Lightning in a Bottle

We finished reading Qwest grants today. Qwest is funding a total of nine $10,000 innovative technology grants throughout the state, and we screen our region’s applications to send on three finalists to the state. At the state level they will pick one from our three, so there will be one grant funded at each of the nine Educational Service Districts.

What makes it a frustrating exercise is that there are so many good proposals from so many dedicated teachers. Projects covered almost every content area and grade, and focused on involving students in a variety of creative and exciting projects. I would fund many of them without batting an eye, but only the one will be accepted from our region.

All of these people clearly put a lot of thought and effort into the projects they envisioned, and it really bothers me not to be able to reward them for their dedication, passion, and skill. I’m hoping that we will have access to greater levels of money in the future to avoid this problem!

We’ve been predicting this for a long time, but it’s still kind of mind-boggling now that we’re actually seeing it. There are a variety of new laptops hitting the streets that represent a major shift in cost and size of student computers (or potentially student-used computers). Most famously, the OLPC project is finally seeing the light of day, and their little green machines are in production. Even though they ended up not costing $100 (they’re just a hair under $200), they are remarkable in what they can do for so little money. (David Pogue has done an in-depth review with a video at the New York Times if you want to learn more.)

The XO computer (the official name of the OLPC product) is not only important in itself, but it has kicked off the development of competing products. Intel has developed the Classmate PC, which is a framework for small, inexpensive Intel-based laptops for students. (You can’t buy one yet, though.) The Asus company has just released a device called the EeePC, which is a tiny Linux-based laptop with a 7-inch screen, no hard drive (all Flash-based memory), built-in wireless and webcam for $399. It has only been on the market for a week or two, and it’s already wildly popular. And if you haven’t spent a few minutes working with an iPhone or iPod Touch, take a field trip to your local Apple store and see how easy it is to browse the Internet and do your email from those pocket-sized devices. With third-party applications being officially supported by Apple starting in January, these will in essence be computers. (How are these different from Palms or PocketPCs? Screen size resolution. New devices such as these have larger and far sharper displays, so you can create much more usable screen images and text. That and a much zippier interface!)

And, as I often say, that’s what exists today. Full-powered, wireless computers with web browsing, standard applications, voice and videoconferencing (some of them, anyway), all for less cost than what I paid for my first scientific calculator in college. What will we have available in five years? For that matter, what will the average student be using next week - outside of class, anyway?

I had a long discussion with a teach yesterday. It’s not about the technology itself, it’s about the societal, cultural, and economic changes the technology is bringing about. Changes in how people view information, how they communicate, and how they use technology simply to live their lives. These changes are taking place at an increasingly rapid pace, and I don’t sense yet that schools are figuring out how to address these changes. It’s hard to respond to, and there are an awful lot of unknowns involved, but not dealing with the changes will at some time cease to be an option.

I taught another Photoshop workshop last week. It was an evening class, so it ran from 4:30 to 7:30 over two nights. This means that the teachers involved had already worked a full day, then had to drive and arrive in the dark (this is the Pacific Northwest) and spend another three hours working with a very cool but often confusing piece of software. (It helps that the workshops are only $10, due to a generous grant from the Adobe company.)

I’d also worked a full day myself each of those days, so you’d think we would constitute a room of tired, cranky people. However, it wasn’t - we had two very enjoyable evenings of exploring and learning that I was sorry to see end. And horrors of horrors, I never once spoke about pedagogy, or GLEs, or curricular alignment. Each participant was able to explore the software and create images that had meaning and purpose to them. Sometimes it was personal (one participant used the software to rework scanned images of his own remarkable paintings), sometimes it was school related (two colleagues were working on images for the yearbook), and sometimes it was a bit of both. Regardless, each learner was learning what they wanted and needed to learn for themselves. The excitement and energy that came from this helped to carry them through the difficult and confusing parts of learning the software.

It was also modeling for what a classroom needs to look like. We actually did talk about that during class - is it really that radical of a concept that a teacher training experience should look like what student learning should look like?

I like teaching programs such as Photoshop because of the impact I see on the people that learn how to use it. Guy Kawasaki has a great video presentation called The Art of Innovation, and in it he talks about skipping the mission statement and going straight to a “mantra,” a short phrase that captures the essence of what it is you do. (For example, he says for FedEx it would be Peace of Mind.) I’ve decided that for my ed tech efforts, the mantra is Unleashing the Potential. Whether I’m helping a district plan for a better technology implementation or showing a teacher how to use Photoshop to improve their pictures of students, my goal is to remove the roadblocks that keep the technologies - and people using them - from reaching their full potential.

That’s why I like teaching Photoshop. When it’s 8:00 at night, and I’m by myself putting away the computers, if I feel like I’ve helped those fifteen people move a few steps closer to where they want to be, I’m not tired at all. I’m thinking about the next workshop and how to make it even better.

Michael Welsh and 200 of his students at Kansas State University created the this video about college students and how their lives relate (or don’t) to college. It’s a great discussion starter for a staff or board meeting! (I’d also love to see someone create a high school version of the project.)

I was distressed over the last couple of weeks to watch one of my favorite blogs (which I have referred to here in the past) basically shut down. Kathy Sierra has written Creating Passionate Users, a blog that covered business practices, customer service, adult learning, and a wide variety of related topics. She writes in an engaging way, and pulls together a variety of resources and blends them together into clear, concise, and easily understood commentaries.

Sadly, as of two weeks ago, she has stopped public speaking engagements and blogging. She became the target of such intense online harassment that she could no longer tolerate it. I won’t discuss in even vague detail the kinds of threats and vulgar material she was subjected to, but it was the kind of thing that no person should ever have to deal with.

As depressed as I am about Kathy’s decision (I spoke of her blog so often around the office that I have been accused of having a crush on her), I was even more depressed by the responses posted in some of the many online discussions about her situation. While the huge majority of people were in complete agreement with her concerns, there was a very small but very vocal minority that seemed to think she was a crybaby who was just looking for attention, and if she couldn’t handle the stress she was just a wimp and good riddance.

I refuse to accept that in the online world, which holds so much promise, must be reduced to the lowest common denominator, where the most vulgar voice in the room defines the level of discussion.

The only good thing to come out of this mess is that Kathy’s choice to go public with her situation has created an enormous amount of awareness, and has resulted in many people examining this kind of online behavior. The New York Times has an article about a new code of ethics for bloggers. I think it’s a great idea. Some people think that having a cultural norm for civil, respectful discussion is a form of censorship, but as Tim O’Reilly points out in the article,

?That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make ? believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,? he said. ?Free speech is enhanced by civility.?

Harassment is a form of censorship, too. How many other voices such as Kathy’s have been silenced by threatening, boorish behavior?

I’ll admit it. One of my favorite things to find is information that supports my biases. (Actually, I also enjoy articles that challenge my thinking, too. Really!) I encountered the former in the March 2007 issue of Seed magazine. In an article entitled The Truth Seekers, there is a discussion of the work of a researcher named Alan Sanfey. In brief, he studied why people who participate in a standard economics-based decision game called “Ultimatum” tend to make choices that don’t make sense.

The game works like this. There are two subjects, and one is given $10. He or she then has to share the money with the other subject, but can decide how much (or how little) to share. The other participant can choose to accept the offer or reject it, but if he or she rejects it, neither subject gets anything. According to standard economic theory, the second participant will accept the offer, no matter how unfair, because a little money is better than none.

It doesn’t work that way, however. If the offer is unfair, the second participant will usually reject it. The choice isn’t rational, it’s emotional. This experiment has been around for about 20 years, and what’s new is that Sanfey had participants play the game while having their brains scanned, so he could see what parts of the brain were active. When faced with an unfair offer, the part of the brain dealing with strong emotions is where the action happened. To quote the article, Contrary to the expectations of most economists, our anger almost always overruled our reason.

I’m throwing this into a blog on ed tech because I think this is true in many areas beyond economics. As I’ve written before, I’m fascinated with why some technologies are adopted and some aren’t. It’s clearly not an issue of rational decision-making sometimes, and sometimes when decisions are rational, they are completely unsatisfying. (Does anyone really love overhead projectors?) When we look at new technologies that may hold promise for the classroom, we need to look beyond whether it simply makes sense. Will it make students and teachers feel better about what they’re doing? New technologies are almost always a pain in the neck to implement. If I don’t feel like it’s making my life better, all the rational arguments in the world aren’t going to get me to use it.

I can’t believe I’m thinking about new workshops for next year already. (It’s probably because it’s more interesting to think about than budgets, which is what I should be working on.) I have one idea for a class that I definitely plan on doing, though, and it’s How To Publish Your Own Classroom Book.

This is possible now through several services, but the most well-known is lulu.com. There have always been “vanity presses”, where an author can pay a company to print copies of his or her books, so self-publishing isn’t a brand new concept. What sets lulu.com apart is that there is no up-front cost to publishing - you can upload your text, cover graphics, design your book and have it ready to sell without spending a dime.

How can this work? Because lulu.com is a print on demand publisher. They don’t actually print a book until someone orders it. Then the book is printed, bound, and shipped. Lulu.com then splits the price of the book with you.

This really appeals to me as a teacher, because for a relatively low cost you can take your students’ writing (and/or artwork) and create professionally-produced books that will have enormous appeal. (Book prices range based on length, binding style, and other options.) You can order your own copies of the books at “author cost” to sell to the students, and also have them available for orders online from relatives and friends.

I expect the set up the class so we meet several times over a course of a couple of months, starting with the basic idea of how it works, then stepping teachers through the process of planning the book with their students, producing the work, uploading and designing the book, and ending with a book fair where participants share their final projects. I’ll check back in with you next fall and let you know how it turns out!

One of our main activities here over the years has been focused on providing training. There has been a disturbing trend over the last five or six years, however, of attendance slowly trailing off.

As I’ve spoken with participants, it turns out that one of the major reasons is that it is increasingly difficult to get release time to take a workshop during the school day. Almost grudglingly, I’ve tried an experiment this year and have started scheduling workshops in the evenings and on weekends.

Nuts. It’s working!

Actually, it’s kind of exciting to have people turning out for workshops again. It means I can take the time to put together some of the tranings I’ve really wanted to do. I’m getting ready to add a new podcasting workshop, more on digital storytelling, and other fun topics. (Sometimes the only way I get time to learn new stuff is to schedule myself to teach about it.)

If you’re from around these parts, you can see what we’ve scheduled by going to our registration website. The next update of classes will happen on February 1 for our spring and summer classes. You can find the other ESDs from this part of our website. And of course, if you are interested in something you don’t see, email me at cmcquinn (at) psesd.org!

I’ve been thinking a lot about (still!) about the presentation I did in November, and a panel discussion we had here at the ESD in December. The latter was on the role of principals in implementing ed tech initiatives in schools. Two district representatives shared about great programs going on in their schools in building up principals as ed tech leaders. A third panelist, however, reported a more real-life scenario. He himself is a principal, and though he has worked with technology himself for years and has been the technology planner for his district, ed tech isn?t on his to-do list. This isn?t because he isn?t deeply interested in it himself (which he most certainly is), but because it simply isn?t in his accountability set ? he gets pushed and pulled in many directions, but nobody is pushing him on technology.

I think he felt like a heretic in church, but I really appreciated what he had to say. I have listened for years to enthusiastic presenters tell us why technology will change education. Heck, I?ve been one of those presenters. Lately, however, I?ve been looking at this from the other direction. I have no doubt that we need to radically change education, and technology is both a driver and facilitator of that process. I would say that a large percentage of the people in the education profession would agree. So it doesn?t seem to be a question necessarily of convincing people; what is holding things back?

As I?ve been pondering this, I came across a self-improvement writer named Tim Gallwey, who has written books called the Inner Game series. I have found the latest book to be very insightful and useful, and I highly recommend it. I also found that he uses a simple formula for discussing his approach that I connected with right away:

Here P is for Performance, p is for potential, and i is for interference. Performance equals potential minus interference.

Now we?re talking! When we look at whether or not educational technology is impacting the performance of the student or teacher, we have to look not only at the potential of the technology, but what problems interfere with its use. All the potential in the world is wasted if you don?t understand and deal with the interference.

Most importantly, we have to recognize that most of the issues that cause interference are outside the control of the individual classroom teacher. I don’t want to see any more presentations that imply we need to change the teachers? attitudes and beliefs, since I find that often that isn?t the issue at all. To the contrary, I meet many highly motivated teachers that don’t need more enthusiasm; they need help removing barriers. They want to try new things, but there aren?t enough computers, or equipment, or preparation/training time, or clear guidance on how to integrate into their instruction. Even more importantly, for many teachers the P for Performance their principal or district is measuring doesn?t include technology, but instead is focused soley on content performance by their students. Unless we can demonstrate that technology is helping with that kind of performance, technology instead will be perceived as an interference in itself, detracting from the potential of the teacher and students. Sadly, I’m sure many already do perceive it that way!

Technology and Learning hosted their first Seattle-area Tech Forum in Bellevue last week. It was well attended, with around 200 participants. It was a nice size for a technology conference. I had the pleasure of participating in a panel with super tech principal Tim Lauer from Lewis Elementary School in Portland, and the peripatetic David Warlick, educational technology consultant superstar. Actually, it’s kind of hard to compete with two people such as these, but it was fun nonetheless. The topic was Technologies that are changing education, and I let Tim and David take the really exciting stuff, like blogs, wikis, Google Maps and all. I love these technologies and what they are doing in the classrooms where they are being used, but I decided to take a different tack. The fact is, if you do a survey of classrooms throughout our region, you’ll find that very, very few are using any of the technologies described by David and Tim. Far more are using technologies that aren’t as exciting, but are having still having a huge impact, such as document cameras and projectors.

Why is that? This is the slide I used to illustrate the point.

Technologies such as document cameras take off quickly because teachers can see an relatively immediate impact for relatively little investment of their time and effort. That’s the green line. Technologies such as blogging (or video making, or hypermedia, or Lego Robotics, or many other really exciting technologies) tend to follow the red line. There is a lot of effort involved in learning and managing the new technology, and many teachers will give up before they see the return on that effort, or may not even perceive what the return it. (Note that the labels are Perceived Effort and Perceived Return. For tech-loving teachers, hours spent after school learning a new technology aren’t really perceived as an effort - they love doing it.)

That doesn’t mean “red line” technologies will never be adopted, but it does mean that districts need to recognize the realities of getting them into classrooms. We have surveyed the teachers of a dozen districts in the last few years, and the single consistent issue that comes up is time. Teachers already have too little time to get their jobs done, and learning new technologies (and the teaching strategies that make them worthwhile) takes even more time that they don’t have. There has to be systemic support for teachers to undertake the level of change that can produce something like blogging throughout a district. Unless we recognize the amount of effort necessary to make this kind of change, schools will continue to be a hodgepodge of participating and non-participating classrooms.

This has to be driven by a clear vision at the building and district level. The vision gives the teachers the understanding of the value of the effort, and the security in knowing they will get the support they need to implement it. The vision and support carry them through slow beginning at the start of the red line. Tim’s school demonstrates that with a supportive leader providing that clear vision, it is indeed possible for an entire building to make amazing things happen. With more leaders like him, perhaps we can get to the point where document cameras really aren’t the most widely-used new technology in classrooms.