Technology and innovation in education.

Had a good time at the Edscape conference today in New Milford. Last year it was called the Tri State Technology Conference and this time the format was basically the same – sessions all about different ways to use technology to create teaching, schools and classrooms that are collaborative, innovative, engaging and high-performing. There was a little too much SmartBoard focus for my taste, but it makes sense – SmartBoards are everywhere and they do offer a lot of opportunity to engage students in lessons.

There was also a lot of focus on MLDs – Mobile Learning Devices. AKA cell phones, iPads, tablets, etc. It’s becoming more and more clear that as our students carry smart phones and other devices, schools cam efficiently take advantage of this and incorporate them into teaching. Why wouldn’t we allow students to use the small, handheld devices that can connect them to just about all of the information in the world and which they are already carrying in their pockets – at no cost to districts! We should be allowing, enabling and encouraging this use throughout our schools, especially the high school.

I attended sessions on:

• Professional Development: What is it and what should it be?
• Mobile Learning
• "What If" – what kind of technology do teachers want?
• Building a Culture of Literacy – how do we ensure books and literature are not lost in the push for technology

I enjoyed learning about Edmodo, which is basically "Facebook for schools." It's a platform that allows a teacher and students to collaborate, share work, give feedback, plan, get assignments, take quizes, participate in polls, etc., using an interface that looks a lot like Facebook and works the same way, so it's intuitive and kids are engaged right away. It's a completely closed and secure system so everything is private and...it's free!

Probably the best part of the day was the keynote address by Diana Laufenberg of Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Diana focused on innovation in schools and described how everything her school does – every single lesson, every single project – incorporates the school’s core values: inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation and reflection. As Diana said, and as is stated on their website, “AT SLA, leaning is not just something that happens from 8:30am to 3:00pm, but a continuous process that expans beyond the four walls of the classroom into every facet of our lives.”

As you may have predicted by now, that kind of talk is getting me energized again to focus on technology and innovation in our Ridgewood schools. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get traction on this subject during the three years I was on the Board of Ed. I’m not giving up. As a “regular” parent now, I am pursuing the subject again, and will be bringing some ideas to the Board in the next few weeks. I’ll keep you posted!

The pitfalls and promises of Facebook, social media, and kids.

Great article on social media and kids and schools at the Mindshift website*. Click here for the full article.

A couple of key excerpts:

“Parents have to give kids the opportunities to figure out what it means to be digital citizens.”

“We can’t fault kids for doing something wrong on Facebook or Twitter because we’re not teaching them.”

Ridgewood's Tony Orsini (BF Middle School Principal) and New Milford's Eric Sheninger (New Milford High School Principal) are both quoted in the story.

I found this to be a refreshing and thoughtful essay on digital citizenship and tech literacy -- without the fear-mongering and sensationalism we usually see in the mainstream media.

*I love the Mindshift site. It's presented by KQED, which is the NPR affiliate in San Francisco. According to the site, Mindshift is for anyone interested in the ways that "technology is revolutionizing the world of education – replacing familiar classroom tools and changing the way we learn. MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions – covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more."

Mindshift devotes an entire section of its website to children and social media, with lots more intriguing articles.

Teen brains are changing...is the way schools teach changing, too?

Really interesting report on the actual physical changes happening in kids brains thanks to digital inputs and multi-tasking. The way we teach should be changing, too. The second video below has more relevant info regarding learning, as the reporter involves his teen children in the discussion.

Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology.

In a year-end wrap-up of education stories from Columbia Teachers College, I read a review of a late 2009 book titled, Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology. The most notable paragraph gave me food for thought:

The book systematically reveals a compelling picture of the “seeds of a new system of education” that are being sown all around us. The explosive growth of home schooling, workplace learning, distance education, learning centers, educational TV, videos and software, and Internet cafes are testimony not only to technology’s expanding role in learning, but also the new ways, venues, paradigm, and ages for and of learning. The authors argue that these, coupled with the mechanics of a global information economy, are ushering in the third era of education after the apprenticeship and universal schooling eras. Distinct shifts are the defining elements of the critical transformations in all three of these eras. Responsibility shifts from parents to the state to individuals and parents once more, thus seemingly completing a virtuous cycle of evolution; expectations shift from social reproduction to success for all to individual choice; content shifts from practical skills to disciplinary knowledge to learning how to learn; pedagogy shifts from apprenticeship to didacticism to interaction; location shifts from home to school to anywhere.

Such a fascinating time for schools. I'll add this to my (huge) "to read" list.

Can we get there from here? National Education Technology Plan is released.

In case you missed the news, the "finalized" version of the National Education Technology Plan was released by the Federal Govt last week.

Here is a good blog post that summarizes some of the most significant content, by listing 5 current assumptions (misconceptions) about ed technology, which the plan says will be re-thought in the coming years:

The National Education Technology Plan: 5 huge assumptions about learning are about to change.

The intro to the blog post states:

Corralled by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Director of Educational Technology Karen Cator, hundreds, if not thousands, of the luminaries from every sector of the education world have weighed in on the plan, which addresses virtually every aspect of modern edutech: assessment, infrastructure, lifelong and informal learning, video games, adaptivity, collaborative learning, teacher tools… the list goes on.

But perhaps one phrase, repeated throughout the document, wraps it all up:

“Rethink basic assumptions.”

Here’s one: In true Web 2.0 fashion, the NETP draft has been publicly available for the better part of this year, with every individual section open to comment. Many an edutech twitterer and blogger have weighed in, and the distinct voices of k-12 educators, education researchers, data wonks, and privateers were all heard in the brilliant, if cacophonous, debates.

Here is a link to the full plan (don't worry, there's an executive summary if you want to skim it):

If you have 35 minutes, you can watch this video of Karen Cator, Director of the Office of Educational Technology, presenting the plan and covering the highlights.

I'll be reading the plan carefully with an eye toward assessing and implementing the principles here in Ridgewood. Let's put it this way: we have a lot of opportunity here! Great things are happening...great learning is happening.

Fun today: Tri-State Education Technology Conference.

updated 10/12/10

I’m blogging live from the first annual Tri-State Education Technology Conference, being held at New Milford High School. What a cool event. Considering this conference was conceived just a few months ago, it is amazing to see 400 educators here, attending approx. 40 different sessions on technology and education. There’s quite a lot of focus on social media technologies in the classroom – for example Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, wikis, and mobile tech (cell phones, etc.). Also a lot of focus on all the amazing (and FREE) professional development that’s available today.

Speaking of social media, the keynote session by Lisa Nielsen, Professional Development Manager for New York City Public Schools, opened with a video commentary on Ridgewood's own BF Principal Tony Orsini’s interview last spring on Good Morning America. Awkward! Haha not really, I mean, I have seen Ms. Nielsen’s video response before and I’ve corresponded with her over Twitter, so it was nice to meet her face to face. I just wasn’t expecting to sit today with 400 people who probably think differently than Mr. Orsini...it makes sense, I was just caught off guard. No worries.

As you know, since I started blogging about it when Mr. Orsini’s message first hit the media, I totally support and appreciate the intent of Mr. Orsini's message. He was focusing first and foremost on the safety and well-being of the children in his school. I do believe, however, that on another level, his thoughts and comments represent a good starting point for some much-needed dialogue in Ridgewood, among parents and educators.

Lunch break is over, I’m going to get back to the conference now. In the meantime, why don’t you watch Ms. Nielsen's video response to Mr. Orsini, and share your comments if you like. You can see Ms Nielsen's video by clicking here.

Find out more about the Tri-State Education Technology Conference, click here.

This is part of the Tri-State Education Technology Conference (TSETC) Blogger Café Contest sponsored by edSocialMedia. TSETC is brought to you by Schoology.

National Educational Technology Plan: Wow.

I'm trying to catch up on various reading "assignments" I gave myself over the summer. One of them was to read the National Educational Technology Plan, which was released by the federal government last Spring. I've only just reviewed the Executive Summary so far, but it is quite interesting. The full plan (and executive summary -- plus comments from educators and the public) can be accessed by clicking here.

As summarized on the blog weblogg-ed, some key elements called for in the NETP include:

* Personalized learning
* Learning that is “lifelong and life-wide and available on demand.”
* A device and "ubiquitous access" for every student and teacher.
* Professional development that focuses on “connected teaching” in “online learning communities”
* Professional learning that is “collaborative, coherent, and continuous" instead of "episodic and ineffective"
* Learning that is “always on”
* Learning that is no longer “one size fits all.”
* Student work on the cloud
* Student managed electronic learning portfolios
* Students as “networked learners”
* Broadband everywhere
* Open educational resources
* Creative Commons licenses
* Changes to CIPA and FERPA to open up access
* Rethinking the “basic assumptions” of schooling

Like any high-level government report, there is plenty of rhetoric and vagueness as to how these great things will come about, and in some cases the concepts seem to contradict Race to the Top strategies for standardization, etc. But I think it is encouraging that people at fairly high levels are having this conversation at all. This is a truly visionary document -- and visions are supposed to be "out there," giving something to aim for.

Anyway, as we are preparing to discuss Board and District goals, I thought I would share with you that one of my personal goals for this year is to instigate a thoughtful and inclusive discussion of our own technology practices and plans. The NETP will be one valuable resource for that discussion.

Should schools police cyberbullying?

Following are some letters to the editor in response to the recent New York Times story in which Ridgewood was featured. Do you have any comments to add from Ridgewood?

To the Editor:

As a public school teacher and parent of a 13-year-old boy, I had two visceral reactions to your June 28 front-page article “Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray.”

The first was one of strong support for the sober-minded principal, Tony Orsini, who insisted that children’s behavior at home on a Saturday night is not his responsibility.

The second was horror at the abdication of parental responsibility. The parents of a targeted girl felt that it was “too awkward” to contact the parents of the boy sending offensive texts. I hope that they have reconsidered. If I received a call regarding similar behavior, my son would not have access to texting for a long time. I feel that the parents of the boy in question deserve to know what their child is up to.

Thomas Randall
Amherst, Mass., June 28, 2010



To the Editor:

The reluctance of the school administration to enforce anti-bullying rules, and of parents to confront the parents of the bullies, are factors that sustain and encourage these bad behaviors. In the worst cases, bullying has led to suicides and school shootings; in every case it creates additional misery for children who are already struggling with a difficult life transition.

In the early 1970s, when the Norwegian psychologist Dan Olweus created the anti-bullying program that remains the model for this kind of intervention, he made sure that it was used not only in the classroom, but also throughout the school, the community and the state.

Principals, parents and the police should not be worrying about whose responsibility it is to enforce anti-bullying programs; they should be working together consistently, in a coordinated fashion, enforcing the same rules with the same punishments.

When even one adult turns his back on bullying, in cyberspace or real space, he is giving this destructive behavior his covert approval.

Jonathan Fast
New York, June 28, 2010
The writer is an associate professor at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University.


To the Editor:

Unbelievable! First, we penalize our teachers for not guaranteeing that all students learn the material being taught. Of course, it is not the parents’ responsibility to see that these students actually do homework and study outside of school.

Now, we expect schools to be private investigators, police, counselors and mediators for activities going on outside of school. It’s time for parents to step up to the plate.

Sometimes it is hard to talk with other parents about their child’s behavior — or even harder to hear from other parents about your child’s behavior. Sometimes it is hard to enforce limits on technology use.

But that’s what we signed on for when we became parents. What we’re asking of our schools — taking responsibility for our children 24/7 — is not what teachers, counselors and administrators signed on for.

Parents, for the sake of our children let’s take responsibility here. Let’s work with our schools and not expect them to do it all.

Janice Lilly
Bloomington, Ind., June 29, 2010


To the Editor:

Your article brought back hard memories from my middle school years before cyberspace existed. There have always been bullies. You could deliver devastating social blows with a rotary-dial Princess phone just as easily as you can ruin someone’s life with your iPhone. Not inviting someone to a slumber party, then leaking it at recess, was just as powerful a tool as Facebook. Note-passing in math class could ruin someone’s reputation as quickly as texting.

Did schools interfere then? No. Could parents stop Cindy from calling you a “slut” or Joe from writing “Johnny’s a loser” on the bathroom wall? No.

Can parents ground their children, take away their cellphones, monitor their computers, instill a sense of kindness and respect for others, and give them assurance that life gets much better after junior high?

As far as I know, the answer is yes.

Virginia Ottley Craighill
Sewanee, Tenn., June 28, 2010



To the Editor:

What we have learned in our psychoanalytic treatment and research program is that school often becomes the only reliable place where our plague of bullying can be solved. More often than not the bully at school, either in person or online, is being bullied, abused or seriously neglected at home or on the street.

The bullying behavior has meaning, and is often an indirect communication that the student is trying to make others feel the way that he or she is feeling. Passive witnesses to such behavior — other students, teachers or parents — who do nothing are co-conspirators in the bullying behavior.

Whether anything can be done by the school legally is not as important as the school’s addressing the issue with students — the bully and the victim — and parents immediately as a significant first step.

Mark D. Smaller
Chicago, June 28, 2010

The writer, a psychoanalyst, is founding director of the Analytic Service to Adolescents Program, Morton Alternative School.


To the Editor:

Netiquette, just like etiquette, is learned behavior. Just as kids learn to control their offline bullying and to stand up to being bullied, they learn how to deal with the pitfalls of online social interactions. Schools can play an important role in this process by teaching kids how to interpret the new medium of text messaging, how to navigate social spaces, how to react to hurtful messages and whom to go to for advice and help.

But calling on schools to police student speech outside school dangerously undermines kids’ free speech rights. Young people sometimes say stupid and hurtful things to each other, online and offline. So do adults. The Constitution requires us to sort out these conflicts without undue government interference or control.

Svetlana Mintcheva
New York, June 28, 2010

The writer is director of programs for the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Ridgewood teachers explore virtual learning.

Last Thursday Michele Lenhard and I attended the final event of a year long program attended by 24 Ridgewood teachers and administrators, titled “Virtual Learning Communities: Preparing Students for Success.” The event was held at Kean University and on that day, teams from the various participating schools showed off the virtual learning projects they had been creating all year. It was really exciting and fascinating! We saw some great uses of technology-in-learning from all around the state, but the most memorable (in my objective opinion haha) were from Ridgewood. There was a program where a middle school social studies teacher recorded his voice reading the textbook and providing podcasts that students could access to review or read along to enhance their understanding of the text. It started as a project to help a single blind student but soon became a useful tool for all students. An RHS math teacher showed how she uses a “ning” to post assignments and provide a message board where students are required to post questions for assistance or give help to other students. Also at RHS, the Advanced Digital Photography class worked on a joint project with students at Westwood Regional High School, focusing on images of food. They created images and put together a show of the photos which will be taking place later this week and which is also a fundraiser for Table to Table, the local anti-hunger charity. (Click here for more info.) Another middle school teacher showed how he uses Google Maps with his students to create custom maps of important local sites, which are then overlaid with Google Earth.

These are just a few of the projects we saw. George Washington Middle School's Mary Lou Handy gave a presentation on Teenangels, the peer-to-peer internet safety group organized by Wiredsafety.org. And Alan November, a leading expert on student learning and technology, spoke about building schools' capacity for transformation via technology.

It was really great to see the work that the Ridgewood teachers have been doing…so often the Board of Education approves funds for professional development, and we hear a report sometimes of the results, but we don’t usually get such an up-close-and-personal look at the benefits in action. Now my hope and assumption is that these 24 Ridgewood teachers will share their experiences with other teachers in their buildings, with realty exciting results for our students.

RHS "paperless" systems increasing efficiency; gaining interest from other schools

Lest you think Ridgewood is the district that's afraid of technology (more on that soon), I'm happy to share this article that was posted this morning on www.northjersey.com. It's from their monthly Parent Paper magazine, and it tells about some of the "paperless" systems being used at Ridgewood High School and other schools to save time and money and improve communications.

An excerpt from the article:

Heading into the second decade of the 21st century, a growing number of school districts are making smart choices in terms of the three "E’s," economy, ecology and efficiency. By using today’s available technologies, they are saving taxpayer dollars, the planet and time by leaving a lot of the paperwork behind.

Making the transition to a paperless or near-paperless system, however, involves a great deal of planning. In the Ridgewood School District, which plans to become virtually paperless in September, there are three different programs in use. Laura Moore, guidance counselor and Naviance Site manager at Ridgewood High School, was on the committee that chose their new student information system, Skyward. "Through Skyward, teachers can keep their grades online," she explains. "We will use this site to both post information and communicate with students and parents. This is what we call a ‘push-and-pull site, as we will be communicating back and forth with students and parents. All report cards will be posted electronically on this site, along with mid-quarter progress for each student." In addition, Moore says all of the district’s health, attendance, disciplinary and guidance records and all course scheduling will be kept through Skyward. It is also used as a financial tool. "There’s an application with Skyward for making payments for school lunches, PSATs, and AP exams," adds Moore.

The new system creates a level of efficiency that, in addition to being cost-effective, is also time-efficient. John Lorenz, Ridgewood High School principal notes, "Teachers, parents and students are all very excited about communicating this way because it avoids the time lag. This will be pretty much an overnight turnaround."

Read the full story by clicking here.

Really makes you think...

Check out this video -- the statistics are remarkable when presented together like this. You know I'm a big believer in classic liberal arts education as the way to teach students how to think...but the technological reality must be factored in to everything we now do. (This is an updated version of a video from last year...the numbers keep changing!)

"Delete" Cyberbullying

Remember McGruff the Crime Dog? (Uh-oh, some of you may be too young!). Well he's back and his National Crime Prevention Council has a big campaign to stop cyberbullying, which is defined as teens using the Internet, cell phones, or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person. It's estimated that HALF of all teens have been affected by cyberbullying. You can read more about it, and how to help your teens prevent cyberbullying, at this link.
Here's one of their new online ads in the public service campaign called "Delete Cyberbullying:"