Month: September 2006

The other day, I posted a list of my very first workshops as The Landmark Project (1996), and commented how most of the topics are still among my topics today — evolved, but the concepts are still there.

Chris, at K12 Station commented:

I started training teachers to integrate the web into their classrooms in 1999 … no surprises here in the area of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” The thing that amazes me is that most teachers use computers for attendance and email with almost no problems whatsoever … but many of those same folks still don’t have an adequate grasp of the key concepts required to deliver online content within instruction.

2 Cents Worth » Hitchhikr Today

Chris, I have always held that teachers (and everyone else) will use technology that solves a problem for them. Teachers do not really see delivering content as a problem. it’s what they were trained to do. It’s what they’ve done for years. There’s no problem there, from their perspective.

However, the problem that they do not yet perceive is that our children DO NOT CONNECT TO LECTURES AND STALE POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS. They live in a rich, dynamic, and interactive information landscape. If teachers are paying attenntion to this, then they will see a problem and will, as good teachers, try to fix it. That’s when they’ll start “getting” technology.

It will happen when they realize that it isn’t about technology, but about a new information landscape and that only from digital, networked, and overwhelming information will we be able to adequately teach our children.

Image Citation:
Blue, Paradox. “Teacher.” Paradox Blue’s Photostream. 3 July 2005. 20 Sep 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/drkoontz/23304394/>.

technorati tags:warlick, teaching, literacy, technology, education

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I just got this in on an e-mail from NASA.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has extended the long-armed antenna of its radar, preparing the instrument to begin probing for underground layers of Mars.

The orbiter’s Shallow Subsurface Radar, provided by the Italian Space Agency, will search to depths of about one kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) to find and map layers of ice, rock and, if present, liquid water.

Does this not make you shudder? We are, indeed, exploring the Solar System. I remember, clearly, the day that Alan Shepard got blasted into space in a Mercury Capsule. Mapping underlayers of Mars rocks my mind.

Learn more at the Mars Shallow Subsurface Radar web site.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Ground-Piercing Radar on NASA Mars Orbiter Ready for Work.” E-mail to Author.19 Sep 2006.

technorati tags:mars, space, warlick

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Today, my state’s (North Carolina) governor, Mike Easley, called for financial audits of all NorthCarolina high schools “..to determine how to best use resources to improve student performance.”

The audits go beyond the normal financial review conducted annually by school districts to match the allocation of funds to student performance, Easley said. The findings would help the state establish a set of “best practices” schools could use to boost student performance, whether that means adding technology, decreasing class sizes or retaining veteran teachers, he said.

“We don’t have money to waste, and we don’t have time to waste,” he said. “We have to figure out how to get the best bang for our buck.”

WRAL.com – News – Easley Calls For High School Audits

There are a lot of directions I could go with this, but I think that initially it will be interesting to explore any differences between how districts of low performing schools allocate resources compared to districts with high performing schools. This is a deeply complex issue that goes way beyond budgeting.

I suspect that they’ll learn that it isn’t the budgeting as much as it is funding. But as long as we are convinced that we’re paying all we can for education now, there isn’t any way that that conclusion will surface. A teacher told me once that we should provide “..the best education that we can afford.”

That is so 20th century!

Easley said in his speech,

“We don’t have money to waste, and we don’t have time to waste,” hesaid. “We have to figure out how to get the best bang for our buck.”

I think that he’s wrong in saying that we do not have money. But I think that he is dead-on that we’re running out of time!

“Easley Calls for High School Audits.” WRAL.Com 19 Sep 2006 19 Sep 2006 <http://www.wral.com/news/9884269/detail.html>.

technorati tags:warlick, easley, highschools

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Last Friday I continued writing about best practice and best field, challenging readers to describe their ideas about best field. You see, there is so much talking and writing, and preaching done about best practices (what teachers do), but almost no talk about what I’m calling best field, or the conditions of the learning environment that would be most conducive to effective student learning. I challenged readers to describe their ideas of the ideal classroom, and was, quite frankly, disappointed. A number of readers very compellingly described why the learning environments of our students must change, but what I was looking for was specifics. If we are to make changes in the field of teaching, then we need some specifics, AND THEY NEED TO BE BOLD.

How’s this?

Every teacher has three to four hours of supported professional planning time every day.

Now think about the classroom, the learning experiences, the possibilities, the learning that could happen if teachers had three or four hours to plan each day — and they could actually enjoy their families at night!

If we are not willing to at least consider changes this dramatic, then we’ll continue to flounder.

Yesterday, I posted an announcement on the blog at Technology & Learning Magazine. It said…

So,I’ve decided to resurrect an old online project that I’ve been running for the past eight years. It’s called The New Century School House. The web site represents an old 1950s style school building that has been totally gutted of all relics of industrial age education. It is an empty shell. I want to invite you to come to the building and to adopt a room — repurposing that classroom (or library) for new century teaching and learning.

Techlearning blog: New Century School House

I want to invite you to go to the TechLearning blog site, read the announcement and participate in reinventing education, by adopting a classroom and describing what you think teachers and students should be doing for students to become world-ready.

technorati tags:bestpractice, bestfield, warlick, technology, education

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Ed Tech maven, Ian Jukes, just sent me a link to a study that was published last year by Education|Evolving, a joint venture between the Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University in Minnesota. The report, Listening to Student Voices — on Technology (pdf), describes 15 findings, culled from various literature. The findings are mostly not surprising, but worth noting again:

1. Computer and internet use is growing
2. Students are sophisticated users
3. Technology is important to students in education
4. Technology is not an ‘extra’
5. In-school access to technology is limited
6. Home use dominates
7. In-school use is not integrated
8. Computers and the Internet are communications tools, first
9. Metaphors describe how students use the Internet for school: The Internet as: (This is interesting)
• virtual guidance counselor
• virtual textbook and reference library
• virtual tutor, study short-cut, study group
• virtual locker, backpack, and notebook

Alan November has been talking for years about how our tendency is to use new technologies to continue to do old things.

10. Technology has caused students to approach life differently; but adults act as though nothing has changed
11. Students desire increased in-school access
12. Students want to use technology to learn, and in a variety of ways
13. Students want challenging, technologically-oriented instructional activities
14. Students want adults to move beyond using the ‘Internet for Internet’s sake’
15. Students want to learn the basics, too

technorati tags:warlick, ianjukes, flatclass

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The other day I was shopping at the local grocery store after spending a number of hours writing at Starbucks.  I was leaning over the dairy counter, reading off labels, with my phone to my ear, when a friend of mine, a recently retired teacher at the high school my children attended, walked by and said, “There’s a man who’s multitasking!”

I just want to set the record straight.  I was not multitasking.  That gives me way too much credit.  I was actually being led around the grocery store by my wife, who was sitting at her desk at home, running down the list, telling me where to go in the store, and what brands to drop into my basket.

There was a time when I might have been able to multitask — but those days are gone! 

Now, I’m just a shopbot! 😉

technorati tags:warlick, cellphone, shopping

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