21st Century Digital Learning Environments......Unintended Consequences and Inconvenient Truths!

How'd You Do In School Today?

With Edline Online, The Report Card Goes 24/7 and Every Test Is An Open Book

By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 30, 2007; C01

At the beginning of this semester, Laura Iriarte Miguel switched anatomy classes.

No big deal. Students at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg can shift courses around at the start of each term. But when Iriarte Miguel remained on the roll in the wrong class for several days, her parents began receiving notices from Edline -- an online, up-to-the-sec grade-tracking program used in Montgomery County middle and high schools -- about her unexcused absences and zeros on quizzes.

Finally, one night at dinner, in between bites of spaghetti, her parents grilled her about her truancy and her rotten anatomy grades. She hadn't told them she had opted into another class.

"They wanted to know why-why-why-why," Iriarte Miguel says. She set them straight, but the air was still poisoned. The suspicion, she says, "accumulated in the back of their minds during the whole day."

This could be a simple story of parental expectations and teenage lackadaisicalness. But it's also a tale of an innovation at the nexus of a morphing world -- symbolic of the changing nature of childhood, America's abiding faith in education and the unforgiving quality of technology.

* * *

Growing up isn't what it used to be. Time was, parents set boundaries, children tested them. There was always a question of how much parents should know and how much kids should tell them. School was often a black box to parents. Mom and Dad dropped their kids off in the morning and had nearly zero understanding of precisely what went on during the day.

High school in particular has been a time of experimentation, says Ellen deLara, an adolescence specialist at Syracuse University. "People are inventing themselves, trying out different ways of being in the world, trying different faces."

Now along comes Edline to help erase the illusion -- and reality -- that school is separate from the parental world. That separation, deLara says, "is a buffer that's actually critical for healthy adolescent development."

Constant monitoring -- the equivalent of a nanny cam trained on teenagers -- "doesn't allow for confabulation," she adds. Nor does it provide "space for thinking about how to present bad news to parents. Instead, parents can jump to conclusions, and essentially, try and convict their teens, all before hearing from them."

The result is double-edged: Edline -- and other programs like it, such as SchoolFusion and School Center -- provide students, teachers and parents with an online meeting place to discuss day-to-day assignments, tests and grades. But it also enables parents to keep track of a kid's academic progress -- or lack of progress -- in a heretofore unthinkably micromanagerial way. Parents can know everything; children have no wiggle room. Gone is the fudge factor, the white lie. A student makes a D on a quiz, a D shows up on Edline. No matter that a student leads a discussion in class or puts forth a cogent point. Or has the possibility to retake the quiz, make up the poor grade or do extra credit work over the weekend.

This swift knowledge of success or failure can drive a wedge into families.

Exhibit A: More than 20 anti-Edline groups have popped up on Facebook with names such as "Edline Is Hazardous to My Health" and "Edline Is Ruining My Life." These two groups, it turns out, were founded by Montgomery County high school students.

So was the largest of the anti-Edline clubs: "Child abuse increased 78% since the Edline was created." With more than 6,000 members, the online klatch is Iriarte Miguel's co-creation. She says that when she and a guy launched it she was being tongue-in-cheek. But there is a real sting.

"Edline really doesn't give us an opportunity to explain why our grades aren't up to par," Iriarte Miguel says.

An A-minus student planning to go to the University of Virginia in the fall, she hears from scores of kids all over the country who are frustrated by the technology's watchdog qualities. A sampling of comments:

"My mom literally watches my sister like a HAWK on Edline," writes a student from Tampa. "Can't say that she has had many fun weekends since Edline was created."

And another note from Los Angeles: "Whatever happened to trying to improve grades before the report cards were sent out? This is so dumb!"

* * *

With computers, everything is binary -- one/two; either/or. There are few in-betweens. Gone are the rough edges, the gray areas. And there are unintended consequences.

Technologies often solve and cause problems at the same time. Cellphones, advertised as devices for knowing the whereabouts of someone at all times, also allow that someone to call from, and pretend to be, anywhere. Edline enhances communication among parents, teachers and students. And it can also destroy communication.

Sherry Turkle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, warns against "overtechnologizing." A grade-tracking system like Edline, Turkle says, "sounds to me terribly intrusive."

The best way for parents and students to communicate is to talk about what is going on at school, she says. "When you just see a grade as a number, it's not necessarily opening the possibility of dialogue. Potentially it's closing down dialogue."

Turkle says Edline reminds her of the panopticon, an 18th-century idea for a specially designed building that would enable jailers to watch prisoners without the prisoners knowing they were being observed. The panopticon has become a metaphor for Big Brother.

The question the culture should be asking about monitoring technologies, Turkle says, is: "Is this just making children feel surveillance in a way that is uncomfortable for everybody?" The Internet, she says, can be used as a "blunt instrument."

In the old, pre-Internet days, parents who attended back-to-school nights and knew the names of their child's teachers were considered involved. Edline, and other monitoring technologies, take involvement to a whole other level.

"Parent involvement is known to be the key factor in positive student behavior and achievement," says Edline Vice President Marge Abrams. "How parents use the information is a parenting decision. Hopefully, if parents use the information to work with their child in a positive caring way, this parental involvement will lead to good achievement. Edline does not change the way a parent parents. If a parent uses the information in a punishing way, the same parent probably punishes at report card time."

Love it or hate it, Edline is expanding.

Abrams says the service was created in the late 1990s and today is being used in every state and in other countries. The privately owned company won't release its earnings or a complete list of its customers; schools pay about $2 per student for Edline. Edline, she says, has "many thousands of clients," including schools in Harford County, Md., and Chesterfield County, Va.

There are 38 middle schools and about 25 high schools -- 75,000 students -- in Montgomery County, according to schools spokeswoman Kate Harrison. All but three of the high schools began using Edline this year.

Next year, all the schools will use the service.

* * *

Many American parents don't think that keeping close tabs on their children's school activities is so dumb. They think it's smart.

Countless American success stories revolve around a caring teacher, a challenging class, a top-drawer education. A whole subset of the entertainment industry is built around the glorification of pedagogy. Think "Dangerous Minds" and "Finding Forrester."

In this country, "the middle class -- and anyone wishing to become middle class -- believe that education is the escalator to higher social status and financial well-being," says Larry Cuban, a former district superintendent of Arlington Public Schools and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.

"The early-20th-century progressives saw schooling as the engine of democracy and the instrument by which immigrants would become Americans and middle class," he says. "Both business and civic elites have sold public schooling, getting a diploma, and now going to college as ways of entering the labor market and succeeding."

The same people, Cuban says, "particularly at the beginning of the 20th century and in the past three decades, have linked better schooling and getting credentials to better jobs, a strong economy and higher lifetime earnings."

With so much riding on success in school, watchdog technology such as Edline and its immediate techno-feedback have an obvious appeal. For hovering "helicopter" parents, it's a high-beam searchlight. No bad grade escapes its harsh glare.

Chris Barclay is a member of the Montgomery County Board of Education whose daughter goes to Einstein High School in Kensington. Although the students at Einstein call it "Dreadline," he says that the grade-tracking service "helps hold your child and your child's teacher accountable." The software allows working parents to stay connected.

Laura Hajdukiewicz, a biology teacher at Andover High School in Massachusetts, loves the software. She liked it so much at her old place of employment, the Bromfield School outside of Boston, that she persuaded Andover to try it. She tells of parents who found out through Edline that their son was reading the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," giving them something to talk about at dinnertime. She says a parent who is a cardiologist volunteered to come into her class and speak when he learned through Edline that the class was studying the heart. "It's opening lines of communication," Hajdukiewicz says. "Students like it when they are doing well."

Hajdukiewicz asked more than 100 students in several grades for their opinion of Edline. She says the response was overwhelmingly favorable, although they felt their parents were now micromanaging their grades. "They like it for their own use but would rather keep things 'quiet' which is a fairly typical teenage response," she writes in an e-mail. "They also feel that their parents check it more often than they do!"

Carol Blum, Montgomery's director of high school instruction and achievement, says that Edline has helped to cut down on the number of e-mails and phone calls that parents make to teachers.

In the past, she says, "it wasn't as easy to be in touch with parents." A teacher would send out an interim report if the student was in danger of failing and by the time the parent received it, "it was almost too late," she says. "This way if a student is in trouble in a course, a parent can see it in a timely manner."

And students can know where they stand. "The biggest pro, coming from the high school perspective," says Christopher S. Garran, principal of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, "is that Edline gives the students more information about their grades and where they stand in class."

A student can go online, Garran says, "and quickly see the impact that a zero might have. He can more easily see the effect of not having worked very hard." At the same time, "when they get an A, it immediately shows them how powerful that is."

Garran tells parents: "How closely you monitor your child's progress is a personal decision.

"Parents have to remember what it was like when they were in school . . . remember when you didn't get that homework assignment in on time."

A lot can happen, he says, "between that first quiz and the final grade."

NEW MATH!

Granholm's call for school aid cut raises the stakes

Districts express alarm; GOP says governor is overreacting

April 27, 2007

BY CHRIS CHRISTOFF and PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

LANSING -- An irate Gov. Jennifer Granholm put the heat on Republican lawmakers Thursday, announcing she would cut money to public schools by $125 per pupil unless the GOP agrees to a tax increase to make up for falling tax revenues.

School officials said the cut would force them to tap emergency reserves or borrow money to balance their budgets -- difficult options with just six weeks left in most districts' school year. If money isn't restored in the new budget year, they said, layoffs and program cuts loom.

"I'm assuming most districts are going to be able to at least keep open their classrooms," said Mike Flanagan, state superintendent of public instruction. But he said some may cut transportation or lay off administrators for the rest of the school year.

Granholm said Michigan's continued weak economy, which translated to lower-than-expected tax revenues, forced her decision. New data, she said, show that the state fell $136 million short of March sales tax projections. She plans to officially notify school districts Monday of the aid cut. The Legislature will have one month to find cash to avoid the reduction.

Granholm's announcement fueled partisan discord over a state budget crisis whose solution has eluded Granholm and lawmakers since she announced in January that reduced tax collections had put the state $900 million in the hole.

Republicans accused Granholm of using alarmist tactics to force a tax increase and insisted the immediate budget problems could be solved through spending cuts.

Granholm also said she would notify physicians and hospitals of reduced state payments for treating Medicaid patients because of a general fund deficit she said has grown to $500 million.

Granholm implored several hundred school officials at a Lansing conference to urge their state senators to raise taxes and avert the cutbacks. She said she has cut state spending so much that further cuts will harm education, public safety and health care.

Senate Republicans have opposed tax hikes for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, although they hinted they would consider new or higher taxes for 2007-08 along with more cost-cutting. Many House Democrats also have shunned a tax increase unless significant numbers of Republicans agree to one.

Granholm, visibly angry, told reporters that Republicans are stonewalling budget negotiations with extremist views against taxes.

"We need revenues to be able to save our schools," she said. "I'm angry at Senate Republicans for having purely an extremist ideology of never, no way ever, regardless of how it impacts Michigan, will they ever consider revenues. That philosophy is damaging to Michigan."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, dismissed Granholm's label as unproductive name-calling. Bishop, in a statement, said the House and Senate have cooperated to erase part of the budget deficit.

"The governor seems intent on derailing the bipartisan progress via her obsession with a massive tax increase on Michigan families," Bishop said. "Republicans and Democrats have both demonstrated in legislation that the current-year deficit can be balanced with cuts."

Warren Consolidated Schools Superintendent James Clor said a $125-per-pupil cut would cost his district of more than 15,000 students about $1.9 million. He said the district's $13-million reserve would last three months.

"This is a shock, that it has to happen instantly," Clor said. "I hope it's a move that Granholm has to do to have these senators and legislators wake up."

He added, "What happens to districts that have no savings? Do they just close on that date? What do you do if you have no money?"

Avondale Schools Superintendent George Heitsch said a $125-per-pupil cut would cost his Auburn Hills district more than $400,000, which he said would be lumped onto next year's deficit.

Asked whether it would force an early end to the school year, he said, "We would not want that to happen."

This week, the Senate sent to Granholm a House bill that lops $300 million from the School Aid Fund deficit, mostly through accounting maneuvers. The bill still left a $62-million school budget hole. Granholm said she plans to sign it.

Combined with the March revenue shortfall, the School Aid Fund will remain $198 million in the hole when state economists meet in May to officially announce new revenue projections.

Earlier this month, Granholm and the Legislature cut $344 million from the current year's budget.

Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees tax issues, said Granholm hasn't done enough to trim such growing costs as health insurance and pensions for Michigan school employees. She said the governor's criticism of Republicans makes it more difficult to reach a budget compromise.

Cassis said a tax increase might be considered as a last resort for the 2007-08 fiscal year, adding that school funding may have to be scaled back, though not as much as Granholm's $125-per-pupil cut.

Contact CHRIS CHRISTOFF at 517-372-8660 or christoff@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.

OLD MATH!

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April 27, 2007

Daniel Howes

Daniel Howes: Jig is up on fat school funding

You'd be irritated, too, if you'd been re-elected governor in a landslide last November

And your party, in control of the state House for the first time in a decade, dissed your plan for a 2-percent tax on services in about as much time it took you to propose it.

And your speaker, a private equity shark-turned-Democrat, didn't buy it either. Then he and the guys heading the tax policy committee recast a replacement to the Single Business Tax that Republicans, automakers, key chambers of commerce and other business leaders greeted with the kind of respect and qualified consideration that made you look, well, like an outsider.

And your tactic of whipsawing more revenue from the Senate GOP so you can plow it back into the entitlement maw that is Michigan's public schools didn't work. So the answer, just months after magically coming up with $220 more in (pre-election) per-pupil funding, is to take more than half of it back, call the Republicans "extremists" who "won't consider revenues" and bank that the public buys the charade.

But here's the bipartisan problem facing Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester: The cash burn consuming Michigan public-school funding won't stop unless something changes fundamentally.

Almost every penny of the cash Granholm found last fall, minus the $125 per head she's promising to pull back, wasn't headed to "the kids" anyway. It was destined for negotiated health care benefits and retirement fund payments whose rates are dictated by state bureaucrats.

Here's an example that should be familiar to Bishop. In the current year, according to estimates prepared for the Rochester school board, the 14,800-student system has an estimated payroll of $57.95 million for 847 teachers. The district pays pay an additional 17.74 percent, or another $10.3 million, into the state teacher retirement system.

By the 2008-09 fiscal year, estimates show, Rochester schools expect to be paying 21 percent of payroll (up from 14.87 percent in '04-05) into the system. That's $13.2 million on top of an estimated $62.9 million in payroll for a total of $80.9 million (including payroll taxes), or easily more than $100,000 per teacher.

The point here is not an emotional one, although it will surely be made that, or that teachers are "the problem." It's that the system, absent either massive revenue expansions through growth (unlikely near-term) or annual tax grabs (more likely), is financially unsustainable -- even in comparatively wealthy Rochester.

Rochester's payments into the state retirement system are expected to be 28.1 percent higher by the 2008-09 year than today, while salaries are expected to increase 8.5 percent over the same period.

Compare that to your 401(k) at work, where employers typically contribute 4 percent or 6 percent of salary as a "match" to employee contributions. As salaries grow through raises and promotions, the contributions grow even if the percentage doesn't because to increase wages and, at the same time, increase the percentage match would outrun the ability of almost any business to keep up.

But that's exactly what's going on in many school districts across the state. It's not the only challenge among countless others facing Granholm and the Legislature, but it's a major one pressuring state and local budgets every year -- and it needs to change.

Daniel Howes can be reached at (313) 222-2106, dchowes@detnews.com or http://info.detnews.com/danielhowesblog. Catch him Fridays with Paul W. Smith on NewsTalk 760-WJR.

On Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurialism in Michigan

Monday, April 16, 2007 Updated Study Says Michigan Still Struggles to Grow Entrepreneurs

LANSING - The latest Small Business Foundation of Michigan's Entrepreneurship Score Card, released Monday, finds that Michigan last year lost ground in developing new, high growth job-creating entrepreneurial small businesses. The Score Card gives Michigan a 2006 grade of "D-minus" for entrepreneurial dynamism, down from the 2005 "D" grade and edging closer to the failing "F" grade that Michigan received for 2004. The Score Card project is a collaborative project of the Small Business Foundation of Michigan (SBFM) and GrowthEconomics, Inc. Financial sponsors are Automation Alley, Central Michigan University, the Edward Lowe Foundation, Lawrence Technological University, MERRA, the Michigan Entrepreneurial Education Network, Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Michigan Technological University, MiBiz, Next Energy, Schoolcraft College, Saginaw Valley State University and the Small Business Association of Michigan. The SBFM defines entrepreneurial dynamism as a composite measure of Michigan’s performance in entrepreneurial change, entrepreneurial vitality and entrepreneurial climate. “While Michigan has not achieved its full entrepreneurial dynamism potential, there are some things it does right – it is still making tremendous progress in areas critical to robust entrepreneurship, such as private lending to small businesses, university spinout businesses and entrepreneurial education,” said SBFM executive director Mark Clevey. “However, the economic impacts of factors like globalization and restructuring of old-line industries will continue to have negative effects on entrepreneurship. Michigan needs to do even more if it is to accelerate entrepreneurial dynamism and create more jobs for our struggling economy.” Here’s how Michigan ranks compared to other states: Entrepreneurial Change (the amount of recent entrepreneurial growth or decline in an economy): 46th Entrepreneurial Vitality (the absolute level of entrepreneurial activity): 38th Entrepreneurial Climate (the capability of an economy to foster entrepreneurship): 38th Business Costs and Productivity: 41st Quality of Life: 37th Government Efficiency and Regulatory Environment: 26th Infrastructure: 24th University Spinout Businesses: 16th Workforce Preparedness: 10th Education and Workforce: 8th Broadband Coverage: 4th Private Lending to Small Businesses: 3rd Although the Foundation does not advocate policy positions, Clevey says Michigan can improve its entrepreneurial dynamism by paying greater attention to entrepreneurial education, economic development strategy, access to capital, technology commercialization and developing a business climate that nurtures entrepreneurs. Promotion sponsors are Ann Arbor SPARK, Creating Entrepreneurial Communities (CEC), Michigan State University; Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, Great Lakes Angels, Inc., Great Lakes Entrepreneur Quest, Keweenaw Economic Development Alliance, Michigan Homeland Security Consortium, Michigan Interfaith Power and Light, Michigan Ross School of Business, Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance, Michigan Center for Innovation and Economic Prosperity, James Madison College, Michigan State University; Midland Tomorrow, Michigan Venture Capital Association, Prima Civitas Foundation and Vision Tri-County.

Author: Staff Writer Source: MITechNews.Com

Technology's ability to personalize instruction

Technology's 'greatest potential' for education: Personalizing instruction By Dennis Pierce, Managing Editor, eSchool News March 29, 2007
Calling technology's greatest potential for education its ability to personalize instruction, Katie Lovett, chair of the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), kicked off the group's 12th annual K-12 School Networking Conference in San Francisco March 28.
The conference brought together school district chief information officers and other educational technology leaders from around the globe to discuss key ed-tech challenges and solutions. One of these challenges, Lovett noted in setting the stage for the meeting's opening general session, is the need to break out of the mold of the one-size-fits-all approach to instruction.
Lovett, who is the CIO of Georgia's Fulton County Schools, introduced Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Dede moderated an opening general session that explored two creative yet very different approaches to personalizing instruction with the help of technology.
One of these approaches is Notschool.net, a United Kingdom-based international virtual learning community. Notschool.net offers an alternative to traditional education for students who, for a variety of reasons, can't cope with school.
"We're the absolute antithesis of what school is," said Jean Johnson, project director.
Johnson explained that Notschool allows students to take ownership of the curriculum and shape their own education. They can choose their areas of study, and because instruction is asynchronous and online, they can choose when they'll participate. "Teenagers don't want to learn at 8 o'clock in the morning," she said--but, given a choice over the direction of their education, they do want to learn.
Operating within the confines of the traditional school system, Virginia's Fairfax County Public Schools--the nation's 12th largest school district--is working to create an Individual Learning Plan for each of its 163,000 students. "It's time to craft our vision for the future, instead of dwelling on the past," Superintendent Jack D. Dale told conference attendees.
After Johnson and Dale described their respective projects, Dede moderated a discussion about the challenges each faces. He concluded the session by noting that, while it's clear technology allows educators to personalize instruction "in ways we never could before," school leaders often must confront significant political and cultural hurdles to make this happen.
(Note: For highlights of this opening general session, see the nine-minute video clip titled "Personalized learning.")
Re-engaging students
A key idea to emerge from this opening general session was the need for schools to re-engage today's youth.
"Why are kids on MySpace?" Johnson asked conference attendees. "They're there because they want to be there." But, too often, the same can't be said about school. Today's students are growing up immersed in a world of video games, cell phones, and instant messaging--but when they get to school, they're often forced to leave these technologies at the door.
In an international symposium held March 27, the day before the conference officially began, CoSN brought together education leaders from several nations to discuss how computer games and simulations--interactive media that today's students embrace and understand--can be used as serious learning tools.
The symposium included an address from Lord David Puttnam, a widely respected British filmmaker and education official. Puttnam, whose films include The Mission, The Killing Fields, and Chariots of Fire, is the only non-American to lead a major Hollywood studio, having run Columbia Pictures in the 1980s. After retiring from the film industry, he went to work for the United Kingdom's Education Department, where he has sought to spread the message that today's schools must change if they are to reach a new generation of learners.
In an interview with eSchool News, Puttnam said education can learn a lot from the entertainment industry. The primary lesson? "Know your audience," he said.
(Note: For highlights of the interview with Lord Puttnam, see the five-minute video clip titled "Know your audience.")
The exploration of computer gaming as a serious approach to instruction continued on the conference's first day, with a session examining a project in Japan, called the Instructional Activities Game (AIG), that is using games in teacher education, and another session that looked at existing research on the effectiveness of using games to teach core curricular content.
Links:
Consortium for School Networkinghttp://www.cosn.org/
Notschools.nethttp://www.notschools.net/
Fairfax County Public Schoolshttp://www.fcps.k12.va.us/



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On INNOVATION STATIONS and "Shade Tree Mechanics"

An Evolutionary Approach to Innovation

by Richard Watson

Can biology teach us anything about innovation? The essence of Darwinism is that progress is created by adaptation to changed conditions. What starts as a random mutation can also spread to become the norm through a process of natural selection.

The same is surely true with innovation. New ideas are mutations created when two or more old ideas combine. For instance, Virgin Atlantic Airways is what happens when you cross an entertainment company with an airline business.

Virgin itself is also a good example of mutation and adaptation. The music retail business was created when a postal strike threatened to shut down the fledgling mail order record company. Virgin Atlantic was the result of an unsolicited approach from outside the company. Virgin Blue (a low-cost airline in Australia) is a similar story.

In my experience, what makes Virgin innovative is a strong sense of self, an ability to experiment, the skill to cross-fertilize ideas, and a willingness to change. The company has largely grown, not through the unfolding of some master plan, but through an accumulation of learning and ideas caused by threats, accidents and luck.

So, if external events and adaptation are the driving forces of biological evolution, is it possible to develop an innovation process that seeks out accidents and mutations?

This is an idea being developed by companies like Brand Genetics in the UK and Dr. Ron Alexander in Australia.

The list of things created by accident is certainly impressive; Aspirin, Band-Aids, Diners Club, DNA finger printing, dynamite, inoculation, Jell-O, Lamborghini, microwave ovens, nylon, penicillin, velcro and Vodafone to name just a few.

However, one of the defining characteristics of business is a preoccupation with orderly process ("If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."). So it's hard to imagine corporate cultures embracing randomness -- or agreeing with John Lennon, who said, "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans."

Accidents are born of experimentation, but the automotive and fashion industries are almost the only industries that publicly experiment with radical mutations. What, for example, is the soft drink industry equivalent of a concept car at the Detroit Motor Show?

Zara, the Spanish clothing retailer, is a classic example of experimentation and adaptation. Store managers send customer feedback and observations to in-house design teams via PDAs. This helps the company to spot fashion trends and adapt merchandise to local tastes.

Just-in-time production (an idea transferred from the automotive industry), then gives the company an edge in terms of speed and flexibility. The result is a three-week turnaround time for new products (the industry average is nine months), and 10,000 new designs every year -- none of which stay in store for more than four weeks.

The analogy of biology also leads to an interesting idea about whether companies are best thought of in mechanical or biological terms. Traditionally, we have likened companies to machines. Organisations are mechanical devices (engines if you like) that can be tuned by experts to deliver optimum performance.

For companies that are looking to fine tune what they already do, this is probably correct. A product like the Porsche 911 evolves due to a process of continuous improvement and slowly changing environmental factors. The focus is on repetition. Development is logical and linear.

However, if you're seeking to revolutionize a product or market, the biological model is an interesting thinking tool. In this context, biology reminds us that random events and non-linear thinking cause developmental jumps. Unlike machines, living things have the ability to identify and translate opportunities and threats into strategies for survival. A good example is Mercedes-Benz working with Swatch watches to create the Smart car.

Creative leaps are usually the result of accidental cross-fertilization (variation) or rapid adaptation caused by the threat of change. Hence the importance of identifying an enemy, setting unrealistic deadlines and using diverse teams to create paradigm shifts.

The latter is a route employed by MIT who mix different disciplines together. As Nicholas Negroponte puts it, "New ideas do not necessarily live within the borders of existing intellectual domains. In fact they are most often at the edges and in curious intersections."

This is a thought echoed by Edward de Bono, who talks about the need for provocation and discontinuity. In order to come up with a new solution you must first jump laterally to a different start or end point.

For example, if you want to revolutionise the hotel industry you need to identify the assumptions upon which the industry operates and then create a divergent strategy. This could lead you to invent Formule 1 Hotels (keep prices low by focusing on beds, hygiene, and privacy), or another value innovator, easyHotel (keep rooms cheap by making guests hire their own bed linen and clean their own rooms).

What else can you do to create these jumps? A good place to start is to look at the edge (fringe) of existing markets. Here you'll find the misfits and the rebels. Companies that see things differently. People young enough not to realise that new ideas are impossible, or old enough not to care.

How else can you use a Darwinian approach to innovation? Here are five ideas:

• Look at the big evolutionary picture -- what are the driving forces?
• Create mutations -- unusual combinations of people and ideas.
• Look for new ideas and conditions that could disrupt your market.
• Treat accidents as opportunities for divergence and adaptation.
• Cooperate with other companies (create mutually beneficial eco-systems)

Finally, remember the words of Charles Darwin, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Garage Shop Innovation

by Richard Watson

Too much experience, too much familiarity, or too much money can kill innovation fast. That's why game changing ideas tend to come from a lone inventor or two in a cramped garage.

A while ago I wrote a piece for Fast Company called "An Evolutionary Approach to Innovation." The central idea was that Darwinism teaches us quite a bit about innovation. In particular, random mutations and adaptations caused by a particular local context or by rapidly changing conditions can spread to become the norm through a process of natural selection. Innovations are generally mutations created when one or more old idea is cross-fertilized by another.

The same is true with trends. New trends emerge when someone starts to think or behave differently -- or starts to create or customize something because existing offers do not fit with their needs or circumstances. If conditions are right a trend will become widely accepted, eventually moving from the fringe to the mass-market and from early adopters and trendsetters to laggards. Trends that occur at an intersection of other trends may also turn into megatrends, which are the key disrupters and drivers of innovation and change across all industries.

Creative leaps also tend to emerge when someone with a differing perspective tries something new -- either through bravery or sheer naivety. If that person is young or comes from another place (i.e. a different discipline or perhaps a different country) things sometime start to happen. Put two or move differing people together and the sparks can really fly.

But why is this so? In my experience it's because older people have usually invested too much under the current system and therefore have too much to lose if a new idea displaces an older one. Equally, people that don't move around or come from the same department or discipline sometimes fail to see what is hidden under their own noses, whereas people from ‘somewhere else' often see it.

For these reasons game changing ideas and radical innovations tend to come, not from well-funded industry incumbents (i.e. large organizations), but from lone inventors or a couple of individuals in a cramped garage. In other words, too much experience, too much familiarity or too much money can kill innovation faster than phrases like "I like it but" and "We tried that once."

Perhaps this explains why, for instance, 25% of Silicon Valley startups are created by either Indian or Chinese entrepreneurs. They see things differently. Another example of outsider thinking and mutation is Virgin Atlantic Airways. Richard Branson managed to shake up the airline industry precisely because he did not have an airline industry background. So when other airlines were worrying about legroom, routes and punctuality, Branson was cross-fertilising his experience from the entertainment industry and worrying about why flying wasn't more fun.

Not all new ideas and innovations make it of course. It's a case of survival of the fittest (or luckiest). Eventually, however, the sheer number of new ideas that are hatched means that a few emerge and make it into the mainstream where they do battle with deeply set vested interests. Then it's usually youth and energy versus experience and money. Organizations are like this too in a sense. They start of hungry, agile and curious and end up bloated, lazy and stiff.

So my question is this. If external events and adaptation are the driving forces of innovation, is it possible to develop an innovative culture and process that seeks out change and mutation? Moreover, if evolution is the result of genetic accidents is it possible to replicate such accidents through experimentation? An imminent threat of extinction would certainly explain why it often takes a crisis to spur a lazy and bureaucratic organization to adapt and embrace change.

My answer is that generally speaking it's not. This may be a heretical statement, especially coming from someone that makes a living advising companies how to create innovation systems, but I think it's true. Some large companies are excellent at innovation. It's their reason for being and is imprinted in their DNA.

However, for most large organizations innovation is an inconvenience. Organizational cultures develop a kind of corporate immune system that subconsciously suppresses or rejects any new idea that could threaten the existing business. Quite right too. The primary aim of established organizations is to extract revenue and profit from legacy businesses and not to do anything that would upset the apple cart.

This primarily means executing flawlessly in the present and requires tight control and strict hierarchies. Small companies, in contrast, have less to lose and are not encumbered by their history. Their mental models about 'what works' are less fixed and they are more open to picking up weak signals about change.

So here's my idea. If your organization is the kind that does innovation well, then great. Equally, if you're halfway decent at innovation, keep with the program and perhaps play around with some of these thoughts about using trends as a framework for innovation and scenario planning. If you're lucky you may give birth to a strange mutation. If this happens recognize it as a gift and run with it as far as it goes.

If, however, you are the type of organization that's not very good at innovation then give up. That's right. Throw in the towel and get into hunting instead of agriculture. In other words stop trying to grow your own through research & development and go out hunting with mergers and acquisitions instead. Seek out small innovative companies and buy them.

Big organizations, even ones that are really bad at innovation, are very good at scaling up an idea and dealing with everything from intellectual property and sales to marketing and finance. This is handy because these things are precisely what startups and small companies are often very bad at.

NOT for the Timid or Faint of Heart!

NSF ITEST Grant 2007: Submission

Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST)

Program Solicitation
NSF 07-514

Replaces Document(s):
NSF 05-621

National Science Foundation Directorate for Education & Human Resources Division of Elementary Secondary & Informal Education

Preliminary Proposal Due Date(s) (required):

January 05, 2007

January 04, 2008

and the first Friday in January thereafter

Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.m. proposer's local time):

May 10, 2007

May 08, 2008

and the second Thursday in May thereafter

*March 22, 2007

I wanted to share with you that we are invited to submit a full proposal to NSF-ITEST program. I would appreciate it for your time for a meeting at your convenience. We would definitely happy to have your input in this proposal.

Sincerely,
Mesut Duran
SoE, UM-D

The Model of a Modern Technology Classroom By Virginia Richard April 1, 2007 URL: http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604339 from Educators' eZine In 2002, the Polk County School District received the "Enhancing Education through Technology Grant" (EETT) and started the Model Technology Classroom in which an exemplary teacher would integrate technology into his/her teaching strategies and model for other teachers a learning environment based upon the P21 Framework. Each year the program would recruit about 10 to 15 teachers, who would receive technology equipment for their classroom plus training on how to use the equipment and, most importantly, how to integrate technology use into the learning process. The district also provides infrastructure for the program to succeed. This is the fifth year of the program, and we have made tremendous progress on reaching our goal of a model technology classroom in 80 schools out of 156. The 2003-04 school year results are listed below. The program's goals are to: Increase the technology literacy of students in the district. Help teachers provide a 21st century learning environment for students. Provide teachers resources and training to integrate technology into their teaching. Assess the effectiveness of the program. To accomplish these goals, School Technology Services took the following steps: Purchase of a model technology classroom for teachers. Provide technology training for teachers, in summer sessions and other workshops. Develop a training program for teachers in technology proficiency. Develop Best Practices for use of technology in the classroom. Consult with Florida Southern University and University of Central Florida to develop assessment instruments and collected data on the evaluation of the program. We assessed the program by: Surveying teachers. Having external evaluators observe classrooms. Creating focus group interviews with a small selection of teachers. A standard Model Technology Classroom includes hardware, software, training and infrastructure � all critical in providing the opportunity for model technology teachers and students to become effective users of technology for teaching and learning. The technology tools consisted of 1 laptop, 1 LCD projector, 3 desktop computers, 1 printer, 1 screen, several headsets, and an AV cart. Administrators and teachers participated in specific technology training and curriculum integration modules that are part of the district technology training certification program before receiving this hardware and software. In 2003-04 we created Best Practices, and required model technology teachers to implement and follow these Best Practices in the classroom. The Best Practices are used as a guide to help teachers increase technology use in the classroom. They are also featured at teacher trainings and parent meetings to make them aware of their children's technology use. Best practices for model technology classrooms are defined as "a set of strategies that can be used to promote the ongoing use of technology in the classroom and increase student technology literacy skills." Ongoing Professional Development Teacher Use of Technology 21st Century Classroom Practices Teacher Mentoring Student Use of Technology Administrative Support Network Manager Support Accountability � Student Literacy Parent/Community Involvement � Training Each one of the above Best Practices requires that the model teacher take an action to meet the goal, namely, that all administrators, teachers, and students will be technology literate by 2006. For example, research reveals that ongoing professional development must be there to help teachers utilize technology in the classroom. 2003-04 Project Results The data of the assessment are presented in detail in another formal report; however, the highlights of these results are: Prior to the training, 33% of the teachers believed that they were in the advanced level in integrating technology into the classroom. After the training 67% of the teachers believed that they were in the advanced level. External evaluators observed the classroom and prior to the training, the evaluators rated 14% of the teachers at the advanced level; after the training, evaluators rated 36% of the teacher at advanced level. Teachers understood better how to model a 21st century learning environment. There was an increase of 23% in the use of technology in the classroom. Teachers, however, noted that they continued to face obstacles in time management in their efforts to accomplish technology education goals. The data clearly shows improvement in the ability of teachers to integrate technology in the classroom and that student technology literacy increased. The implications are that the program was successful in meeting its goals. Teachers received resources which they are actively using and the classroom environment has changed. There are many more classrooms that reflect 21st century learning environments, in which students use technology to learn from one another, collaborate with peers and experts in the fields. Recommendations School Technology Services hopes that they can continue to replicate this program after the end of the EETT grant so as to involve more teachers and therefore more students. We are trying to address the issues of lack of time and scheduling problems for teachers to attend training through another program called Technology Coaching. Some additional recommendations include: Stress ways in Best Practice #8 to maximize the use of technology in all classrooms. Work with the technology leadership team and content specialists to incorporate technology in the curriculum map and other resources that teachers use for instructional planning. Continue to seek outside sources of funding, especially to obtain more equipment and bring in resources that are known to improve student literacy and academic achievement. Provide teachers with a variety of professional development avenues to increase teacher literacy. Increased time to meet with school technology leadership teams as they plan the use of district approved technology-learning resources to increase student achievement. Continue to explore ways to make classroom or computer labs more accessible to students before and after school to increase technology literacy skills and student achievement. Continue to provide ways for administrators to attend professional development training to make them aware of effective ways technology can be integrated into the curriculum. Continue to identify potential pilot projects, using new technologies. Provide model technology teams in schools versus one classroom to increase collaboration and support between teachers. Continue to support Technology Coaching so model technology teachers will have a support group for collaboration, mentoring and modeling of 21st century skills for teachers. If districts are interested in more information about Polk County's Model Technology Teacher Program, please visit our website, Model Technology Teachers

SOMETHING on DIGITAL RELEVANCE!

Response From: Elizabeth Igarza, college and high school instructor

04/01/2007 8:02PM

When we talk about technology in education, today we are no longer just discussing the best way to use PowerPoint for a classroom discussion or how to convince students to type their papers and conduct online research.

Today the issue of integrating technology into education has taken a much more serious turn. It is no longer just our students’ test scores that are at stake if we do not get ahead of their expertise in the connected world of Web 2.0. Now our students’ safety and social well-being is at stake. As educators we must not only become proficient at integrating technology into our classrooms, we must also become educated about the social networking and other online communities our students are frequenting outside our classrooms. We must then convince local school boards that, instead of shutting down access to these sites that we fear, we have a duty to un-block access at school so that we can get out there to guide and protect our students.

Would any of us let our daughter take a picture of herself with wet tendrils of her hair dangling provocatively across her innocent face made up with smoky black eye shadow, then allow her to submit it to the world’s most circulated newspaper with a caption below welcoming anyone who reads it to stop by her address any hour of the day or night? She’s already doing that electronically with her MySpace profile.

Would we allow our nephew to go to a neighbor’s party of more than 100,000 guests who were all supposed to be teenagers but who included any number of flirtatious 35-year-old women, 50-year-old male executives oddly with nothing better to do than hang out with teenagers, and a 28-year-old ex-con gang recruiter? That’s who could be playing tag with him on Tagged.com.

Would we allow a 14-year-old to bring home unlimited numbers of DVDs featuring porn or solicitations to buy and sell sex? Go out to any of the social networking sites and that’s exactly what is available up until members report the inappropriate content and the overworked site administrators get around to taking them down.

School districts across the globe are scrambling to keep up with blocking the newest social networking sites that pop up online seemingly overnight so as to safeguard our children while at school. Why then, like any other educator who cares about the well-being of our children, would I advocate un-blocking these potentially dangerous sites? Simply put, because when we block our portals, we close our eyes and leave millions of our kids out there alone, vulnerable, and unprotected. We have a duty to un-block access to social networking sites and get in there to help them understand this new connectedness, make informed choices, and lead the transformation toward a greater good.

Imagine if all we did was to not allow students to drink alcohol on campus and we assumed that we’d done enough to keep them safe. Of course, we’ve learned that we need to get out in front and teach them about the physical, emotional, and societal impact of alcohol abuse. We also show them graphic movies about gruesome possibilities of drinking and driving. We form on-campus Students Against Drunk Driving groups as alternatives to the peer pressure and ready availability of alcohol. Likewise, we don’t just create strongly worded rules and consequences for having, using, and selling drugs on campus and sit back believing that we’ve done all that we can to stem drug use among teens. We organize drug awareness programs, teach them about the biology of addiction, and role-play how to handle situations when peers pressure them to join in.

There are federal dollars, state grants, and private funds available for all schools to make sure we do everything we can to help our students understand risks, make good choices, and pick up the pieces if they find themselves in trouble with drugs, alcohol, sex, gangs, harassment, and crime. So why, then, are we not doing more when it comes to the newest life-threatening danger, the dozens of teen and adult online social networks, that our tech-savvy young people whisper about, spend hours on, and don’t ever intend to stop using?

For educators, technology skills are no longer a simple matter of knowing how to pull in interesting videos or images for in-class presentations. Now, at nano-speeds, becoming technologically competent is a matter of competing against compelling negative influences to ensure our children’s safety, well-being, and futures. We’ve got to get out there into cyber space and start showing our young people how to define the nature of this new social interaction instead of letting those who would exploit them for their own agendas determine how the power of the internet will be used.

We need to start podcasting (seewww.epnweb.org/index.php?view_mode=what) lessons and lectures and literature to those MP3 players they’ve got plugged into their ears every moment they can get away with it. We could start text messaging (see http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?printable=1&resID=2762) homework reminders to their cell phones we know they are checking every five minutes whether they are allowed to or not.

We ought to allow instant messaging on our classroom computers to encourage absent students to sign in and participate in class from home or from their cell phones. Instant messengers can be left open by teachers on their home computers so students can see that homework help (see www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/11/inservice.php) is also available each night when they log in to chat with their friends and whoever else is out there.

Yahoo groups (see http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Schools___Education/K-12) or class MySpaces can be included out in our students’ cyber neighborhoods where we can post class materials, questions and answers, help with assignments, and reminders that there’s more for them to do online than just surf and chat. Class MySpaces can be used to invite students from around the world to meet with our students and participate in productive projects instead of just strangers who comment on their personal spaces about the latest CD or party or worse.

Parents, teachers from other disciplines, and experts out in the “real world” can join in class blogs created by students or teachers to show them that interaction online can be about legitimate subjects any time and anywhere. As limitless as are the possibilities for negative encounters out in Web 2.0 (see www.shambles.net/pages/learning/ict/web2edu/) so too are the opportunities for connecting with the world, ideas, information, and creativity in positive ways if only we will un-block our own imaginations and our school portals and get into the game our students play at every day.

Our interests in creating a presence out in cyber space is not just to guide our young charges away from dangerous or negative influences. We have much more than that to learn and to teach.

We can join with them in the new genre of writing text messages and instant messages, show them how they are different in structure, content, and form from formal email and letter writing, and tap into their creativity by inspiring them to connect this new way of communicating with formal or classic modes.

Just what might a text messaging poem (see http://books.guardian.co.uk/games/mobilepoems/0,9405,450649,00.html) poem look like?

What kind of concise and compact story might they be inspired to create that does not exceed the maximum number of characters in a Yahoo message or a Twitter.com entry?

How could they incorporate the dialogue of an audible (see http://messenger.yahoo.com/intl/audibles.php (pre-programmed audio quips) into a narrative to help bring it to life and inspire more creativity? We should also be teaching them how to incorporate that resume that every English or Business class requires them to write into their MySpace or FaceBook profiles to impress scholarship committees, college recruiters, and employers.

We could show them how the videos they love to include on their spaces might help them promote their community service projects and attract financial contributors or volunteers.

We could, however, just continue sitting behind blocked content warnings and let the next generation stumble in the middle of the information highway without so much as warning them to look both ways before crossing into a new digital neighborhood. Or we can get logged in, lead the dialogue and the content, and guide them in building social networks that will benefit their lives and our increasingly interconnected world. If we don’t, the headlines are full of terrifying stories of who might.

NEXT CREATIVITY!

Do schools quash students' enthusiasm for learning?

Here’s a quick task for you… Look up your local school or district’s vision statement. Chances are it looks something like this:

• Barker Road Middle School is an educationally progressive student-centered learning community committed to excellence through an integrated educational program, with focus on excitement for life-long learning and a responsibility to provide a caring and harmonious multi-cultural environment.
• The mission of the Goldendale School District, in partnership with the family and community, is to provide an educational foundation that promotes integrity, self-worth, and lifelong learning, while developing healthy, productive, responsible members of society.
• The purpose of the [Chatfield Senior High] community is to create, with our students, an atmosphere of academic excellence and respect by providing educational and extra-curricular opportunities, encouraging life-long learning and responsibility, while promoting diversity and school pride.

I’d venture to say that 90 to 95 percent of school and school districts’ vision/mission statements probably have something in them about lifelong learning, lifelong learners, etc.

Now, let’s contrast this widespread phenomena with the fact that most students generally leave K-12 education with less enthusiasm for learning than when they entered. For example, most kindergarteners and first graders entering the system are excited, energized, engaged, and happy. Does this describe your district’s high school seniors? Do twelfth-graders exhibit the same love of learning - the same thrill of engagement with academic material - as when they entered the district 12 years previous? Probably not.

So what’s happening? An occasional inspiring teacher aside, why do students become more apathetic about formal learning the more time they spend in our schools? What is it about our educational system that (dare I say it?) beats the academic enthusiasm out of our children? We have good, caring, dedicated people serving as teachers and administrators. Most of them have training in effective pedagogy and child/adolescent development. So what’s going on?

In his work on learning organizations, Peter Senge notes that

Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning we re-create ourselves. Through learning we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning we reperceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning.

Presumably this is what a school system is striving for when it says that its vision - its ultimate mission - is to foster lifelong learning and nurture lifelong learners. And yet these lofty, inspiring words are increasingly inapplicable as we go up the grades. I think that’s both sad and a damning indictment.

What would it take for your local school or district to come closer to its own rhetoric?

Posted by Scott McLeod on March 28, 2007 11:35 PM | Permalink

Comments

I had a great conversation, f2f, with a parent today who has a child not enthusiastic about school. The parent was looking for a way to put some excitement into the student day. This student has a laptop, so I suggested iTunes and listening to podcasts from the University podcast selections or from Math podcasts.The parent asked why this hadn't been brought up as an option. The lightbulb came on, we techno people love this stuff, and no matter how much we talk and gather great sites, we, I , need to post this information for parents and teachers in a more explicit way. Off to make another blog! Thanks Scott.

Posted by: Cheryl Oakes | March 29, 2007 1:18 AM

I believe a major contributing factor is that teachers teach within a learning style that is closest to what they would want and/or enjoy. This is not necessarily the case of the students themselves.

I have worked with a librarian flat refuse to add e-books to a library collection because she doesn't understand how someone could read a book without having the feel of the book while she is doing it...

Additionally... We have some faculty that do not want students writing essays on computers because the Illinois Standard Assessment Tests have a writing portion. Our scores might be compromised if they are not well prepared to hand-write their essays.

Students are not as tech savvy as many people believe, but they are savvy enough to realize how much of their time is wasted writing one on paper.

Posted by: Scott Meech | March 29, 2007 4:06 AM

Scott, interesting that you bring this up. Here's a study you might be interested in, which notes that students who are used to using the computer underperform on handwritten state writing assessments:

http://tinyurl.com/22gh7o

"de-emphasizing computers in schools to better prepare students for low-tech tests – may be pragmatic, given the high stakes attached to many state tests. But they may be shortsighted in light of students’ entry into an increasingly high tech
world."

Posted by: Scott McLeod | March 29, 2007 2:37 PM

Until teachers get away from being a sage on the stage things aren't going to change. They've got to give up control, a terrifying prospect for most, and give control back to the students. Use different types of media to engage different types of learners, and give them responsibility for their own learning. What would make you more interested in history... reading a 20 year old textbook or walking thru history in 2nd life? 2nd life hands down.

Posted by: Jennifer J | April 2, 2007 3:34 PM

Life-long learning is just one of the platitudes that appear in vision statements. "Including all stakeholders" is another, and that rarely means students, the largest stakeholder group of all. Student enthusiasm, engagement, life-long learning and empowerment are all pieces of the same puzzle.

Vision without a corresponding action plan is meaningless. This whitepaper gives districts a path to add student leadership to technology plans to better support the district vision. http://tinyurl.com/2eve7g

Posted by: sylvia martinez | April 3, 2007 6:04 PM

This discussion reminds me of one I participated in as a Science teacher several years ago. The title of that workshop session was "How to Instill Curiosity in Your Students", or some such thing.

It was a really weak session, with lots of platitudes, until a research physicist, who was not a Teacher in the common sense, told the crowd that the premise of the discussion was absurd- students come to us with way more curiosity than is healthy, and our goal should be to stifle enough of it so that they could survive until adulthood. The art, of course, was in stifling only that much, and no more.

That comment changed the discussion completely, and for the better.

Posted by: Brian Scholin | April 3, 2007 6:27 PM

I teach in an alternative high school were students are placed because they either have attendance problems, a lack of credit, safe school violations, and many other reasons. I find that these students are, for the most part, intelligent, creative, good kids who have made some mistakes.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that many of these students have a preferred learning style that probably was not addressed in the regular high school. They are hands-on, visual, or aural learners and did not do well. After a while of not being successful or not getting the one-on-one help they needed they lost their desire to learn.

Once they receive instruction that is interesting and geared toward their personal learning preferences, and they are supplied with strategies to help them in situations when lessons are not presented in their personal learning style these students begin to turn around and become successful. Using projects, cooperative learning, multimedia lessons, and other creative learning strategies teachers are able to show these students that they can learn.

When this happens they understand that they can learn and they do become lifelong learners.

Yet another thing that helps students to gain a desire to learn is if the teacher can at least tell the students why the teacher himself likes the discipline he is teaching. Share with the student his/her passion for their subject. Then the student won’t say, “When am I ever going to use this?” Share the passion, if the teacher likes to learn, the student might catch on too!

Posted by: Grant Harkness | April 3, 2007 9:44 PM

Absolutely love the Peter Senge reference of whom I have been a devote and advocate for years.

It has been said that "curiosity killed the cat" but I would add that "creativity gave it nine lives."

Perhaps a more fitting contextual question would read "Do Schools Quash Creativity?" Therein, we may discover the problem and solution.

Posted by: Jim Ross | April 4, 2007 11:45 AM

From Organic Creativity EMERGES Innovation!

In this ground-breaking book, Otto Scharmer invites us to see the world in new ways. Fundamental problems, as Einstein once noted, cannot be solved at the same level of thought that created them. What we pay attention to, and how we pay attention - both individually and collectively - is key to what we create. What often prevents us from "attending" is what Scharmer calls our "blind spot," the inner place from which each of us operates. Learning to become aware of our blind spot is critical to bringing forth the profound systemic changes so needed in business and society today.

First introduced in Presence, the "U" methodology of leading profound change is expanded and deepened in Theory U. By moving through the "U" process we learn to connect to our essential Self in the realm of presencing - a term coined by Scharmer that combines the present with sensing. Here we are able to see our own blind spot and pay attention in a way that allows us to experience the opening of our minds, our hearts, and our wills. This wholistic opening constitutes a shift in awareness that allows us to learn from the future as it emerges, and to realize that future in the world.

Theory U explores a new territory of scientific research and personal leadership, one that is grounded in real life experience and shared practices. Scharmer shares much from his own personal and professional development, and draws from a rich diversity of compelling stories and examples. Readers will find themselves drawn to new ways of thinking and acting as they read, completing a parallel journey of exploration and discovery. The final chapters lay out principles and practices that allow everyone to participate fully in co-creating and bringing forth the desired future that is working to emerge through us.

Introduction
http://www.solonline.org/theoryu/excerpt/

Frontpiece Foreward PDF
http://www.solonline.org/repository/download/TUfrontmatter.pdf?item_id=9241151

Intorduction PDF
http://www.solonline.org/repository/download/TUch00intro.pdf?item_id=9241149

CUBE Report on Schools "Where We Teach": And we don't mean "Ice Cube"

Many teachers see failure in students' future

More teachers than administrators agree or strongly agree with the statement:

"Most students at this school would not be successful at a community college or university."

Strongly disagree/disagree
• Teachers: 58.1%
• Administrators: 85.2%

Agree/strongly agree
• Teachers: 23.6%
• Administrators: 7%

Not sure
• Teachers: 18.4%
• Administrators: 7.4%

Source: National School Boards Association

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Ask a teacher whether her students are on track to earn a college degree, and she'll probably say "Sure."

Grant her anonymity, and you may get a different point of view.

In a wide-ranging survey being released Tuesday, nearly one in four teachers in urban schools paint a sobering picture of students there. They say most children "would not be successful at a community college or university."

Even more say students "are not motivated to learn."

In all, 23.6% of public school teachers at all levels say success in college would elude most students in their school. An additional 18% say they aren't sure.

The results were surprising even to the study's author, Brian Perkins, a professor of education law and policy at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Conn.

"I anticipated that there would be some teachers who feel that way," he says. "What I did not anticipate was the number who responded that they didn't think students would be successful."

White teachers seem to have the bleakest view: 24.5% predict failure in college, higher than among black (22.1%) or Hispanic (17.6%) teachers.

Administrators paint a rosier picture: Only 7% predict the same for their students. But 15.6% say their students "are not motivated to learn."

Part of the problem could be a perceived lack of support from parents: 57% of teachers say parents "are supportive" of the school and its activities; 28% say parents aren't supportive.

John Mitchell, director of educational issues for the American Federation of Teachers, says the findings could be largely the result of events that happened in the day or so before the survey.

"You go through a lot in a day, and you have days when you feel optimistic and days when you don't," he says.

But he says the results shouldn't be considered "a statement of (teachers') aspirations for the kids — it may very well be a statement that these kids aren't getting enough to make it through college."

Other findings:

•One in eight teachers say their school is not a safe place.

•65.8% of black administrators say children are bullied regularly at their school; only 49.3% of white administrators and 29.7% of Hispanic administrators say the same.

The survey on school climate is among the largest teacher surveys ever. Sponsored by the National School Boards Association, it queried 4,700 educators from 127 schools in 12 urban districts. It has a margin of error of plus/minus 3 percentage points.

To see the full survey, visit www.nsba.org/cube/whereweteach.

Take a little off the TOP!

POLITICALLY SPEAKING: School boss tries a new look

March 28, 2007

State schools Superintendent Mike Flanagan brought an electric razor on stage when he spoke at the Governor's Education Summit in Lansing Monday.

Then, in front of several hundred school officials gathered for lunch, he began to trim his beard.

BZZZZ!

Twice during his 20-minute presentation, he took the razor to his gray foliage to illustrate his theme that school officials must transform themselves to educate kids in an increasingly competitive global economy.

When he removed a little more mustache than he wanted, he joked, "I'm going for the Pennsylvania Dutch look." (Apparently, Flanagan decided later for aesthetic reasons to take it all off, and he showed up for work Tuesday clean-shaven.)

He told the crowd Monday, "I want to burn into your brains that this is about our decisions ... All kids can do it if we're willing to transform."

Tell that to Britney Spears.

The FUTURE is NOW!

Classrooms for the Future

Colonial School District is among the first districts to receive a "Classrooms for the Future" grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

By News Staff

In September 2006, Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell announced "Classrooms for the Future," an initiative to transform the high school learning experience. The program will put a laptop computer on every high school English, math, science and social studies desk and provide teachers with a multimedia workstation and intensive training to enhance education. The governor's 2006-07 budget provided $20 million for the first year of the initiative, with plans to expand the program statewide.

An additional $6 million in state and federal resources will be used to train teachers and administrators on how to best harness the power of technology to enhance classroom discussions, lessons and projects.

In addition to the laptops, each classroom will be equipped with an interactive whiteboard and projector, Web cams and other video cameras. Teachers and students will also have access to imaging software.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education's Web site, Classrooms for the Future "is designed to ensure there is a laptop on every high school classroom desk in English, Math, Science and Social Studies in all public high schools and career and technical centers in Pennsylvania ... High school students are poised to enter the global marketplace or to continue their education beyond preK-12 and it is our obligation to prepare them within a short window of opportunity." Seventy-nine school districts were selected to participate in the first year of the program.

The Colonial School District is among the first districts to receive a Classrooms for the Future grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The $202,539 grant is among the largest issued to a single school and will be used to purchase 192 wireless student laptops for classroom use the Plymouth Whitemarsh High School (PWHS) Social Studies Department, as well as provide staff development and training.

The entire PWHS campus was equipped with wireless capability as part of an extensive upgrade of technology resources. Interactive whiteboards and high-powered digital overhead presenters connected directly to a video/data projector for real-time viewing were installed in 52 classrooms in time for the start of the school year. There are presently 90 of these classrooms engaging students in the Colonial School District this fall. An additional 32 classrooms are scheduled to be online for the 2007-08 school year thanks to the ongoing support of the community and the school board of directors.

"This grant confirms that the Colonial School District has been on the cutting edge of technology and the use of technology to deliver curriculum for the past three years," said Superintendent Dr. Vincent F. Cotter. "From extensive use of data analysis to interactive classrooms, Colonial has been a leader in utilizing technology to educate our students. This grant gives us the impetus to accelerate our technology implementation schedule."

As part of its Classrooms of the Future Grant, Colonial uses a server-based digital video delivery system, a pre-screened academic content search engine, Internet2 and conferencing solutions. In spring 2006, middle school students learned about Australia's Great Barrier Reef through a video conference with instructors from down under.

The district Web site is an integral portal for students, teachers, parents, community members and school board members to stay informed on major developments taking place in the district. The K-12 social studies curriculum is online and available to all stakeholders. Resources aligned with the curriculum are also available via the Web site. Teachers have created best practice lessons that can be implemented and shared using all of the technologies available; this model is currently being applied to other content areas such as language arts, science and math. The district continues to expand the framework, moving to a portal solution to provide all the instructional tools necessary for the 21st century classroom.

Laptop equipment from the Classrooms for the Future grant is expected to be released to the district first as one of selected pilot schools ready for implementation into the classroom instructional program. The 192 wireless laptops are just the first phase in the Classrooms for the Future grant from PDE. Approximately 720 additional laptops will be brought online in the next two years, pending finding approval by the Pennsylvania Legislature. Those laptops will support the language arts, math and science curriculum.

Classrooms for the Future is a $250 million, three-year comprehensive high school reform project that leverages all of Pennsylvania's education efforts. The program recognizes and embraces the need for high school reform, enables teachers to use technology as an effective tool for educating students and prepares students to enter and successfully compete in the ever-expanding high-tech global marketplace.

School Begins "Long-Slog" into Digital Irrelevance!

Parents back school's MySpace ban

March 24, 2007

BY FRANK WITSIL

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

On the first day of a strict policy banning students at St. Hugo of the Hills Catholic School from using social networking Web sites, administrators and parents were online ferreting out those who had yet to comply.

"You get to know their code names," Judy Martinek, the school's office manager, said Friday.

Sister Margaret Van Velzen, principal of the Bloomfield Hills school, said the policy took effect Friday in response to concerns about students posting "nasty things on the Internet," and as an attempt to keep the children safe.

Van Velzen said Friday she does not know of any other school with such a policy, nor had she received complaints about it.

"I have not had one parent who is opposed to this," she said.

Still, as technology becomes more accessible, St. Hugo's new policy raises questions for educators. How, for example, will schools control Internet access when free wireless access becomes available through all of Oakland County in 2008? Or, as prices drop for handheld phones that connect to the Web and more students get them, what then?

"There are so many changes in technology," said Marcia Wilkinson, director of community relations for the Birmingham public schools. "A lot of issues are coming up that people were not dealing with even a year ago."

Social networking sites, such as MySpace, market themselves as places in cyberspace for people to meet and communicate, often connecting using clever aliases. But, law enforcement officials say, children who join these sites may be putting themselves in harm's way -- especially from sexual predators.

St. Hugo, which runs from kindergarten through eighth grade, also enacted the policy because it wanted to eliminate unhealthy competition among young students who were comparing the number of people in their network, Van Velzen said. One student, she said, bragged of linking with as many as 800 others.

The school's policy also raises the question: How much control can a school exert beyond the classroom?

Officials in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne County public schools -- and University Liggett School, a private pre-kindergarten through 12th grade school in Grosse Pointe Woods -- said they leave it up to parents to decide whether students can use MySpace, or other similar sites, at home.

"Schools have to be responsible for students when they're at school, but with the blurring of the lines of virtual and real-world education, where are the lines?" said Linda Wacky, director of communications for the Michigan Association of School Administrators in Lansing. Melodye Bush, a researcher with the Education Commission of the States, said she has never heard of another school enacting such a policy and has doubts about whether it is constitutional. The commission is a Denver-based think-tank that tracks education trends nationwide.

St. Hugo has had a policy prohibiting its 773 students from posting offensive or inappropriate comments and pictures on the Web for years, Van Velzen said. But the new policy went a step further by banning students from using MySpace and other similar sites all together. Under the policy, students who refuse to delete their accounts will be suspended.

"People know the difference between using social networking for a good reason and for things that would be hurtful," Van Velzen said.

Under MySpace rules, children 14 years and younger should not have a presence on the site anyway, but, Van Velzen said, the company does not adequately enforce that, and many students simply lie about their age. St. Hugo students with sites who were caught Friday were told to dismantle them.

Contact FRANK WITSIL at 248-351-3690 or witsil@freepress.com.

Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.