Twitter Updates
Tags: | Andy Carvin, dembo, education, Educators, K through 12, Kindergarten, new permanent record, teach42, twitter
Your Digital Dossier
Andy Carvin shared this video via tweet that does in incredible job of summing up what the New Permanent Record is, in a much more succinct way than I’ve ever managed to.
As you watch this video, consider what these students will look like when they enter your classroom. Honestly, will they care one whit whether you put their first and last name on the same page as their photo? Will their parents insist that you keep their identity private… or will they insist that you exhibit their learning publicly?
Is your school prepared for students that will have a larger digital portfolio before they enter kindergarten, than most of us educators have as adults?
Enjoy:
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It seems that a teacher in Seattle decided to take a stand against the the state’s standardized test, WASL. Quite simply, he refused to administer it. While it seems he has gained the admiration of his peers and many administrators for his actions, he was still suspended without pay for two weeks. His response? “When you do an act of civil disobedience, you gracefully accept what happens to you.”
I’m in my cubicle right now giving him a standing ovation.
Via the Seattle Times:
Chew issued a two-page, single-spaced statement listing all of his concerns about the WASL. It includes his contention that many questions on the test are unclear, notes its costs, and says teachers get little information about how to help students improve. The letter also says the WASL focuses too much attention on just a few subjects.
“I think it’s good for students to have basic skills in reading, writing and math,” he said. “But also to have good skills in P.E. and art and music and public speaking.”
The WASL, he said, needs to be scrapped and replaced with a “gentler, kinder way of finding out what our students know and helping teachers educate them better.”
Gotta respect any person who has the courage of their convictions and actually takes a stand for what they believe in, rather than just talking about it.
And what about next year? “I have let them know I’m never going to give the WASL again,” he says.
Lee Speers speculates “What if a whole school, or district, or even state would do this. Who knows, maybe the next Arlo Guthrie would even write a song about it.”
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really crazy and
they’ll suspend him without pay.
And if two people, two people do it, they may think they’re both off their rocker and they’ll send them both home.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people refusing to administer the state test? They may think it’s an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty teachers,I said fifty teachers walking into the principal’s office, refusing to give the state test and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.
And that’s what it is, the Clear-Thinking-Teachers-Anti-High Stakes-Testing Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come’s around on the guitar.
(original lyrics by Arlo Guthrie)
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96% of students with online access have used social networking technologies. 71% have done it in the last 7 days.
Well now, isn’t that a fun way to kick off a report on social networking amongst students? The NSBA has completed a study of 1277 9-17 year old students, 1039 parents and 250 district leaders who make the policies for their schools. The report was sent out to the media a week or two ago, but was just released officially today. Are bloggers media? Based on how many have already reviewed the study, I’d have to say we certainly think we are!
You should definitely read the report for yourself. It’s sure to be a hot topic of conversation for years to come (people are still quoting the PEW study from 2005 about teen internet use), and this one definitely has some tasty, controversial nuggets in it.
For example, “Only .08% of all students say they’ve actually met someone in person from an online encounter without their parents’ permission.” For those of you that aren’t mathematically inclined, that’s a really small number. Compared to the number of news stories we hear about internet predators, it really forces you to start to put things in perspective. I’m not saying that we can ignore internet predators, or that they aren’t more evil than internet spammers, but there aren’t an army of faceless millions who are trying to steal our children through the use of MySpace. I was surprised to read that only 1 in 14 students had experienced cyberbullying. I would have expected that number to be far higher, but perhaps that’s just because the media reporting of those incidents have warped my sense of proportion.
Aside from predators and safety, the report had some interesting things to say about the role of social networking in students’ lives. “Nearly half of [district leaders] expect social networking sites to introduce students to ‘new and different kinds of students.’ More than 4 in 10 hope social networking will help students ‘learn to express themselves better creatively’ and ‘develop globa relationships.’” The numbers from the parents are even higher. 3 in 4 parents think that social networking sites could actually improve their students educational and conflict resolution skills. About the same number think it can improve their students’ social skills. That’s a pretty strong statement about the parents expectations.
Of course, the question then becomes, could students get access to those sites even if they wanted to? 85% of district leaders insist that adult monitoring would be required for students to use these sites, and 71% would still prohibit chat and IM. So we want students networking, but we don’t want them communicating? Something has to give there. Even if people start designing EduFriendly versions of all these tools, it won’t stop students from going on their own to where the masses are.
The report does have some positive messaging to convey in it’s conclusion.
Many schools initially banned or restricted Internet use, only to ease up when the educational value of the Internet became clear. The same is likely to be the case with social networking. Safety policies remain important, as does teaching students about online safety and responsible online expression — but students may learn these lessons better while they’re actually using social networking tools.
After reading through the report, I got curious as to how many teachers actually had access to these sorts of tools right now. I did a very informal survey on Twitter, a TwitterPoll, and asked people whether their school had blocked access to Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Ning or Meebo. You can see the results in the chart below. Twitter, Ning, Blogger and Flickr are the only sites that were unblocked more often than they were blocked. And unsurprisingly, Facebook and MySpace were blocked by the most districts. However, what did surprise me was how many districts blocked Meebo! Definitely supports the findings of the NSBA report.
As I bring this post to a close, I leave you with one question to think about: If social networking is a good thing, and students should be learning how to use those sites appropriately, at what grade level should students have access to an unfiltered internet?
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Tags:
Politics and Blogging
The session that kicked off EduBloggerCon for many of us has been on my mind quite a bit lately. Essentially, Will asked the room “What should we, as a community, really be trying to accomplish. And how do we go about doing so?” I don’t believe we found any answers in those 45 minutes, but I do think we started to see which direction the yellow brick road was leading.
We live in incredibly unique times. Much like when the paper press was invented, or when the telegraph and telephone were developed, or when we entered the industrial age, the world has taken an unexpected turn. Perhaps it has started spinning a little faster. The days and nights certainly seem a little shorter to me lately. But in my opinion, what makes this age unique is that it’s the first time that virtually every possible piece of information has A) become publicly and uniformly available to every individual with connectivity and B) available instantly.
The amount of information available and the speed with which we can access it fundamentally change the playing field. They are what make the world flat. They are what permit Wikinomics to exist. And they make collaborative networks easier to form and maintain than ever before, so easy that people don’t even need to meet, talk or even email directly to have a significant impact upon each other.
It sounds like a pretty radical shift, doesn’t it? And yet, let’s be honest, the vast majority of the world hasn’t changed a bit. Schools are the same. Politics is the same. Parents raise their children the same. We still bike, drive, jog, eat and sleep the same. As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same.
However, there are a very small minority of educators that feel the world of education can and should be different than it was even 5 years ago. Who recognize that work environments are changing. Not necessarily across all walks of life, but if one wants to be what we largely call ‘successful’, the skill set one needs to have is shifting. Tools are evolving quickly, information is moving quickly, and schools are slow to react. It is frustrating, but many teachers are used to frustration. It comes with the territory.
And then somebody drops a stone like DOPA into the water. Schools are forced to react quickly or be washed over by the tsunami like waves that ripple outward from it. While DOPA may not have passed, it served as a warning to educators that if we don’t take action proactively, we’ll be left to react when somebody else does.
Which brings us to the golden question: How does one enact positive change within the educational community? As people have been quick to point out, preaching to the converted does little to further the cause. And converting the uninformed, while worthwhile, is a poor way to enact systemic change.
So far as I can see, the key is going to be to follow in the footsteps of DOPA. No, I don’t mean try to shield our students from the very tools they need to master in order to succeed in today’s workplace. I mean that we need to draft formal legislation, get it introduced to a legislator and try to see it passed at the National level.
That may sound daunting, but it happens everyday. While the tools the EduBlogging community are so fond of raving about may serve for developing the initial plan, the best route to seeing it through is going to be traditional politics. The structures for doing so are in place. Essentially, we need a plan, we need funding, and we need lobbyists.
Regarding the plan, I recommend reading Illinois Senator Dan Kotowski’s Internet Safety Education Act. It may not be perfect, but it’s at least a positive place to start. The summary is as follows
Creates the Internet Safety Education Act to inform and protect students from inappropriate or illegal communications and solicitation and to require school districts to provide education about Internet threats and risks. Creates the Internet Safety Education Alliance under the authority of the Office of the Attorney General. Amends the State Finance Act to create the Internet Safety Education Fund. Amends the School Code to mandate the provision by every public school of instruction and discussion on effective methods by which students may recognize and report inappropriate, illegal, or threatening communications on the Internet on or before the start of the 2008-2009 school year.
Once we have created a bill to propose, the next step would be getting it in the hands of a representative. Pure and simple, it’s going to cost money. However, there are plenty of organizations that would be willing to champion such a cause. Personally, I know I would be willing to make a donation to ensure we do not need to worry about an offspring of DOPA being passed, or more importantly, to see school’s empowered to teach students the skills students need to know to succeed in today’s workplace.
Will’s rallying cry of “One more NECC before the elections” has resonated with me. I am determined this year to spend my time doing more than just writing, talking and dreaming. The key to effecting change is action, and I believe that as a community we can make a difference.
Are you up for the challenge?
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Of all the big players in the social networking landscape, Facebook is the only one that I can honestly say that I actively participate on. After arriving home from NECC, I posted a question asking people to share their one ‘big’ takeaway from the conference. Alfred Thompson’s response was:
Bloggers will talk and talk and talk if you put them together in a room with other people.
Seriously though I took away that there are many more technology tools for education then administrative support to use.
He makes a great point that was one of my major takeaways too. With all the talk of Web 2.0, School 2.0, Teachers 2.0 and Students 2.0, who (besides Doug Johnson) is really talking about Policies 2.0?
With nearly every type of software being represented on the internet in a free, cross-platform, browser agnostic version, why aren’t more schools adjusting their filters and policies to encourage teachers and students to make educational use of these tools? If students using real world tools in a more organic fashion isn’t a good enough reason to make the switch, what about saving schools some major dollars? Wouldn’t that be a good enough reason?
I know that there isn’t any single sector that we can target that will instantly enact widespread change, but antiquated school policies can certainly serve as an inhibitor. If the tools are blocked, then teachers won’t even have the opportunity to make use of them.
Given that we’re still in the heart of summer break, this is a perfect time to start revisiting your school’s policies and see if they properly reflect the environment you want to your teachers to promote. Do they really address the needs your school has in 2007? Are they structured in a way that allows teachers to prepare students for the real world? If not, get the conversation rolling and start making some change!
Here are some links to posts and policies that you may find helpful:
How do we teach kids to cross a busy street?
Bud the Teacher’s Blogging Wiki - Examples, links and more. Contribute!
AHS Blog AUP Wiki
Youth Voices AUP
EFF’s page on Student blogging – Great info, well worth reading through.
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