I've seen many reports about the existence of a "digital divide" in this country -- often referring to the "haves" and the "have-nots" -- where the "haves" are those possessing digital equipment, and the "have-nots" are, well, those who basically don't.
There's much more to the "divide" than having digital stuff. Even in a well-equipped classroom, (with access to modern computers connected to the Internet), the digital divide is more about what teachers and students "know" and "know-not" when it comes to using the technology to improve teaching and learning.
Connecting classrooms and libraries to the Internet is crucial, but it's just a start. My budget ensures that all new teachers are trained to teach 21st century skills and creates technology centers in 1,000 communities to serve adults. This spring, I will invite high-tech leaders to join me on another New Markets tour -- to close the digital divide and open opportunity for all our people. I thank the high-tech companies that are already doing so much in this area and I hope the new tax incentives I have proposed will encourage others to join us.
If we take these steps, we will go a long way toward our goal of bringing opportunity to every community.
Stevenson teacher Chris Salituro ("Sal"), has been interacting online with his Sociology students for some time. Several years ago Sal began extending his classroom discussions beyond the school day using an online discussion board. Web-based tools have improved over the years, and through that experience, Sal has transitioned his Sociology class discussions into a "Ways of Thinking" classroom blog. Sal recently shared his rationale for using a blog, and has granted me permission to publish his comments here.
My use of blogging was a long time in developing. I was always reluctant to simply use technology for the sake of technology. But as blogging became more popular and the technology became more available I decided that blogging would be a way of using technology to educate students in a way that was previously impossible.
First, the rise of blogging in general seems to necessitate, to me, a blogging literacy among students. A number of our grads have gone on to work in media and they have returned to school to emphasize the multi-media explosion of the last few years. For example, one student works for Fox and he is producer, but he also does on-air reporting and throughout the last presidential campaign he maintained a blogsite for Fox that would be updated throughout the day. Many other traditional news sources such as newspapers are turning to blogging as well. My first goal is to introduce students to this up and coming trend.
Second, I have been very aware of the change from a producer to a consumer society. We have become a nation of consumers. By creating a blog, it makes students producers again. The student-managed blogs are productive in that students are producing their own writing and thoughts. Blogging is unique in that it allows for a forum for students to produce something that reaches millions of people. The seriousness and meaningfulness of blogging changes the dynamics of what would be a traditional assignment. Rather than a journal that is turned in to a teacher and then discarded, the blog is something that can be accessed by the general public. One example from my own life recently is that I was googling an article that we read last year in class because I couldn't find my copy of it. The first few yields of the google search were my previous students' blogs about the article. Now I not only had the article I was looking for, but I also had the context with which we discussed it in class. Students are now helping to produce the content of the class, and content for anyone with the Internet to see.
Along the lines of being productive, the third point about blogging that I have found to be transformational is that it requires students to take the class content and apply it to their own lives. In doing so, and in sharing this application, the students become teachers for themselves. In other words, I am not the only one giving examples of our lesson to the students, but now the students are giving each other a lesson as well. I do not want students to be simple consumers of my sociology, but I want them to produce their own sociology that I can learn from as well. With the blog I am finding more and more that students have insights and stories to share that add to our understanding of the content, and these stories would not be available without the blogging.
One of the reasons that the student insights are available because of blogging is the limited amount of classroom time. The blog is an unlimited classroom where students can read as much as they want and are free to share as much as they want. On the blog, I never have to say to students, “Okay, we have to move on.” This virtual classroom allows motivated and interested students to be as involved as they would like to be, without dominating the class. Incidentally, this has been really useful in terms of absences. My classes have a notoriously high absence rate. When students return and ask, “What did I miss?” I say, “Check the blog.”
Lastly, I have always been wary of what we were measuring with our objective tests. The blog is a type of online portfolio that allows real assessment of a student’s grasp of the subject matter and the student’s ability to apply that subject matter to his/her real life.
If you are a teacher who is "still on the fence" about whether blogging is worth the time and effort for you and/or your students, I hope that Sal's comments help you decide in favor of allowing your students to move from being only consumers of content, into the roles of knowledge producers and contributors to the stories that "add to our understanding of the content."
Tracy Murdach recently shared an article titled "Tech Literacy Confusion" by Andrew Totter, published online 1/21/09 at Education Week's Digital Directions. Trotter mentions the NCLB goal to promote technology literacy:
"Government efforts to promote technology literacy culminated at the federal level in a national goal, adopted seven years ago in the No Child Left Behind Act, that all students be technology-literate by 8th grade. The federal law left it to states, however, to define the concept and persuade schools to teach it."
Please share 1) how are you defining technology literacy, 2) what you use to measure it, and 3) how is the data being shared within your education community.
This is the third year for the K12-Online Conference -- a totally free and perpetual learning experience, delivered exclusively online, by volunteers who have a passion for education!
This year's conference will follow a similar format as in previous years, with a Keynote kickoff on Oct. 13, followed by forty presentations published over two weeks (Oct 20 - Nov. 1), each 20 minutes in length or less. This year's them is "Amplifying Possibilities" and contains presentations in four strands. In the first week, "Getting Started" and "Prove It," followed by "Kicking It Up a Notch" and "Leading the Change" in week two. See the full schedule here: http://k12onlineconference.org/docs/k12online2008schedule.html
I'm happy to report also that this is the second year I am actively involved. Last year I volunteered to facilitate during one hour of "When Night Falls" --a live, 24-hour open forum that culminated the two-week long event. It was there I met Dennis Richards, a superintendent from Falmouth, MA, who had been "newly baptized into all thing Web 2.0." Dennis had uncovered the learning made possible through the participatory, or "read/write" web when he attended Alan November's "Building Learning Communities" conference during the previous summer. Dennis has since become a loud voice in this "education conversation" by making it his personal mission to spread the good news, by starting his own blog, and collaborating on a number of wikis, and much more (as you will see when you read his blog).
This past year, Dennis and I kept "bumping into one another" online; such as the time we happened to strike up a conversation in the virtual world of Second Life, not realizing who each other was in real life. As we exchanged ideas, our conversation led to the K12-Online conference, and we then realized we had met while co-facilitating the same live "When Night Falls" session. Call it Kismet, or coincidence, we have now teamed up to present a session at this year's conference, in the "Leading the Change" strand. In preparing for our session, we were invited to create a "teaser" for our session. I hope you are enticed, and will tune in for our presentation: "There's Something Going on Here You Need to Know About..." which will be available on Oct. 31.
Building upon the research from 1985-1995 and released as the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT), Apple has launched ACOT2. http://edcommunity.apple.com/acot2
From the website:
ACOT identified effective models for teaching and learning with technology, developing the professional lives of teachers and diffusing innovation.
The goal of ACOT2 is more targeted: to help high schools get closer to creating the kind of learning environment this generation of students needs, wants, and expects so they will stay in school.
The ACOT2 strategy is to offer a simple approach that focuses on the essential design principles for the 21st century high school-rather than a more prescriptive school reform model. While the design principles themselves are not new, what is new is that the complexity that characterizes most education reform models has been cleared away, enabling immediate action and results.
Explore the six design principles and their related project pages on Apple's website: * Understanding of 21st Century Skills and Outcomes * Relevant and Applied Curriculum * Informative Assessment * Culture of Innovation and Creativity * Social and Emotional Connections with Students * Ubiquitous Access to Technology
Well, I've submitted my entry to the Google Teacher Academy:
As I was preparing my required 1-minute video (the topics were to be on either Motivation and Learning, or Classroom Innovation), I came across a sound-byte from the Library of Congress American Memory Project. It was a recording of a quilter, named Lura Stanley, who spoke about her desire to become a teacher. (http://memory.loc.gov/afc/afcqltbr/audio/a013/a0135.mp3). What impressed me the most about Lura's story was the fact that teachers did not need degrees to teach when she first started at the age of 18. She did, however, obtain a degree later in life at the age of 51 (this was in 1957). I wonder whether teacher preparation of "yesterday" has some bearing on the old saying, "Those who can do. Those who can't, teach."
Teaching is certainly not the same profession it was, even 10 years ago. New mandates around NCLB, the advent of new technologies and Internet safety concerns, research on learning and the brain, and the ability to diagnose and document learning disabilities has contributed to the many facets of being an educator. Desire is no longer enough. And, in the end, all the time and resources dedicated to educating our youth must yield a future for them that will provide a decent standard of living, along with the ability to live and work in a now truly global society. Our future also relies on what we sow as educators.
From Edutopia comes this 15 minute presentation recorded at the Apple Education Leadership Summit on April 10, 2008 in San Francisco. Sir Ken Robinson talks about how we need to think differently about education. The issue is not to reform education, it's to transform it into something else.
If you missed this program Tuesday evening, note that you can view it entirely online!! Description from PBS - FRONTLINE: Growing up online:
Just how radically is the Internet transforming the experience of childhood? FRONTLINE looks at the impact of the Internet on adolescence through the eyes of teens and their parents and what does it mean to be the first generation of coming of age via the Internet.
There are views presented from teachers, researchers, parents, and students, as well as information that parents need to know to begin or continue to teach Internet safety at home.
Do you think we are doing all we can? Look for the "Join the Discussion" link at the bottom of the FRONTLINE page to the post your opinions for the producers, or leave a comment on this post to express your views relating to our community.
