More on Rethinking Schools

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.

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

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.

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.