 2010

2010-04-05T15:20:00.003-05:00

I've just returned from the SITE 2010 Conference in San Diego. I found it somewhat disconcerting that the opening keynote was talking about her recent arrival to teaching online. It reminded me that a colleague and I did a presentation that covered the issues of preparing to teach online and about the importance of School of Education faculty teaching online at a SITE conference at least 10 years ago. Of course we weren't doing a keynote.

I asked the 60+ folks who were at my session how many were teaching online and got about half the audience to indicate they were doing so, but when I asked how many were preparing their pre-service teachers to teach online only a handful responded.

Virtual Schools have been around now for 15 years and it's not a passing fancy. But it seems based on a very informal survey that Schools of Education are behind the times. This is something I've been asking them to do for the past 15 years. Obviously, I'm not getting through.

I'm not the only one. Iowa State had a FIPSE grant, TEGiVS (that I consulted on) that ran from 2005 - 2007 and they developed modules to incorporate virtual education content into teacher preparation programs. Those modules have been available for Ed Schools to use. Iowa State presented at SITE as part of the project's dissemination efforts. I guess they weren't heard either.

And also this year at SITE I was part of a pre-conference workshop raising the issue of Ed Schools now incorporating engineering education into their pre-service preparation of K-12 teachers.

I've been clear in my position that our education system needs to be redesigned. I don't think the nation's Ed Schools can be seriously redesigned until we've got our new K-12 model, but I do believe Ed Schools can make the adjustments to reflect the current realities happening in K-12. But, as Bruce Droste used to say, "changing schools of education is like pounding cement."

There are individual School of Education faculty who are introducing their pre-service teachers to the latest in education, but we need to get the programs to reflect that thinking, we can't depend on all the faculty to do that. Just look at how many of them are preparing their students to be online teachers.

Android computer

2010-03-05T16:43:00.002-06:00

So the previous post is an interesting lead-in for speculation about what the impact will be of Android tablets. There was lots of speculation before the iPad was introduced about it. Clearly, some of my colleagues are very excited and optimistic about what they see as the potential for educational adoption of the iPad.

I have seen reports that both Dell and HP are developing hardware that will run on the Android OS. This week I was talking with someone from Dell who was bemoaning the delay in getting their Android platform out. At the CoSN conference I was talking with a Verizon rep about the lack of educational apps for their Android smartphones. I was told the developers are well aware of that lack and were working hard to develop the apps. (Of course what else could he say?)

Will the price point for the iPad insure that HP and Dell will price their tablets to be competitive? Will the Android developers produce useful educational apps in time to help HP and Dell be seen as potential competition to the iPad in the education environment?

Demise of the Desktop?

2010-03-05T10:45:00.003-06:00

Elliott Masie in his March 5, Learning TRENDS newsletter posts:


Google Predicts Demise of the Desktop: John Herlihy, Google's VP of Global Ad Operations, has claimed that desktop PCs would become "irrelevant" in three years down the line. Addressing the Digital Landscapes Conference in Dublin, Herlihy predicted a bleak future for desktop PCs, as smartphones, netbooks, along with other gadgets are evidently gaining grounds over them. In his keynote speech, Herlihy said: "In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs".  This echoes Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments Global sales of smartphones and other high-end handheld devices have been soaring at a rapid pace and would very soon surpass sales of traditional PCs." This has huge implications for the learning field - as we look towards supporting learning through a new and broader range of mobile based resources. Learning designers will need to refocus their design sensibilities towards a smaller footprint and very different type of learning application.
And if this is true, what does it mean for K-12?

Reforming Teacher Education

2009-12-18T12:22:00.002-06:00

A week ago I participated in a conference at the University of Texas at Austin. There were about a hundred participants. The goal was to begin a conversation about what teacher education should look like for digital age learners and share that with policy makers, and leaders in teacher preparation.

You can see the materials and presentations on the conference website.

It was interesting and frustrating. It became clear to me that without a clear picture of K-12 education in the digital age; without the vision for restructured public education, it's almost impossible to develop a new model of teacher education. There was consensus that the notion of the teacher as expert on everything needs to be changed, but that was about as far as we got. If we don't know what education should look like, how can we say what the teacher education programs should look like?

There were very interesting discussions. There's a lot of data, and I believe there's actually a great deal of interest in reforming teacher education, but that can't be done without reform of what is now referred to as K-12 education.

Teacher education programs are in part measured on their ability to place graduates into teaching roles. That means the graduates have to fit in to the current culture and design of education in our schools. Today many teacher education programs want to prepare their graduates to teach in technology-rich environments, but that's not often the reality they experience. So, if that was the focus of a teacher education program there might not be a good fit with a teaching job. Then fewer graduates would be hired and the program wouldn't be as well regarded. What would happen if teacher education programs started preparing their graduates for a really restructured eduction system?

I'm back to the proposal I've made before. I want to pull together a group to create a new vision for education in the 21st Century. Once that is developed, then bring together another group to create the infrastructure to enable that vision. Developing the infrastructure involves more than just a redesigned teacher education program, there are policy implications, facility design, and more. I just need to find the funding.

When Innovation Isn't Innovative (or WI3)

2009-10-19T14:42:00.007-05:00

October 6 Secretary of Education Duncan announced ED's priorities for grants under the $650 million Investing In Innovation Fund (I3). I'd recommend you read the regulations yourself to see what strikes you about the proposed regulations and associated grant making. The regulations were posted on October 9 for a 30 day public comment period.

I was excited by the title Investing In Innovation. There has been little educational innovation funded over the past 8 years. I was looking forward to seeing new ideas for teaching and learning being encouraged.

the Investing in Innovation Fund focuses on four key assurances, or education reform areas, that will help achieve this goal: (1) Improvements in teacher effectiveness and ensuring that all schools have effective teachers, (2) gathering information to improve student learning, teacher performance, and college and career readiness through enhanced data systems, (3) progress toward college- and career- ready standards and rigorous assessments, and (4) improving achievement in low-performing schools through intensive support and effective interventions.

Then I read the proposed regulations. Two of the categories, Scale Up, and Validation require that a proposal focus on programs that have already been shown to be successful. The third, the Development Grants section does provide limited funding for ideas that have not been tested.

There's no definition of Innovation, nor is there a sense that ED is really interested in innovation since most of the funding will go to activities that have a proven record of success.

In order to be eligible to submit a proposal, either by an LEA (local educational agency a.k.a. school district) or non-profit, the entity must have a proven record of "significantly closing the achievement gaps between groups of students." There is also a required 20% in-kind contribution from non-federal funds.

The regulations, as proposed, make it very difficult to generate any innovative ideas that could significantly improve the way we educate our youth. Basically ED is asking for a retooling of existing ideas. That doesn't fit my expectation for investing in innovation.

The 20% in-kind funding makes it impossible for many school districts or non-profit research and development organizations to submit a proposal.

As of today, 10 days into the comment period, there were 20 comments posted prior to mine. Though when I submitted my comments the system said it could take weeks before the submission appears online. I hope and encourage you to add your voice to the public comments.

There are many elements of the proposed rules and grants that could benefit from comment.

If we don't comment now, we have no right to complain about the final regulations.

The docket ID for making comments is ED-2009-011-0012

But who's funding innovation?

2009-09-03T14:16:00.003-05:00

I was interested in this quote in an announcement I recently received...

"Resources should only be devoted to innovations supported by scientifically-based research." said Scott Elliot, President of SEG Research. "The Department of Education and schools should be funding proven innovations."

The requirements for the I3 Fund that will fund educational innovation in the schools were announced by by James H. Shelton, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement in a speech given last week in Washington, D.C. Shelton called for the educational community to "get beyond the anecdotes" and indicated that innovation grant proposals should be supported by "rock hard evidence".

I know that there have been educational programs that have been touted with nothing more than anecdotal information to support their success, but I wonder where new innovative approaches to education will come from, if the only programs to be funded are those that already exist.

I know innovation is defined locally, and programs that are old-hat in one location can be innovative in another. but, there are new technologies and new applications being developed continually. How do those get to become proven successful programs if no one is willing to take a risk?

In a book

2009-09-03T14:07:00.003-05:00

I'm one of the subjects of this book... you can read about me pages 24 - 31

More Than Title IX

How Equity Education has Shaped the Nation

By Katherine Hanson, Vivian H. Guilfoy & Sarita Nair-Pillai

Women in America have come a long way in the last one hundred years, from lacking the right to vote to holding some of the highest profile positions in the country. This change, however, did not come without struggle. More Than Title IX highlights the impact one of the most powerful instruments of change—education. The book takes readers behind the scenes of some of the most influential moments for gender equity in education and tells the dramatic stories of the women and men who made these changes possible. The narrative blends historical analysis with dynamic interview excerpts of people whose actions made a difference in both educational equity and in the country as a whole. By showing how hard-won changes in education have improved life for women in America over the past century, the authors remind readers not to take these freedoms for granted.

More Than Title IX explores the history of well-known educational initiatives such as Title IX and affirmative action, as well as lesser-known movements such as the Women's Educational Equity Act. This accessible overview of the women's movement in the U.S. includes a glossary of key terms and initiatives from the past one hundred years, as well as a Gender Equity Timeline charting turning points in gender relations from the 1500s to the present.

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

www.rlpgbooks.com

Race to the Top

2009-08-03T19:59:00.002-05:00

Clearly Arne's stimulus money is getting lots of attention. Everyone is thinking about how to get a piece of the action, and forgetting what the money is supposed to be doing.

1.) improve education for lots of kids,

2.) help stimulate the economy.

But in this case, it's; "educate the kids stupid," not: "it's the economy stupid"

I know that's not the widely held opinion. There's not a good history of education money being spent in the service of kids. One thing is, we don't know how to improve education on a large scale. I was just at a meeting where education was described as having "victory gardens rather than amber waves of grain."

So, are we going to be about developing more victory gardens? We know many people capable of creating a victory garden. But, can we build our victory gardens in such a way that they'll help us get those amber waves of grain?

And if you've been reading this blog, you know that, simultaneously, I want to find ways to seriously restructure the way we educate our population -- not just our youth. I won't belabor the point, but we're looking at a high school curriculum structure from the 1890s and a high school schedule that was designed in the mid-1900s. Isn't it time to push education into the 21st Century?

BTW, Arne's billions won't get us there. There's no vision for that. I was pleased and disappointed to see that the 21st Century Skills project had included science finally. It's taken them 5 years at least to get science in there, but is their vision of science really 21st Century? (pop quiz time -- what's the logic behind the traditional Bio/Chem/Physics sequence in high school science -- answer later).

What about math? Why Algebra then Geometry, then Algebra 2? Does learning Geometry exercise the brain to prepare students for learning more advanced math? We've known the brain isn't a muscle for a long time -- yet the sequence of Algebra/Geometry/Algebra 2 persists. Will the billions in Race to the Top have any impact on that?

Back to the main themes -- appropriate use of technology in the learning process and looking at topics like computational thinking as a real and recognized 21st Century skill. Maybe we need some victory gardens for those two (potentially large) topics. But we should only build victory gardens if they can be copied, enlarged, or put together to start building those really big fields of change.

Back to the billions... looks like all that money will be filtered through the SEAs -- and don't they have a wonderful record of creating innovation in their states? Which state do you think of when I say "innovation in education"? What's the innovation? Is it defined locally or nationally?

I want to encourage you to think about how anything you do can fit into a larger effort to not just revitalize what goes on in today's classrooms, but to change the education so we don't have to immediately think about classrooms as the only place where education takes place.

Oh, Bio/Chem/Physics -- alphabetical order. Honest, that's the rationale. Educational justifications were made later.

Time to do more with computational thinking

2009-07-13T16:31:00.002-05:00

So, if you've read this blog before you know I'm not happy with what is passing for 21st Century skills education in the United States. Some colleagues and I have been talking about what we can do to move things along in a direction we'd be happy with. I suggested we need to get computational thinking embedded in national content standards. We don't need a whole new set of standards directed at computational thinking we need to help move the existing content standards into the 21st Century.

Last week I was at a meeting of the Diversity Council for Engineers Week. The engineering community is struggling with this issue as well. They'd like to see engineering education take place in high school. A few states do allow elective engineering courses to count toward the high school graduation science requirement. Obviously the Diversity Council is working to encourage diversity to be a cornerstone of engineering recruitment. The efforts to inform and encourage youth to explore engineering is reaching down into the middle grades.

Can computational thinking reach down into the middle school? There are people and programs doing that today, but they aren't having a large-scale impact. Can computational thinking find a place in Engineers Week; does it need something different? What are your thoughts about expanding awareness about computational thinking?

another event

2009-06-03T12:25:00.002-05:00

invitation from Lynn Nolan:

Come join us for the…

Digital Equity Summit: “Success Against All Odds”

Lynn Nolan, Senior Strategic Initiatives Officer, ISTE

Bonnie Bracey Sutton, 2009 Digital Equity Chair

Jenelle Leonard, Director, School Support and Technology Programs, US Department of Education

Monday, June 29, 2009, 8:30 – 10:00 a.m.

Renaissance Washington DC Hotel, Grand Ballroom North

Plan to participate in a highly interactive exploration of success stories against all odds... offsetting the digital divide. Hear from the U.S. Department of Education - How this aligns with the Obama Administration’s commitment to improve Education and the Department’s new focus on success and solutions. We’ll also hear “Success Stories” from selected participants, each providing a brief overview of their challenges, success results, effective implementation, and the evidence of their success.

We look forward to interacting with you as we look at success…against all odds!

Thank you!

21st Century Skills discussion.

2009-06-02T15:58:00.001-05:00

Maybe you'd like to join and participate.

http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/cybersummit

Let's do away with Web 2.0 in education.

2009-02-22T15:23:00.002-06:00

So, there's lots of discussion about Web 2.0 and the use of Web 2.0 tools in education. I recently joined the eLearning Guild and was struck by a presentation about Learning 2.0.

I like the term Learning 2.0. It puts the emphasis where it should be for education -- on the learning rather than on the tools. Yes, Web 2.0 tools can be cool. (blogging is in that Web 2.0 tool box) But the general development of Web 2.0 tools has more often than not, been about the social networking and making a buck, than about education and learning. But educators should be looking at Web 2.0 tools for the application and benefits to learning. Hence, Learning 2.0.

It may seem like a small thing, but I think words, and how we use them, can be big things, and Learning 2.0 focuses on how the tools are used, rather than just on the tools.

Second Life revisited...

2009-02-22T15:05:00.002-06:00

Do you have a presence in Second Life? Have you had meetings in SL?

I do have a SL persona, but I'm still a novice. I saw an article recently (and now can't find it :-( ) that was reporting on teacher professional development (TPD) taking place in Second Life. I think that's potentially a good use, reaching folks who are already in SL. I'm concerned however with offering TPD on non-Second Life topics to folks who aren't familiar with Second Life. There was quite a learning curve for me, and I had an expert to guide me.

But what troubled me more, was reading that the TPD was subsequently encouraging teachers to begin using Second Life for student instruction. Oh, I think SL can be a very useful platform for a variety of different learning experiences. My concern is that Second Life is not completely accessible to some people with handicaps. I think there's an obligation to point out to teachers when encouraging them to explore Second Life as an instructional platform, that there are issues of access. There are issues of access with a variety of uses of technology in education, and there are those of us who have been pointing out the access issues for a number of years. I just want to be sure that the advocates of Second Life mention the issue when encouraging educators to explore it. The point is to expand the reach of education not to restrict access to education by locating it in places that segments of the population just can't get to.

A new year and a new attitude.

2009-01-16T13:13:00.002-06:00

This blog has been pretty quiet in the final quarter of 08. That will change in MMIX. (How are you at Roman Numberals?)

There have been some changes in my life. I'm now working half-time for MentorNet. That has allowed me to move back to Austin. I'm no longer in a commuter marriage. That just wasn't good for me. (That's could be an interesting topic for a blog post.) When I was living in San Jose, I'd spend a couple of hours each day talking with my wife, so not only have I got half of my day available, but I also have an additional couple of hours every day in my personal time that I have available. So, that means more time to do things like blog.

Of course I do need to fill that half-time opening in my schedule to recoup the income that I'm not bringing in now. I'm open to offers.

A colleague sent me a message this week, pointing to a set of slides from a presentation I'd done about virtual education at a Department of Education conference in 02. The colleague was saying she agreed with my concerns and frustrations. But I wrote those over 5 years ago!

Here's what was on the slides:

My Frustrations

Assumption that all F2F is inherently better than any online education.
New programs that don’t research or build on the learnings of existing virtual schools.
Retention
Teacher training
Instructional models
We’re too wedded to the traditional school, course, class model.

Issues to Watch

Access issues
Universal design
Requiring students to own computers and Internet access
Data collection -- especially Disaggregated student performance data

Research Directions

What can we learn about online interaction patterns to improve communications?
What’s the most effective F2F model?
What’s an effective online synchrous learning model?
What do we know about basic learning?

Policy Concerns

Funding requirements
Teacher Certification
Who “Owns” the Students (ADA)
Seat-time as a measure of learning
Restrictions on progress and development of new, potentially more effective learning due to policy reinforcement of School, Building, Course, and Classroom model

Future Directions

Open Source Courseware
Learning Objects
Standards for use of content
The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)

It's scary that most of the issues are still on the table. It looks like I'll need to do some more pushing on some of those issues. I'm interested in hearing other reactions.

Become a mentor

2008-10-28T23:47:00.003-05:00

If you're a professional in the fields of science, technolgy, engineering or math (STEM) how would you like to give back, and help prepare the next generation. Become a mentor. MentorNet has a new starting place to become a mentor. Make a difference in someone's life.

Should computer programming be mandatory in US schools?

2008-10-26T18:19:00.003-05:00

Friend and fellow troublemaker Bonnie Bracey Sutton got a discussion going on Facebook about an October 2 InfoWorld opinion piece asking "Should computer programming be mandatory in US schools?"

She was supporting that position, and I took a contrary position. I think programming is the wrong target. I don't think the goal is to make programmers, but to build an understanding about computational thinking and technical literacy. Teaching computer programming is one way to do that, but I don't believe it's the only way. And I think making it a mandae would cause more problems, and looking at how schools tend to deal with mandates, I believe making computer programming mandatory is just one more way to screw up education. It would be one more way that schools would believe they're doing all the right things to prepare students with 21st Century skills, and they'd miss the real point of teaching programming.

Do you have a mentor?

2008-10-26T17:27:00.003-05:00

Sorry. I've not been very active lately. There's been a lot going on. I should be in Phoenix this week at VSS, but VSS doesn't connect well with MentorNet, and right now I need to concentrate on making connections that benefit MentorNet.

That said, let me talk about mentoring. I've been less active with the NACOL Research Committee this year, but I was providing some feedback to one of the teams writing one of the current Issues Briefs. They were using the term mentoring very broadly, and probably because of my experience with MentorNet, I see mentoring as a bit more narrowly that I see it used in a variety of contexts. You can see this definition: "a trusted friend, counselor or teacher, usually a more experienced person. Some professions have "mentoring programs" in which newcomers are paired with more experienced people in order to obtain good examples and advice as they advance, and schools sometimes have mentoring programs for new students or students who are having difficulties" in Wikipedia.

I hear and read mentoring used to talk about programs that I'd call coaching, where rather than helping prepare a less experienced person to become a colleague, the program is designed to overcome a deficit or fix a problem the "mentee" is having. I'd put those programs into the category of coaching or tutoring, not mentoring. I clearly have a more narrow definition that some.

I'd like you to think of mentoring efforts as preparing the next generation. Of helping someoone who may be younger, but clearly less experienced to be successful as a person and as a professional in whatever they do.

It's interesting to look back over my career and realize how seldom I've had mentors. It wasn't part of my upbringing, and may have something to do with being the first generation in my family to go to college, I don't know, but I can definitely see that I didn't have any mentors in college, or in my first teaching role. I did have mentors later on. Mentors do make a difference.

I think everyone needs a mentor -- actually multiple mentors. It's not to correct a deficit, it's to help develop. It should be part of growth and learning. So, if you're not mentoring someone, please consider it. You can contribute to the growth of the next generation whatever your age and and whatever profession you're in.

Of Mentors and Intellectuals

2008-05-29T18:49:00.002-05:00

Rob Weir writes an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed today about the importance of mentors, and for the new college graduate, the importance of developing new mentoring relationships as they enter new situations.

Working in MentorNet has given me the opportunity to think back on my experience in college and realize I knew nothing about mentors at that time. I'm first generation college graduate, and my parents didn't know about college life, or much about what teaching, (my intended career) would be like. There were a few profs that I had that spent some extra time with me, but none that ever moved to what I'd consider a mentoring relationship.

I know that when I started teaching I didn't have a mentor, and the people that could have served as mentors weren't interested in helping me.

I'm glad to see a greater emphasis on mentoring now. I hope we can find ways to provide mentors to more students as they develop. It's another aspect of education (maybe informal education) that shouldn't be overlooked.

MentorNet

2008-04-20T19:15:00.002-05:00

I moved into a nice studio apartment in San Jose the beginning of March. It's fully furnished and includes utilities, except broadband and cable. It's almost like a studio in a hotel, small fridge, toaster oven, microwave, and two burner stovetop. I've had to get a GPS so I can find my way around. I'm not familiar with the area and San Jose is cut up by at least 4 freeways.

I've been working straight out since I started at MentorNet. Lots of things to learn. It's a very complicated program with many facets. There's a lot of automation which is the only way a small staff could accomplish so much. There has to be to enable over 2000 mentoring partnerships so far this year (July 1- June 30). In the ten years since the program's inception there have been over 21,000 pairings.

MentorNet provides the infrastructure to connect post-secondary students in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to industry professionals for One-on-One e-mentoring experiences. Mentors and proteges both complete a 34 item profile and then are matched with a bi-directional algorithm.

MentorNet has a coaching curriculum that is sent regularly to proteges and mentors based on the educational level of the protege.

Right now we need mentors in the bio sciences. We have proteges waiting for mentors. Just the opposite is true in the computer sciences where we have lots of mentors waiting for proteges.

For students to be eligible to be paired with a mentor they need to be attending one of our hundred-plus partner institutions , or be a student member of one of our partner professional societies.

We're not just looking for mentors and protege's we also are looking for financial support. If you know of a foundation or personal donor that would be interested in supporting our work please let me know.

Interesting OCR decision.

2008-04-20T19:03:00.002-05:00

You know I've been concerned about access and equity issues in online education. When I've been talking about the issues I've predicted there will be a finding within the year. What I didn't know, really, I didn't know, was that at the time I was writing the NACOL Issues Brief the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was investigating a complaint in Washington.

Here's an excerpt from the letter of finding by OCR. this is a narrow ruling, but it's a start. It will be interesting to see what comes next.

108 LRP 17959
Quillayute Valley (WA) School District
Office for Civil Rights, Western Division,
Seattle (Washington)
10-06-1196
November 16, 2007

Dear Superintendent Reaume:
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has
completed its investigation of the above-referenced
complaint against Quillayute Valley School District
No. 402 (QVSD). OCR investigated whether, in
August 2006, QVSD discriminated against a student
on the basis of disability when it denied the student
admission to the Insight School of Washington (ISW),
an online high school operating statewide under a
management services agreement with QVSD.

OCR conducted its investigation under the
authority of section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of
l973 and title II of the Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990, which prohibit discrimination on the
basis of disability in programs and activities receiving
federal funds from the U.S Department of Education
and by public entities, respectively. QVSD receives
federal funds from this Department and is a public
entity.

As discussed below, the evidence established
that QVSD did not comply with Section 504 and Title
II when it denied the student admission to ISW. OCR
also found that the 2006-2007 criteria for admission
to ISW did not comply with Section 504 or Title II
and that, during 2006-2007, QVSD did not ensure that
ISW complied with Section 504 and Title II. QVSD
and OCR discussed the compliance concerns and
QVSD agreed to take the actions set forth in the
enclosed Settlement Agreement. OCR concludes that
QVSD will be in compliance with Section 504 and
Title II with respect to the issues investigated in this
case upon full implementation of the actions and
commitments contained in the Settlement Agreement.

OCR's findings and conclusions are specific to
the 2006-2007 school year, and are based upon a
review and analysis of written information provided
by the parent, QVSD, and ISW, and interviews
conducted with the parent, and staff of QVSD and
ISW.[I]

more information may be available from: http://www.specialedconnection.com

Lifestyle change

2008-02-26T18:56:00.002-06:00

I've just started a new position! I'm the Director of Programs for MentorNet. I've moved to San Jose, California and will be very busy bringing my past experience with diversity and online education to MentorNet and at the same time, learning more about e-mentoring . At the present time MentorNet programs are all at the post-secondary level. There is a lot of interest in developing e-mentoring programs at the high school level, but there are also a lot of issues (such as insuring the safety of the students) that are less an issue with post-secondary students, graduate students, and post-docs.

More on this in the future.

What Works in K-12 Online Learning

2008-01-24T13:26:00.000-06:00

Finally! We, Rose & Smith, wrote Chapter 9 -- Online Discussions -- at least a year ago, and now finally the book is out.

Of course we don't get any royalties so, don't feel the need to run out and buy it to help support me, but if you're interested in learning more about What Works in K-12 Online Learning I thing there is a lot of good stuff in the book.

I heard from a friend who said:

"Ray, this was the book I wanted most of the new crop of ISTE titles, and yours was the first chapter I read...it is great! I like the way you made clear what many of us assume will be understood about intention, that freedom requires structure, the comparisons between reflexive and reflective practice and above all the importance of community (and what it takes to build it). It is excellent, and coming from you, I am not surprised

Innovation 2008

2008-01-24T13:20:00.000-06:00

The Issues Brief that I wrote with Bob Blomeyer on access and equity and followup webinar has attracted some attention. A Google search shows a number of links. And now, Bob and I have been asked to speak at Innovation 2008 April 14-15 at Breckenridge CO.

Access and Equity in Online Classes and Virtual Programs

2007-11-08T12:05:00.000-06:00

The NACOL Virtual School Symposium was held this week in Louisville. They had initially hoped for 600, 800 registered. This conference grows every year.

The Research Committee (of which I'm a member) produced two Issues Briefs which were given to most all the attendees. (They ran out of the print version because they weren't expecting 800 attendees.) I was the primary author on Access and Equity in Online Classes and Virtual Schools. Bob Blomeyer contributed significantly to the paper which is freely available on the NACOL website.

I know of nothing else that provides the detail about the equity and access issues facing K-12 online education we do in that paper. We also connect the issues to the relevant Federal legislation, and we make recommendations for virtual education course and program design.

Our concern is that virtual programs are not meeting all their legal responsibilities in these areas, and not thinking at the depth they need to in order to address their legal responsibilities. I'm predicting that within the next year there will some sort of legal action against a virtual education program in K-12 for failure to address access or equity issues. Higher education has already seen legal suits on these issues.

Professional Development for Online Learning

2007-11-08T11:55:00.000-06:00

NACOL's Virtual School Symposium took place this week. The Research Committee (of which I'm a member) has produced an Issues Brief: Professional Development for Virtual Schooling and Online Learning. This Issues Brief is freely available. I was co-author on that Issues Brief.

If you're looking for information about preparing teachers for the online environment this is a good place to start.

Interesting blog housing educational issues

2007-10-31T11:13:00.000-05:00

A colleague and friend is posting on educational issues on an interesting site. Not one where I'd normally expect to see relevant education-oriented issues. Take a look at the Democrats.org site.

Universal Design for Learning

2007-10-31T10:03:00.000-05:00

UDL isn't new. I was pushing UDL concepts when I wrote a piece for the Hot Technologies paper as part of COSN's Emerging Technologies Committee. I did push on UDL in Concord's Seeing Math project, but it took us a while to really understand all the implications and then we didn't have the resources to make the adjustments to the interactives, but we developed an understanding and appreaciation of the UDL concepts. Concord Consortium subsequently got NSF funding for a UDL Science project. I'm on the project's National Advisory Board.

Its taken a while for the issue to move into greater awareness, but it appears to have made it this week to EdWeek.

If you're unfamiliar with the Universal Design for Learning principles now is a good time to do some research.

What Jena Six says about the racial divide.

2007-10-31T09:59:00.000-05:00

The TCRecord has an interesting article: Small Town, Big Issues: What the Jena Six Case Says about the American Racial Divide. I think its worth a read.

Family wedding...

2007-10-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

I was gone for a while. My son Evan got married on Kauai in September. It was a very nice family gathering. I also had a great time exploring the Garden Island of Hawaii.

Photo taken by my second oldest son, Adam

How Web 2.0 Savy are you?

2007-10-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

Jeff Milne raised an interesting issue on the BSG Alliance web site.

He is thinking about how to determine someone's level of Web 2.0 awareness or maturity, and proposed a list of Web 2.0 applications/services with the idea that someone would check all that they used.

I think its the wrong concept. Do you have to use services even if they have no benefit? But his list is interesting and so is some of the discussion that followed. Take a look, you might find it worth a comment.

Virtual School Symposium

2007-10-18T13:13:00.000-05:00

If you're interested in K-12 virtual schooling, you should consider attending NACOL's Virtual School Symposium November 4-6 in Louisville. There will be a number of good sessions, and its a great opportunity to network.

More on Rethinking Schools

2007-07-28T10:51:00.000-05:00

I mentioned the TeraGrid conference in the previous post. As a result, the iSGTW asked me to write a little opinion piece reflecting the talk. You can find it here.

Rethinking schools from the ground up.

2007-07-20T09:48:00.000-05:00

I spoke recently at TeraGrid 07. My focus was on things the TeraGrid community could do to help school reform issues in this country.

I've found some interesting information about our current K12 structure. I had thought the current calendar was based on an agrarian society, but recently saw an article that presented a different origin at least for the structure in some locals.

I did find the typical set of courses that constitute the basic high school graduation requirements have an interesting origin. In 1892 the NEA brought together a group of ten men, basically college leaders, and they produced a report that has influenced the design of high school curriculum since. Our high schools are operating on a design developed over a century ago, for different times and different purpose.

So, why do the folks who talk about restructuring schools feel the need to keeps the basic structure we currently have in place? School restructuring needs to start with a blank slate -- take what we know about learning, about technology, about life in the 21st Century -- and rethink our educational process from the ground up. Notice I didn't say "redesign schools." I think just using that term limits our thinking.

Let's create a new vision for education in the 21st Century.

Diversity in Educational Technology Leadership

2007-06-18T12:05:00.000-05:00

Diversity in Educational Technology Leadership

I’ve been pointed to a number of other recent discussions about who is leading the educational technology movement.

http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/06/17/the-conversation-is-open/

http://web.mac.com/timholt/iWeb/Byte%20Speed/Tim%27s%20Blog/3176F02A-4F21-45F0-9A6D-93A64133B478.html

http://123elearning.blogspot.com/2007/06/coming-to-buffet-necc-and-global.html

http://bumpontheblog.etowns.net/

It’s interesting to see these folks talk among themselves about technology leadership. I’m glad to the see the discussion, as it’s an issue I’ve been talking about for years, but not in blogsphere (?) But what I saw was an academic perspective. Leadership had to emanate from institutions of higher education and leaders should have PhDs.

It seemed to me to be an elitist viewpoint. It ignored all the projects that NSF and even the US Dept of Education has funded that have resulted in significant and positive improvements in education. It also ignored a number of other organizations that I’d identify as trying to be leaders in at least some parts of the educational technology universe. Here are a couple of examples.

COSN is the professional association for school CTOs. I’ve been a member of COSN for many years and on the Emerging Technology Committee for most of that time. COSN has been concerned that there isn’t the diversity in their membership they feel would benefit students. They recognize however that their membership does reflect the diversity in the field, and they have been trying to find ways to improve the diversity of those that strive to become school CTOs.

NACOL is the professional association for the K-16 virtual school community. I’ve been a member of NACOL since it’s inception, and I’m currently on the Research Committee. After this year’s conference, I wrote to the NACOL Board and made a specific set of recommendations to increase the diversity of the field and the NACOL membership. I’ve yet to see any movement.

NABSE has been slow to embrace technology, but is now moving strongly in that direction. They have a number of other agenda items that they feel are critical, but technology is slowly moving up on that list.

NSBA with their T+L Conference has been taking a lead in educational technology and they are concerned with diversity as well.

NECC and FETC which cater to teachers are more diverse, and both organizations do take positions on policy.

Even with all this concern there’s still a lack of diversity in educational technology leadership. But then the US still hasn't solved a number of problems with equity and diversity in general.

There are others who are trying to help lead educational technology and add diversity at the same time. I’ll only mention Bonnie Bracey-Sutton because she doesn’t match the PhD academic prototype. She’s a former elementary teacher without a PhD. But she can be found holding her own and educating graduate students, faculty, Congressional representatives, and other policy-makers. She serves on a number of national advisory committees and a Google search of her name will result in many more hits than many of the folks who are the self-proclaimed leaders in educational technology. Did I mention Bonnie is Black and Native American?

It’s important to recognize that there’s a diversity issue. It’s more important to take action. It means finding the leverage points and applying pressure to help make the change.

After all, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Comment on Teaching Naked.

2007-06-18T11:16:00.000-05:00

This has been a week for colleagues sending me information about comments in other blogs. One that attracted my attention began with a posting: Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from Your Classroom Will Improve Student Learning. The title immediately attracted my attention. I thought this was another attack on technology in general.

What it turned out be was more of an anti PowerPoint position for college faculty. And that was fine, but it also reflected a very narrow view of technology. Seems the only technology applications considered were email, presentation tools, and online education. There was no consideration of simulation and modeling applications, audience response systems, or a range of other technology tools.

I also found the oft-repeated mantra that distance education is impersonal. What I’m finding is that many higher education faculty have not had very positive experience with online education. They have seen online education at its worst and don’t know that many of the problems they identify can be solved by well-designed online courses.

When I was at the Concord Consortium we put a stake in the ground about what we believed to be the basic elements for good online courses. The Concord e-Learning Model identifies the characteristics that make up effective asynchronous online courses.

I’d like to see someone take the time and effort to create and research effective synchronous online courses and identify the characteristics. There just hasn’t been that much thought put into synchronous online education. There’s this belief that what’s happening in the on-ground world is inherently best. Could someone do the research to prove, or disprove that.

Stop Tinkering, It’s Time for Real School Restructuring

2007-06-18T10:31:00.000-05:00

A week and a half ago I spoke at the TeraGrid 07 conference. The topic was the role the TeraGrid community could play in educational reform. There were a number of points to the talk. Important to looking at where education is today, is the fact that in 1893 the NEA convened a group of 10 white men, the Committee of 10 to make recommendations about the curriculum that should be offered to high school students. Their basic recommendations, made to reflect their 1893 view of public education, look very like the high school graduation requirements in place today.

There are two organizations that are talking about what is necessary to prepare students for the 21^st Century. The 21^st Century Schools and 21^st Century Skills Project but both of them are only offering minor modifications to the existing school curriculum and none are suggesting significant revision of the program of studies recommended in 1893! Neither of them shows any awareness of the role technology is playing and is expected to take on in this century.

I dont see any of the better known or financed school reform or school restructuring efforts looking to make major changes in the status quo. They tinker around the edges, but accept the basic structure of education as defined in the 19^th Century. Does that make any sense?

I'm proposing that we create a new vision for education. That we take what we know about how people learn and what we see as the skills and knowledge necessary to survive in a flatter and more technology oriented world and design an education program that prepares our citizenry for that.

Note that I didn’t say we create new courses or new schools. I believe that even using those terms to describe this new vision starts to put boxes on the vision. I've identified some of the people I'd like to see involved in creating that vision, and I can assure you it’s not just a group of old white men. But I also don’t think that there’s only one "correct" vision. I hope that one vision will lead others to create their own visions, and those will bring about further discussion.

I also believe that by presenting a vision of what the education can/should be like, we’ll see movement toward that vision in the way we currently educate our citizenry.

Making e-Learning Accessible

2006-11-30T13:37:00.000-06:00

Texas has a new law that requires all government web sites to be accessible. We believe that this law also applies to online education provided by state governments. This really isn't new. The laws have been on the US Government books for a long time. But, it sometimes take a while for these things to trickle down.

I'm intersted in this because it's been a concern of mine for a long time. I wrote the first Special Needs policy for the Virtual High School when we first got it going. I've been talking about equity and access for years.

The virtual schools have begun to pay attention to the issue, but most of them don't have policies about course design to insure accessibility. Public organizations should have been thinking about the access issues for a long time, but some haven't, or don't thoroghly understand the issues. It's not a single issue, there are a number of them.

There are many resources on the web to help. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Watchfire is a free service that will provide an accessibility report on any single web page entered on the site.

The National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) has a variety of resources including MAGpie which is a free tool for adding captioning and audio descriptions to rich media.

Rose & Smith Associates

2006-11-30T13:23:00.000-06:00

We've started a formal consulting business, Rose & Smith Associates. We (my partner Alese Smith, and I) have been consulting with organizations on e-learning for a number of years. We thought it was time to formalize the pactice and formally take advantage of each others expertise.

Alese helped pioneer the first national virtual high school, defining online community-building and national online standards. She is an accomplished online curriculum and course designer/developer, and consults with universities and learning institutions to develop and offer professional development programs that teach the philosophies and skills for successfully transforming face-to-face courses to the online venue. She is co-author of Essential Elements
which has been used as a text for online course development in a number of college programs.

Recently we have co-authored a chapter for a book ISTE will publish this summer. The title for the book What Works in K-12 Online Eduction and our chapter is What works in K-12 Online Discussions.

Moved...

2006-07-06T17:01:00.000-05:00

I've been a little quiet for a while. We decided to move from Wilmington, NC to the Austin, TX area. So, we put our house on the market and got an offer within 3 weeks. That done we packed up and found a rental house in Cedar Park, TX (actually in the ETJ of Cedar Park, but that's a whole other topic) and moved a couple of weeks ago. We're now getting settled in a rental house (we want to learn about the area before we make major decisions like where to really live) and learning about the area.

We're trying to make connections with folks in the eLearning community, but this week lots of educational technology folks are at the NECC conference in San Diego.

SCORM and Learning Object hype

2006-05-04T08:57:00.000-05:00

I thought the front page story in eSchoolNews on SCORM by Robert Brumfield was interesting, but I found it reflected the hype that I see going on in the education community. I'd like to see an article written with a bit more caution in the message. I've been watching this concept develop since the early days of the IMS. And I was initially taken with the idea as well. It sounded like something that would be wonderful, and conceptually I think it is, and it is an important step. But many of the folks who are "gung ho" on SCORM are reacting to the promise not the practicality.

I had an interesting conversation with an industry representative on the IMS Council. He said, that while they had to talk about the specifications and give them lip service, the leader in the online platform industry was not going to make it easy for their clients to jump ship to cheaper platforms. It just didn't make good business. I've watched as programs have had to change their CMS for a variety of reasons and its always a painful process. And, it always a major undertaking.

The folks I know, who design good online courses, provide a great deal of instruction in their courses for the participants about how to navigate their particular platform. If SCORM were to require that the discussion area has a standard name, the communications tools were always the same, and navigation was always the same then interoperability would be easy to accomplish. We ran into this when we were working with PBS TeacherLine, and had developed a set of professional development courses to run on Blackboard. TeacherLine then decided to use Desire2Learn. They were able to port content from Blackboard and that was nice, but since we had all the original files on the server it wouldn't have been difficult to rebuild the courses in the new platform. What took the time, was reading all the instructions and making the conversion to the structure and naming conventions in the new platform. Yes, it is possible to write a course that just has the content without the directions and reverences to where a participant needs to go to make a posting. But, some folks will get lost. We're not yet at the point where everyone has so much familiarity with online courses that directions can just say, "go post" and everyone will know what to do and where to do it.

If SCORM is hype, the concept of Learning Objects is bigger hype. Again the promise of Learning Objects is that anyone will be able to assemble a course like building a house of Lincoln Logs. But, when I hear speakers talk about learning objects, my first question is always to ask how the speaker defines learning objects. I'm most interested in learning object granularity. I have found many speakers don't have a good definition, and no idea about granularity. But the range of definitions I have gotten from folks who are thinking about the issue, ranges from units of instruction that "must" include an assessment, to single pieces of material (i.e. a graphic or a page of text.) We developed materials for Teachscape, and within their platform, with a set of materials developed by a single developer, or with a group of developers working with a common vision it was possible to modularize the content in a way that provided the Site Facilitator with some of the flexibility to arrange materials in a way some learning object advocates have described. I think learning object repositories developed and used by an organization do have great potential -- because there will hopefully be a common definition on the granularity and on the design standards, but the notion of a course developer grabbing learning objects from across the world and dropping them into a SCORM complaint CMS and that they will be able to then offer the course without any further work is science fiction. That's not how good courses, either on-ground or online are developed.

23rd Annual Essential Schools Conference

2006-03-10T13:17:00.000-06:00

I was asked to fill in for Sara Lawrence Lightfoot as a keynote speaker for this conference. I was very last minute so I put together the presentation but 1.) I didn't know the audience -- and since this is the 23rd annual meeting there are some folks who have been coming for a long time. 2.) I had to go with content that I knew. We decided the topic would be: Effective Schools Need Effective Teachers: Learnings from Research on Online Teacher Professional Development.

I'll put a link on this site to the final version of the presentation -- which got assembled on the flight out to Scottsdale, AZ where the conference was. But in the mean time, here are the recommendations for next steps from the session:

Look at your school/district teacher retention data. (of each 100 teachers who enter the profession, only 32 are still teaching after 5 years)
Put the head of professional development on the Superintendent's Cabinet

Make it clear to the Head of Professional Development that they are working to improve student learning.

Begin the process of building learning communities.

CoSN

2006-03-08T10:35:00.000-06:00

I was at the COSN conference this week. I was on a panel to talk about the Learning Spaces 2010 report from the Emerging Technologies Committee. I was the project manager for that report.

High Tech Backpack of Today - Digital Learning Spaces of Tomorrow
Essential Skills: Leadership & Vision, Planning & Budgeting, Education & Training and Ethics & Policies

Digital Learning Spaces are created and activated by the technology infrastructure of schools as well as the devices students and teachers carry. During this session Emerging Technologies Committee members will share their vision of future learning spaces in an elementary classroom, an integrated math/science learning space and a virtual school that help students connect, create and collaborate. Before educators ban a new technology, consider the possibilities-make the most of the learning potential in students' high-tech backpacks!

Karen Henke, CoSN's Emerging Technologies Committee Chair & Writer, Nimble Press (Moderator)
Douglas Levin, Director, Education Policy, Cable in the Classroom
Tom Rolfes, Education I.T. Manager, Office of the Chief Information Officer/NITC, State of Nebraska
Raymond Rose

We were one of the few presentations I heard, that said anything about making a difference for students. Many of the sessions were interested in the buisness aspects of educational technology. And COSN has been focused on Total Cost of Ownership and ROI for technology. I think they've perhaps moved to far in the direction of buiness and forgotten that the reason for schools is to educate students. On a shuttle bus to the METRO I overheard some participants saying that a concern for student achievement was missing especially from the general sessions.

I went to a session about online teacher professional development (oTPD) and was listening in particular for information about how success was measured. What I'm hearing is still a lack of connection between teacher professional development -- either online or on-ground -- and student achievment. We need to make that link. It's not enough to get a bunch of smily-face evaluations from partipants. There needs to be some objective measures to see if the professional development really did make any difference to student learning.