The Happiness Budget Loop


Image Credit: Lorenabuena
All schools want happy students. It makes sense. Happy students mean easier days for everyone involved. Less fights, less distractions, better performance. As I thought about this I realized the following:
  1. Schools want their students to be happy
  2. Schools need money to provide those happy things
  3. Schools budgets are tied to testing results
  4. Schools cut non-essentials in order to focus on tested subjects to raise scores/budgets
  5. Students are unhappy at school
  6. Test scores go down
  7. Schools loose money
  8. Schools cannot make student happy
  9. Back to Step 1
The worst of it is that this is what people were saying when NCLB was first introduced. The educators said this would happen. They were ignored. They said that students and schools would suffer. They were ignored. Now American students, while improving are being outpaced by students in Latvia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Germany and Poland by as much as 3-1 in gains.

Now I read this post, The Education Reformers End Game by Marc Epstein which asks the obvious question, what happens if the reformers get their way. Won't we revert right back into the same situation they put the public schools in? I have a feeling that many charter schools are posting better results because they are able to choose which students they enroll. If all parents have choice these schools will no longer be able to deny admittance to under performing students. So I guess it will be back to step one again? I wonder who will be the Michelle Rhee of the new age?

Teaching Adaptation

It seems more and more lately that schools are adding a specific goal to the list they display to the public and it goes something like this;
"Prepare students to utilize 21st century skills"
Sounds good. But what does it actually mean. Far to often it means that students are simply going to be taught how to use current technology; keyboarding classes, computer centers, "netiquette". Students are sat in front of a computer and shown how to get online, how to use a mouse, how to use Office products or Photoshop or iPads. While these are all great skills to have the teaching that is done is often very superficial.

As a member of the IT department for a mid-sized school district I often have to update software to newer versions. Nothing is crazier to me then to see an educator go from version 1.5 of a piece of software to version 1.8 of a  piece of software and act totally confused about how to navigate it. They are terrified of the change and refuse to even entertain the fact that the software might be more valuable. By only teaching students how to use specific software to create specific things this is the type of user we are creating.

Image Credit: Houston Press
Schools think that best way to teach skills that students will use in the future is to teach skills that the students need now. 10 years ago the Dell Dimension 4550 was released. This computer sold for around $1000 and came with 256MB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive. As a comparison the phone in my pocket cost $600 off contract, has 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. That means that for nearly 1/2 the price I have a computer that is 4x faster and fits in my pocket. Not to mention that my phone can also access the internet over 500x faster, act as a GPS and even make phone calls! Usually.

No teacher taught me how to use a device like that when I was in high school, I wouldn't expect them to. What they did do for me however is inspire a natural curiosity. They taught me to explore the world around me and not be afraid to experiment with anything. That skill is what allows me to adapt to changing technology and if we don't teach students to adapt we have failed them to "prepare students to utilize" anything that they will actually be using in their careers.

Book Review: Professional Learning in the Digital Age by Kristen Swanson

When I heard that Kristen Swanson was releasing a new book on my birthday I jokingly reached out for a copy as a present. Little did I know that she took me seriously. Find the review below.

When I received my copy of Professional Learning in the Digital Age : The Educator's Guide to User-Generated Learning I was initially put off by the size of it. How could someone possibly fit a guide to all that the internet has to offer educators in just over a 100 pages. Turns out the brevity of it is what makes this book so easy to pick up and learn from.

When most books describe tools available on the internet they lead off by telling us what the tool is; Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, Pearltrees is a curation tool, Blogger is like a journal that everyone can read, and then explains how that tool is useful in a given situation. Swanson turns this around by first telling the reader the problem and then walking them through the solution, introducing tools along the way. What is really interesting however is that even though I am familiar with nearly all of the tools described in this book I was still drawn into the stories presented. It allowed me to see how others are using these tools and reflect on some of the ways I am using them.

The book is very targeted. It doesn't attempt to cover classroom tools or grading systems or classroom management techniques. It focuses on getting educators to building their own digital file of colleagues and resources that will in turn allow them to find the resources and tools that they can implement in their classroom. Because of that this book actually contains much more information than is actually contained in the 100 odd pages. Swanson was able to compress the methods it took me 3+ years to learn on my own into an easy to read and concise book well worth the time it took to read.

I am already thinking about who I will be passing this onto next. I have certain middle school principle in mind already...

You can pick up Kristen's book at Eye on Education and at Amazon (it's on Kindle too!)

Why it Sucks Being the IT Guy :INFOGRAPHIC:

Found this infographic fairly true. 

/* Infographic: Why it Sucks Being the IT Guy */
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