Lightning in a Bottle

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?

Karl Nelson of the Digital Learning Commons sent me an email after my last entry with some thoughts on the topic of online tutoring. DLC has several years experience now in working with districts, schools, and students using online learning here in Washington state, and I thought his observations were worth sharing.

On tutoring programs:

I think the real power with these online tutoring programs (and I’d
class the ones that the DLC offers, Apex’s ClassTools and Internet
Academy’s ALPs, in with this category) is in the ability to personalize
and individualize. This gets especially interesting when you’re
combining that with in-person help from a teacher. I think it can let
the teacher focus their attention on an individual student or small
group while the rest can continue learning at their own pace.

We’ve had a number of good comments about people using products like
this. See, for example:
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2007/03/coupeville.php
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2006/09/wasl_math_prep.php
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2006/04/west_seattle_hi.php

On AP courses:

Over the first three years of the DLC, 12% of online courses were at the
AP level. Looks like our stats for this year, as of a few months ago,
are about the same. So, maybe we haven’t seen a “rapid increase”, but
they are popular.

I think online AP courses are really compelling because lots of schools
just can’t offer them otherwise. Think rural and remote schools who
can’t find teachers (or money, or enough students, etc). Even more
urban schools often have priorities in other places (math WASL,
anyone?), so they can’t offer AP. Online courses are a fairly easy way
to give students the option to take courses. Our evaluations of online
courses show that the biggest reason people take courses is that a given
course simply isn’t available at the school — over 3/4 of courses are
taken for that reason.

While I’d agree that online learning might not work for everyone, we
think a *huge* factor is the support structure. Pretty clearly, just
putting a student in a course and telling them “good luck” isn’t going
to cut it. So, a school needs to set up a real support structure for
students in online courses. The good news is that the staff supporting
the students don’t necessarily need to be subject-matter experts in
order to support a student in a course (that’s what the online teacher
is for). Check out the DLC best practices page if you’re interested in
what we tell schools to do:
http://www.learningcommons.org/educators/cs/best_practices/
Or, check out some course-focused success stories:
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2007/01/courses.php
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2006/05/white_salmon.php
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2005/11/juanita.php
http://www.learningcommons.org/about/stories/2005/03/profile_on_liz.php

I think what Karl points out in the last paragraph is key. Early in the history of online learning, that subset of kids who could be successful were the same kinds of kids who could learn effectively through book-based self study. As we’ve expanded online learning and had more experience, practitioners have become more aware of and more effective in addressing the needs of the normal, average learner who still needs facilitation, encouragement, and an occasional pointed reminder to keep on task. It’s great that the state has continued to support programs such as the DLC where that kind of expertise can be developed and shared with other educators exploring online learning.

There are two interesting articles in Edweek today. The first one looks at individualize tutoring programs such as Cognitive Tutor, and the positive results that schools are seeing. It’s hard for old tech dawgs like me to get past the historic aversion to drill-and-practice software, but the reality is that in the 28 years I’ve been at this (gad!), computers have increased in power by a factor of six or seven orders of magnitude. We really do have the ability to create intelligent tutoring software that can monitor and adjust to the individual student in ways that a live teacher hasn’t the time to do. One of the newer programs discussed in the article literally watches the body language of the student - now that’s impressive/scary! And remember, this is what we can do with today’s technology. What will we see in another ten years, when computers are roughly 200 times the power of today’s devices?

The second article is about the rapid increase in participation in online AP courses. For instance, Apex has seen an almost 4-fold increase in course registration in three years. Similar increases are reported from other providers. There appear to be several factors driving this trend - AP course are all the rage right now (I almost used the word fad, but there is actual research that correlates AP course participation with improved success in college), school and home connectivity has improved quite dramatically in the last few years, and acceptance of online learning (and the awareness of parents that it’s an option) have increased as well.

It seems pretty clear that online learning doesn’t work for everyone. The experience of almost all online schools is that successful students need to be self-motivated and focused. Is this an immutable aspect of online learning, though, or a limitation of how we currently construct it? Will we figure out over time how to build systems and online interactions that will increase the success of other students? It would be troubling if we create a powerful system of learning that benefits only a subset of our students, especially when for courses such as AP, the online version is the only one available.

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!

I had planned on blogging while at the Northwest Council for Computers in Education conference last week, but it’s hard enough to find time at the conference to be at the conference, much less blog about it! (I know I should blog from the sessions, but I always forget to ask permission before they start, and I don’t want to typety-type away in the back and look like I’m doing email or playing Scrabble or something. Being a presenter is hard enough without worrying about participants surfing the web.)

All that being said, it was a great conference! For instance, here are just a few things I learned about Wikipedia -

• The whole Wikipedia system is a lot more complicated than I ever realized. There are multiple levels of participation Readers, Editors, Admins, Bureaucrats, Stewards, Root, ArbCom, and Board of Trustees. The bandwidth of Wikipedia now peaks at over 3 gigabits per second
• There is a gigantic, active social structure among the registered users of Wikipedia that reinforces the goals of the project.
• There are teams of editors that work to undue vandalism on a constant basis. “Vandal bots” constantly monitor edits, and if certain terms pop up the bot emails the editors to check the new contributions and fix any obvious problems.
• If you want to cite a Wikipedia article exactly as you are viewing it at this moment, click the link on the left of the page that says Cite this page. Not only will it give you a bibilographically correct citation, it will also cite the version you are viewing, rather than whatever version is currently active in the future. This prevents embarrassing moments when a page has been vandalized, and also makes certain that the citation reflects the information you want, regardless of future edits.

I have uploaded some pictures of the conference at my flickr page. Videos and podcasts from the event are now up at the new, updated NCCE website. I should be tired, but I’m already getting psyched about next year!

Technorati tag ncce2007

We are pleased to be hosting the Metiri Group for a two-day workshop on May 30 & 31. The presenters will be Cheryl Lemke and Ed Coughlin, and it promises to be a great program. The focus of this seminar will be on how to measure the impact of technology in schools, a topic that is of pretty high priority to almost everyone I know working in our districts. Cheryl and Ed have an enormous amount of experience on this issue, and have worked on evaluating technology in education in a variety of contexts in districts states across the country. I’m really looking forward to what they have to say, and the conversations that will develop between our participants!

Registration is $275 for an individual, $500 for two, and $225 for each additional registrant from a single district. We really encourage team registrations to have a more meaningful experience. You can download a form with more information and a registration information here. I hope we see you in May!

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!

The panel discussion I mentioned in the previous post was recorded, and can now be listened to online at Clarity Innovations podcast Ed Tech Coast-to-Coast. While you can’t see the slides that David, Tim and I are using, I think you can still get a clear understanding of what we are sharing.