UNA Presentation

On Tuesday Anne Smith and I will be presenting at the University of North Alabama. This post is to link to the web page in support of that presentation for future reference, and as a place for UNA folks to provide feedback or ask questions in the comments.

Not Your Parents’ Parent-Teacher Conferences

At Arapahoe, we hold parent-teacher conferences in both the fall (two nights) and the spring (one night). Teachers are available from 4:00 until 7:30 each night for 5-7 minute conversations with parents. Parents are strongly encouraged to attend, but it is optional.

Many teachers at Arapahoe have been frustrated by how often those conferences tend to focus on grades, with parents wanting to know what students need to do to get their C to a B, or their B to an A. We are asking our students to really focus on the learning, not the grade, so it’s frustrating when this opportunity to talk with parents so often focuses on the grade (especially because they have real-time access to teachers’ gradebooks through our Infinite Campus Parent Portal).

This year Anne Smith was one teacher that decided to try something different.

Instead of concentrating on my students' progress via their grades in class, I conducted conferences with their learning as the focus. I asked my students to reflect on their learning based on the following questions:

• Assess your learning in class so far this semester. Look at your participation, growth in writing, comprehension, etc..
  
• Where, in terms of your learning, do you want to be at the end of the semester?
  
• How are you going to get there?
  
• What can I do to help?
  
• Write a message to your parents.

The students then were asked to bring home a copy of their learning assessment for their parents to read before conferences as well as place a copy in my class drop box for me to access at conferences.

It seemed to work well.

What was difficult about this whole process was that 5 minutes for conferences was definitely not long enough. I had actual conversations with parents about their child and feel like I took away more from them about how their child is growing as a learner, or how their child needs to grow as a learner. I felt like I listened as much as I talked which is a huge change from the way I participated in conferences before. I was the one relaying all my information to the parent rather than allowing them to give me insight into their child and react to what their child had written.

Click through to her post to read samples of what some students’ wrote, and also read the 47 comments (as of this writing) from both students and parents. Because Anne took it a step farther,

I am going to ask my students and hopefully their parents to comment on this process as well. Yep, that's right I want the parents to create blogger accounts as well so they can participate in the conversation. After all, that was my goal all around to create a conversation about learning.

Definitely not your parents’ parent-teacher conferences.

From talking with Anne I think this worked very well, but I agree with her that 5-7 minutes is not enough for these important conversations (it was usually more than enough to talk about grades.) I also think we should have students at these conferences, although what Anne did was the next best thing. The more we can have students, parents, and teachers involved in conversations centered around learning, not simply grades, the better.

Additions To The Fischbowl

Blogger recently added the option to subscribe to a particular comments thread via email. This makes it much easier to follow a conversation on a particular post. When you comment, there’s now an option to get all follow-up comments to that post emailed to you. While other blogging software has had this for awhile, this is a nice addition for those of us who use Blogger. (Of course, if you’re really a glutton, you can subscribe via RSS or email to all the comments on The Fischbowl.)

For the three of you who actually visit The Fischbowl web page itself, as opposed to reading it in your aggregator, I’ve also added a few features.

I added the AnswerTips feature, which allows you to double-click on any word and small bubbles of information pop up from Answers.com. If you try it out, let me know how it works for you. If you have your own blog, here’s where you get the code to enable this on your blog. If you use Firefox, you can download an extension that will allow you to do this on any web page by alt-clicking (or right-clicking and choosing from the menu that appears). If you use Windows, you can enable this in all of your applications by installing this little app. Mac users can get a dashboard widget or enable it in their apps. I think this could be a handy little tool for students as they read unfamiliar words on their computers (in addition to the reading strategies we already teach them.)

I also added to the sidebar links to the latest five posts from the blogs of the cohort 1 teachers in my staff development, the cohort 2 teachers, and from their class blogs (scroll down a little to see them all). This is in addition to the links to the blogs themselves that were already there. Since there are a lot of blogs and some of the folks aren’t particularly prolific, this allows visitors to see at a glance who’s posted lately. I’m still thinking about how to incorporate this onto our Learning Network page on our school’s website (which currently has just my shared Google Reader items on it).

Digital Native Photo Of The Day

I know many folks are not enamored anymore with the digital natives versus digital immigrants analogy, but that was the most apt description I could come up with for the photo I’ll share with you in a minute.

As many of you know, I have a seven year old daughter. Most folks assume that since she’s my daughter, and because I’m perceived to be technically adept, that she must be immersed in technology. Well, she’s not. She uses a computer some and she does have a blog that she occasionally posts to, but I would guess that she’s less technologically literate than the average seven year old. Actually, I should clarify that comment; she’s less technologically literate than the average American, middle class seven year old. She’s certainly more literate than the millions of seven year olds in the U.S. and around the world that have little or no access to technology, but that’s a topic for a different post.

But she now has a new interest in the computer because a little over a week ago her friend (also seven) introduced her to Webkinz and my daughter decided to spend some of her savings to purchase a Webkinz (in her case, a black lab she named Jack). If you aren’t familiar with Webkinz, the 20-second description is that you purchase a stuffed animal, but you also go online and virtually take care of your Webkinz – play with it, feed it, play games to accumulate Webkinz money to buy it food, furniture, etc. This happened to be two days before we were leaving town for a week. (My wife and daughter are on fall break and my school feels guilty for me working basically all summer so lets me take a week off during the year if I want.)

We went to visit my in-laws in Florida. They live full-time in an RV and spend the winters in Orlando (where they lived before they retired to the RV), so we stayed at an apartment for guests on the RV campground. Like many RV campgrounds, you can get high-speed, wireless Internet access for a fee (often it’s free, but it cost us $20 for the week). I took a laptop with me so that I could do a little work each night after she went to sleep, and we thought that she might like to wind down each night after very full and active days at Disney/Sea World/the beach by spending a little time in Webkinz World.

Well, she did want to do that and that worked pretty well. But on about the third night, her seven year old friend calls on the cell phone and wonders if Abby would like to get on Webkinz World and see her “room” (the room she’s built for one of her Webkinz). So, that led to this picture (not posed). Take a look and then I’ll talk some more about why I thought it blog-worthy.

So, we’re in Florida. Abby’s seven year old friend is in Colorado. They are talking on the cell phone. Abby is sitting in an RV campground using a Dell laptop connected wirelessly to the Internet. Her friend is sitting at home on an iMac that is connected wirelessly to their cable Internet connection. And they are interacting in Webkinz world, with Abby’s friend talking her through a few things since Abby is a newbie and the friend has at least several months of experience (“It works better in Firefox.”) At one point I had to help with something, so I get on the phone and Abby’s friend talks me through it – much to the amusement of my father-in-law. The rest of the time the girls were fine on their own.

Now, this is not an exceptionally powerful example of an educational use of technology (although from what I’ve seen so far, Webkinz World doesn’t look too bad). But it brought home to me once again what a different world my daughter is growing up in compared to the world I grew up in.

Her world at seven: cell phone with free long distance, laptop, wireless broadband access, interactive web-based software. (And if I’d brought a webcam they could’ve videoconferenced as well.)

My world at seven: wired phone (I think just one in the house), we didn’t use long distance except for very special occasions because it was so expensive, no computer, no Internet (much less wireless, broadband, or web-based software), and certainly no videoconferencing. (Coincidentally, when I was seven, Intel released what’s generally considered the first microprocessor – the 4004 with 2300 transistors. Today, Intel is about to release the Penryn chip with 820 million transistors.)

Some folks may argue that they prefer my world at seven, but that’s not what this post is about. What this post is about is the fact that none of this fazed Abby. She doesn’t think it’s fantastic or outrageous, cool or amazing – it just is. She just thinks this is the way the world is – she can connect pretty much effortlessly to others across space and time - and she’s right. That doesn’t negate the fact that she had a great time at Disney/Sea World/the beach, or that she would’ve enjoyed the vacation just as much if she hadn’t happened to be introduced to Webkinz just before we left. But I think this is hugely important as we think about her education, her expectations, her capabilities, and what’s going to be possible as she grows older.

She's a native. She's connected. It just is. Shift Happens.

Geeky Thought For The Day

As seen on someone's t-shirt today.

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary numbers and those that don't.

I warned you it was geeky.

Update 10-27-07: John pointed out in the comments that you can order this shirt online. Please note that I have no knowledge of this company nor am I recommending it.

Wikified Personal Philosophy Statements

Kristin Kakos's students are getting personal on a wiki:

One challenge that faces me each year is how to achieve cohesion between in-class activities, homework assignments, class discussions, creative projects, and essays (not to mention cohesion between units and semesters). With the guidance of the brilliant and charming Mike Porter, my students and I have discovered the glory of wikispaces.

In my American Literature classes, my students each formed a personal philosophy statement that will form the focus for the semester, and perhaps even for the year. Many of their philosophy statements explore the root of evil, the impetus for rebellion and/or obedience, the destructive force of fear, the significance of vulnerability, and other concepts that emerge from early American literature.

She links to four of her students' wikis that are partially completed, so you should visit her post and click through to the wikis. You can leave constructive comments on her post or on the discussion tabs of each wiki.

I really like this part of what Kristin writes,

I like using wikispaces because the technology doesn't get in the way; a wikispace is essentially a 21st century folder that allows for almost any type of media, emphasizes professionalism, encourages feedback, and lasts as long as you want it to, unlike a notebook that you clear out at the end of each semester. We'll keep coming back to the wikispaces throughout the semester and adding to them, and hopefully by the end of the semester they'll be able to look over their work and their ideas say, "THIS is the little piece of my soul that grew in American Literature," whether they focused on hope, goodness, evil, or any other personal topic that found its way out of a seemingly boring Puritan text.

Personal Learning Network Presentations

I’ve blogged previously about our forays into the world of Personal Learning Networks. Anne Smith blogs over on Learning and Laptops about the first presentations her ninth graders gave about their personal learning networks.

Last Friday, I had our first group of students present on their personal learning network. I used this rubric to evaluate their presentation as well as had the class access the student blog he/she was referencing to leave real time comments about the presentation (we pulled up the blog and had it appear via our overhead projectors). While the student was speaking, the class reacted to the presentation. The instantaneous feedback the students provided was valuable to the presenter. If a classmate did not feel comfortable offering oral feedback in our class debriefing, the evaluator could reference his/her blog and see what reactions the class had to the presentation.

She then goes on to provide some examples of the feedback from the students – you should check it out.

In a subsequent post, she also links to the audio of some of the students' presentations (recorded with an iPod and an XtremeMac MicroMemo). These were their first attempts at this, so please only offer constructive criticism.

Update: Jessie Comp just posted about her experiences as well.

The Most Successful PLC

So, Will pointed me to this New York Times article An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers:

Unlike Mr. bin Laden, the blogger was not operating from a remote location. It turns out he is a 21-year-old American named Samir Khan who produces his blog from his parents’ home in North Carolina, where he serves as a kind of Western relay station for the multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups.

I think there’s a lot to think about there (a whole lot), but it also reminded me of something someone said at a recent convening I attended. I don’t mean to offend anyone with the following statement, but I think it’s also worth thinking about. They made the statement that the most successful Professional Learning Community they knew of was Al Qaeda. They have a passion for their subject, are trying to meet a perceived need, have individual cells that are operating both independently and in conjunction to try to achieve their goals, make effective use of technology, and have a strong belief they can change the world.

The point this person was making was two-fold (I think). First, that PLC’s aren’t necessarily a good thing in and of themselves - even if they’re successful - it depends on their purpose and goals. So as we utilize PLC’s in our schools, we need to keep in mind that the goal is not successful PLC’s, the goal is student learning and growth.

And second, that a small group of people with passion, commitment, and a belief they can make a difference can change the world. If our PLC’s operate with those same attributes and beliefs, then why can’t we change our schools – and the world - for the better? This brings to mind two of my favorite quotes,

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead

Some men see things as they are and ask "Why?"
I dream things that never were and ask, "Why not?"
– Robert Kennedy

I think as we work on our school's vision and implementing PLC's, we need to continue to ask, "Why not?"

21C Vision Discussion

This post is for a discussion we're having today in our staff development. Everyone else is welcome to follow along, of course.

• Envision our school five years from now. In what significant ways would you like it to be different than it is today?
  
• What could we accomplish in the next five years that would make us proud?
  
• Describe a school that functions as a model of a professional learning community. What are its key characteristics? How is it functioning?

20 To Watch

Well, since Scott outed me, I suppose I should link to the NSBA’s “20 to Watch.”

This is certainly a nice honor, but like the article in the paper the other day, it feels a little strange. Since most of what I do is simply write about what other folks are doing, either in my building or elsewhere, I’m not sure I’m real comfortable being the one singled out. So, if you’re a teacher in my school, or if you’re someone who I’ve written about previously, consider yourself “one of many to watch.”

And congrats to the other folks on the list, especially Scott and Gary Stager, the two other folks that I "know."

Update 10-24-07: NSBA has added podcasts for a few folks. They interviewed us over the phone and then edited them way down. Here's mine (or direct mp3 file 3 minutes, 2.75 MB) - not as bad as I feared.

YouTube 101

Over on the EMAC blog I learned about a class being offered at Pitzer College on YouTube. It’s a media studies class learning about YouTube and often using YouTube to teach the class. Where can you find out more about it? Well, on YouTube.



You can also read more about it at Inside Higher Ed. So, UC Berkeley and USC now have YouTube channels, Pangea Day will be on YouTube, and now this media studies course. But students in my district have to watch this at home, and my staff has to use their override. Hmm.

Here's a bunch more about the class.

Did You Know? - PE Version

Barry Bachenheimer gave an assignment to his grad students recently:

This past week, our topic has been the idea of "What skills do students need to be successful in the 21st century?" In addition to some rich discussion, the class viewed Did You Know, read excerpts from Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, and read excerpts from Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat.

The "homework assignment" I assigned for the class last week was:

Thinking about Friedman, Pink, Fisch, and the other authors and ideas you've been exposed to in class this week, create your own "mash up" video in the form of "Did You Know" or "180". The video has no set length but should question, ponder, expose, consider, inform any of the ideas from this class that you would want to share. You can select who your "audience" would be; a colleague, your department, your school, your principal, this class, the world. etc.

Once I got over seeing "Friedman, Pink and Fisch" in the same sentence, my favorite was this one by Lindsey. I really like the first line:

Did You Know . . . If we don't teach our children to take care of themselves now, they won't be around for the jobs that don't exist yet.

She then goes on to make a great argument for the importance and necessity of physical education in our schools.



This is from YouTube, so LPS students you'll need to view at home, staff you'll need to use your overrides.

Rock The Web National Youth Presidential Forum

Rock The Web (via Jim Gates):

On November 14, 2007, The EWN Foundation together with the Lou Frey Institute of Politics and Government at The University of Central Florida, The Presidential Classroom and The United States Association of Former Members of Congress will conduct a three hour National Youth Presidential Forum (NYPF). The NYPF will be webcast to an estimated 25 million students, who will be first time voters.

Presidential Candidates will participate in the Forum from remote locations of their choice. The candidates will field questions from a moderator and students representing the Presidential Classroom. After the webcast, students will participate in an on-line vote for the candidate they would choose in the 2008 Presidential Election. Student's feedback about the candidates' responses will be collected and provided to the candidates after the event.

Each student will receive a login code from their teacher, 7-10 days before the event. They will pre-register to vote at www.rocktheweb.org. There will be pre-event class work assigned by the teachers. Then each student will attend the event at their respective venues. After the event, each student will receive a unique ballot code that will enable them to return to the web site and cast a vote and complete a survey about the Forum.

Teachers can sign up their schools to be notified when they can register online. The program looks pretty interesting, including speakers David Broder, Thomas Mann, and Stephen Wayne.

Social Studies teachers start your engines . . .

Two More Conversation Starters

Thanks to an email from Darren Draper, who pointed me to this post on Jeff Vandrimmelen’s blog, and then a reminder from an all too rare post from Bud, I wanted to share these two videos from Michael Wesch.

You can read much more about the first video, including how they created it:

This video was created by myself and the 200 students enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Spring 2007. It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in.

The second video

. . . explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

Sorry LPS students, you’ll have to watch these from home because they’re blocked by the filter. LPS teachers, you can use your filter override to watch these. Click on either of the following links, which will give you the access denied screen, then use your override (if you haven’t done this yet, I can show you how). Once you override the filter to watch the first one, you should be able to watch the second one right after it without typing in your override again. (BTW, when the override is in effect, you should also be able to see the embedded videos above, although you may have to refresh the page before they show.)

Direct link to A Vision of Students Today

Direct link to Information R/evolution

Bill Richardson 08 Education Question

I was contacted today by the Richardson campaign (that would be Bill, not Will, although I’d definitely sign up for Will’s campaign) and asked to participate in a conference call with Governor Bill Richardson today about his education plan. Well, okay, participate might not be the right word, as I never got to ask a question and it didn’t feel too much like a conversation. (Chris Lehmann was similarly frustrated, as we Skype-chatted during the call.) I know, probably awfully naïve of me to assume it would be any different, but sometimes you gotta have hope.

But then it occurred to me, “Hey, I have a blog!” I can still ask my question (see below). Or, better yet, maybe a bunch of us could ask some questions. So, faithful readers (I always wanted to keyboard that), the challenge has now been issued. Read through Governor Richardson’s speech about his plan (or read the PDF summary they emailed us when we were contacted about two hours before the call), and come up with a meaningful question. (Oh, you also only get an hour to work on it - that's when I got to the email - and have to be doing your regular job at the same time, just to be fair.) If you blog about it, consider tagging it with BR08EDQ (Bill Richardson 08 Education Question) so that they can find it, and leaving the URL in the comments to this post. I’m going to email the URL of this post to the “Director of Online Outreach” at the Richardson campaign to see if we can continue the conversation.

I had a hard time coming up with a question in that short amount of time (while doing other things – I know, excuses, excuses) that would work in this format (non-conversational), was directly related to his plan, and really got at some of the 21st century learning issues that we’ve been thinking about. So, I came up with one that sort of sideways came at it, but I didn’t like it that much.

Governor, you have a statement in your plan about rigor, relevance and relationships. Too often in education I feel like rigor is defined as simply “harder” or “more homework.” It seems like folks are saying that what we’ve been doing isn’t working, so let’s just require more of it. Instead, I think often what we should be asking is, “Are we doing the right things in the first place?” Can you talk a little bit more about how you define rigor and what are the key skills, abilities and habits of mind that our students need to be successful in the 21st century?

I was also ready with a brilliant closing after he answered my question. In the conference call he stated that he would name a “teacher as Secretary of Education.” So, my closing was going to be (if I didn’t chicken out),

Thank you, Governor. And I’d be happy to volunteer to be that teacher who’s your Secretary of Education.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Chris’s first question was about alternative assessment, but someone asked a very similar question (a real-live educator, although I didn’t catch his name – I think all the other questions were from reporters). So he scrambled and came up with this one (I helped a little bit with the end of the second sentence).

With the One Laptop Per Child mission, we are soon to see millions of students in the developing world use laptops in their learning every day. You want to see American education move into the 21st Century, what would you do to provide American students with the same opportunities for connectedness and collaboration?

I think I like Chris’s question better. Too bad he didn’t get to ask his either. Of course, I’m not sure either of our questions aren’t fairly easily talked around by an experienced politician. I’m not trying to be overly critical here, I can’t imagine what it’s like for these candidates, but I wish there was a better way to get straightforward, fairly specific answers to some of these questions.

I’m not sure how I feel about this experience. Should I feel flattered that they picked my blog and invited me? Should I feel frustrated that I didn’t get to ask my question? Should I demand to be Secretary of Education as compensation? OK, probably not that last one. But I do find it interesting that the campaigns are trying to reach out in some way to our network, even if they haven’t quite figured out the best way to do it. It will be interesting to see if (and how) they respond to my/our questions. Maybe we can start an Election ’08 Edublog Debate (trademark pending) . . .

Welcome Rocky Mountain News Readers

For those of you visiting the blog for the first time because of this article in the Rocky Mountain News, welcome to the conversation. This blog’s primary purpose is in support of our staff development efforts at Arapahoe High School. To learn more about the purpose of this particular blog, you might read About This Blog or The Beginning.

If you’re more interested in the Did You Know? presentation (original version or version 2.0), then visit this page on the wiki. You can click through the various posts to read through the history of the presentation that took on a life of its own (and much more info available on other pages on the wiki). You might also want to visit Scott McLeod's blog, as Scott played a large role in the spread of the presentation. If you’re interested in 2020 Vision or some of the other presentations, then visit the presentations page to find the presentations and links to the original posts for context. Please keep in mind all of these were intended to be the start of the conversation, not the end of the conversation, and should be viewed in that context.

If you’d like to read some more folks that are trying to figure out what our students need in order to be successful in the 21st century, then check out these bloggers. Thanks for joining the conversation.

Update: One small correction to that article in the Rocky Mountain News. At the height of it I was getting 50 e-mails a day related to the presentation. Right now I'm only getting about 5 to 10 a day.

Even More On Filtering

Okay, I’m about done with this topic, I promise. But I keep finding more and more thoughtful folks talking about filtering and responsibility and what/how/why we should be teaching our students about this, so I just wanted to add to my previous two posts by pointing to a few more resources.

First, Kimberly Moritz over on LeaderTalk (if you’re not subscribed to LeaderTalk, go do it right now):

How do we do more to educate our parents and students about the danger of this sort of personal exploitation while encouraging teachers and students to utilize all that is good about the web? In my experience, the response is often that adults conclude the web is a bad thing all together, because if its misuse in a case like this one.

As an adult learner, I have no problem discriminating, considering the source, looking at the possible bias. I have no problem avoiding the million and one websites out there that focus on nonsense. I don't think blocking access to the web at school is going to teach our kids how to do those things. I'm certain that opening it up completely to students who are still developing their good sense and judgment isn't the answer either.

Carolyn Foote adds to her earlier thoughts:

ALA quotes the National Research Council whose report insightfully points out:

“Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms. All these measures are helpful, but by far the most important thing that one can do for one’s children is to teach them to swim.”

So, what can we do? Some ideas (feel free to add to these):

1. Create a committee to collaborate on the filtering decision-making process. While the day-to-day decisions will probably have to be made by one person, the general policy decisions can be reviewed quarterly to make sure that the responsibility for the decision making is shared. This removes pressure from one individual, as well as taking into account differing philosophies and experience in the district. (I think such a committee should include teachers, tech directors, librarians, an administrator, IT people, etc.) Gathering all the parties also has the added benefit of starting a shared conversation about technology use.

2. Develop a quick and timely process for responding to teacher requests for unfiltering sites. If the process is not timely, teachers will “give up,” thus essentially “censoring” the site.

3. Advocate a professional approach for staff. It is likely to be appropriate to provide less filtering to staff than to students. Most filters allow for this. No more than we would penalize an entire class for 2 misbehaving students should we penalize an entire staff or student body for a few who do not observe the AUP policies.

4. Understand that there is a difference between classroom management and filtering. (This is part of the purpose of having a committee approach or a process for unfiltering sites.) If students are misusing computer resources, this is a discipline problem, not cause to discipline all students by filtering a site. If students are giggling and hiding a book on sex education in each other’s backpacks as a joke, I don’t remove it for the whole campus. I deal with those students.

5. Develop a policy and atmosphere that treats students and staff with respect. Again, the majority of your students and staff deserve that.

6. Become very familiar with the laws involved. For example, the law does allow for the filter to be unblocked so teachers can use sites for bona fide research. In how many districts is this policy not being followed? or is so time consuming and slow that the point of need passes?

7. Promote the idea of intellectual freedom on your campus. Your librarian can be an ally in that.

And in the comments on Carolyn’s post, Doug Johnson points us to an article he wrote back in 2005. I would hope that the filters have improved since the research the led to the following statistics was done, but I wonder if anyone has any more recent studies that would be helpful as we think about this.

Studies, like those of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (2003) that examined nearly a million web pages, fueled our concern. The researchers found the following:

* For every web page blocked as advertised, blocking software blocks one or more web pages inappropriately. 97-99% of the web pages blocked were done so using non-standard, discretionary, and potentially illegal criteria beyond what is required by CIPA.

* Internet blocking software was not able to detect and protect students from access to many of the apparently pornographic sites that appeared in search results related to state-mandated curriculums.

. . . Another study of Internet filtering conducted by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (2002) revealed some other interesting numbers:

* Schools that implement Internet blocking software with the least restrictive settings will block between .5% and 5% of search results based on state-mandated curriculum topics.

* Schools that implement Internet blocking software with the most restrictive settings will block up to 70% of search results based on state-mandated curriculum topics.

Another study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School (JAMA, 2002) examined how well seven Internet filters blocked health information for teens at settings from least restrictive to very restrictive. They found that at the least restrictive setting only 1.4% of the health information sites were blocked and 87% of the pornography sites were blocked. At the most restrictive setting, 24% of the health information sites were blocked with still only 91% of the pornography sites blocked.

Doug delineates some of the decisions they made to try to protect intellectual freedom yet still protect their students.

1. We based our choice of filters not on cost or convenience, but on features and customizability, and chose the least restrictive settings of the installed filter.

2. We generously use the override lists in our Internet filter; and we make sure media specialists can override the filter or have access to a machine that is completely unblocked in each media center so that questionably blocked sites can be reviewed and immediately accessed by staff and students if found to be useful.

3. We treat requests for the blocking of specific websites like we would any other material challenge.

4. We take a proactive approach to ensuring good Internet use by students.

He expands on all this in that article, so I’d highly recommend you visit and read the entire article.

Overall, my district has done a good job with this, implementing many of Doug's suggestions above. I obviously disagree with the decision they’ve made about YouTube and similar video sites, and I think we have some issues with “timely” responses since our committee only meets quarterly, but those are relatively minor complaints compared to what folks in most districts are going through.

But I still have a basic concern over the idea of the filter (in its present incarnation) in the first place. That some outside, not-educationally-focused company that must answer to its shareholders, not our stakeholders, is making decisions about what is appropriate for our students to see and not see – and then implementing those decisions with a tool that’s not up to the task at a granular-enough level.

And I also question the basic assumption that so many folks are apparently making that our students are not capable of making good decisions on their own, that if they see an inappropriate thumbnail on YouTube that one of two things will happen. Either they will be irreparably harmed by seeing the thumbnail itself, or they will feel compelled to click on the thumbnail and watch the inappropriate video, and then be irreparably harmed.

I think our students can handle more responsibility than that, that more often than not they will make the right decision. As I’ve said before,

Our philosophy is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don’t, they know we’ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don’t assume they are going to screw up. In other words, our philosophy has been to educate, not ban.

At my school, at least, that approach seems to work well in many, many different areas, so why should we treat this one differently?

Finally, to go back to Doug Johnson’s words:

There is long held belief in libraryland that one selects a resource on the basis of it having some things of value rather than censor a resource based on it having some parts without value or which might possibly cause offense.

I guess I still fall firmly in the camp that believes we shouldn’t block an entire site simply because some of the content might cause offense. I believe that not only disrespects our students and compromises their education, but is also a very slippery slope . . .

Three Ordinary Articles

There were three separate and seemingly unrelated stories in today’s Denver Post that I found interesting, although I’m still not sure why.

First up, We are our friends: Our friends are us:

The dizzying pace of the digital revolution often leaves us yearning for simplicity, but it's probably safe to say there are two kinds of people in this world: those who have disappeared into the time-sucking maelstrom of social networking websites, and loners.

That might have sounded like an overstatement a few years ago, when MySpace and Facebook were just beginning to wobble toward cultural relevance, but the reality in 2007 is much different.

Social networking sites are our new watercoolers, photo albums and bulletin boards. By mimicking, then deconstructing, the tangled web of relationships in the real world, they have proved themselves useful in ways scarcely imagined a half-decade ago.

And they're not just for dating or gossip. A surprising amount and diversity of people - representing nearly every age and interest - use the sites, and accidental entrepreneurs are taking the MySpace model in bold new directions.

That site's success practically begs for it. News Corp.-owned MySpace, which boasts more than 200 million worldwide users, will reap about $1 billion in ad revenue this year.

Next, Virtual worlds can help users recover from health woes:

Brown, Salvatierra and Dawley are just a few examples of an increasing number of sick, disabled and troubled people who say virtual worlds are helping them fight their diseases, live with their disabilities and sometimes even begin to recover. Researchers say they are only starting to appreciate the impact of this phenomenon.

"We're at a major technical and social transition with this technology. It has very recently started to become a very big deal, and we haven't by any means digested what the implications are," said William Sims Bainbridge of the National Science Foundation.

In addition to helping individual patients, virtual worlds are being used for other health-related purposes: Medical schools are using them to train doctors. Health departments are using them to test first responders. Researchers are using them to gain insights into how epidemics spread.

Finally, Churches’ “Halo” gets tarnished:

First the percussive sounds of sniper fire, then the thrill of the kill.

Then the gospel of peace.

Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game "Halo."

Now, none of these articles were particularly outstanding or created any epiphanies for me, but it was the “ordinariness” of them that struck me. Two articles in the “News” section, one in the “Arts & Entertainment” section – three articles on topics that are apparently mainstream and therefore worthy of writing (and reading) about, and not particularly unusual because they were just like any other story in the paper.

What does it all mean? I’m tempted to say “shift happens,” but I really don’t know. I’m not sure it means anything at all, but it just struck me as unusual because of the very fact that apparently it’s not unusual. Perhaps that does mean some shifts are occurring . . .

More Thoughts On Filtering

My last post finished with a tame (for me) rant about Internet filtering, and specifically that YouTube and other similar sites are currently blocked in my district. Carolyn Foote – in the comments – pointed me to some parallel conversations going on. (Thanks, Carolyn, since I’m way behind in my aggregator.) For those of you who are interested in this topic, let me point you to a few of them.

First, Doug Johnson has a self-described rant of his own:

There is long held belief in libraryland that one selects a resource on the basis of it having some things of value rather than censored a resource based on it having some parts without value or which might possibly cause offense. In choosing to block YouTube, you are a censor. You violate your staff's and students' intellectual freedom, their rights to view. By arbitratily blocking other sites, you are violating your staff's and students' right to read. You are denying them their rights accorded by the First Amendment.

Doug’s post appears to have been spurred at least in part by this post by Miguel Guhlin:

Over the last two weeks, there's been a rash of emails from Texas Tech Directors asking, "How do you handle the use of YouTube videos by instructional staff?" Often, YouTube is blocked in school districts, but teachers (and others) find they want to use the content in their lessons. I enjoyed responding to these questions by other tech directors by pointing them to different resources they could use to get YouTube videos and save them to their computers.

You should also check out Miguel’s post for one way to fairly easily save videos from YouTube and similar sites locally. I have found several ways to do this, but this may be the simplest and the one least likely to get broken by updates to the hosting site (since Zamzar will presumably respond quickly to changes). (Note that you still have to be able to access the video site to get the URL of the particular video you want, so that requires accessing from home or overriding the filter at school if you have that option.)

A related post by Miguel then led me to two posts, one by Tim Stahmer:

In my spare time this week I’ve been submitting requests to have a long list of sites unblocked (fortunately, my boss approved them) but it’s not that effort that bothers me.

It’s the totally inconsistent classification and blocking of web sites which is very much symptomatic of the arbitrary, sometimes knee-jerk rules we often impose on students in the name of keeping them safe.

Instead of using the electronic filters sparingly (there are certainly sites that need to be kept out of the classroom) and then teaching the kids how to evaluate and filter the rest for themselves, we throw up a porous chain-link fence, offering administrators a false sense of security.

And, from a comment on Miguel's post, this post by Kurt Paccio:

I am a primary decision maker for web content filtering in a school. We continually see comments with the groans, and the sighs about schools who "over filter" or block entire sites. We also hear the frequent "they don't get it!" label slapped onto the decision makers.

I'd like to point out something of interest. Not one of those who sigh or are critical of filtering decisions has their job on the line should Johnny access inappropriate content. Would those who are frustrated sit beside me in court or defend me in the court of public opinion? They certainly would not have to sit in the principal's office and explain to the sobbing mother who is clutching her book of faith.

For those who can't believe that YouTube is blocked, have you approached the Superintendent and volunteered to assume liability for the District should a student, parent, or family launch a lawsuit? As it stands today, many AUPs identify the Technology Coordinator, Technology Director, or Superintendent as the individual responsible for safeguarding students.

The comment that led me to Kurt’s post was by Jim Gates, who adds to the conversation (coming full circle by talking about my post) with this post:

What's that? Allow teachers to override the filter? HERESY? An OUTRAGE? Impossible?... WONDERFUL! FANTASTIC! Imagine giving control of the internet to those people with whom we are entrusting our children and assuming that they will use good judgement in their choices. What's the worst consequence of this great idea? You might have a teacher who uses poor judgement, or you may have one who decides to follow her stocks all day long or to monitor their ebay account. What then? I liked what one principal said in a meeting recently. He said, "I want to KNOW which teachers are doing that when they should be teaching a class. At least that way I can get rid of them. But, to restrict the Internet to such a point that it interferes with the education we're trying to provide to our students just to protect the teachers from themselves doesn't make sense."

And then this article came to me in the old fashioned way via email (yes, email delivery of a link to a web page is now “old-fashioned,” if not downright quaint):

The University of California, Berkeley, is posting course lectures and other campus happenings on YouTube.

Finally, Carolyn herself had a post recently where she talked about similar issues:

I find it upsetting because there are teachers out there who are committed and excited about education, and who really want to bridge the gap between the world many of their students live in (wired, connected, “on all the time”) and the world of education(me being one of those teachers). These teachers are pushing the envelope, eagerly trying new things, and trying to use the best tools they can find to connect their students with a world beyond the classroom walls.

Yet too many of these teachers are met with roadblocks, and an ever mounting frustration at being unable to convince administrators or their IT department, or their district leaders..or someone in their district, that what they are doing can be done in a safe manner and is valuable, very valuable for their students.

So my fear is, naturally, that we are going to lose some of the best teachers we have in the country. Because you can only stand expending half your energies “convincing” people for so long. And no one finds it rewarding to have their genuine love and enthusiasm for teaching reined in and constantly met with roadblocks.

And I’m sure there are many, many others. But this is just one set of examples of the many good conversations going on as we try to figure out how best to meet the needs of our students.

Two Steps Forward . . .

It seems like a recurring theme in my school and district, two steps forward and one (or sometimes 1.8) steps back. By the end of this month, my school will be offering access to our wireless network to “personally owned devices.” Anyone who owns a device that uses the standard wireless protocols (802.11 a/b/g right now) will be able to connect to our wireless network and access the Internet (although not our file servers and printers). This access is still filtered by the same filter that school computers use, but is not password protected or restricted in any other way. Users have to accept an agreement each time they launch their browsers, and teachers have full discretion over their use in classrooms (much like we handle cell phones and iPods right now).

For those of you paying very close attention, you may recall that we had this briefly last fall until we realized that the licensing for our Internet filter did not cover these personally owned devices so it was switched back off. Over the summer the district purchased a new filter (8e6) and this was part of that agreement. This means that our students (as well as staff, parents, and other visitors to the building) will be able to bring their laptops, or iPhones, or Palms, or iPod touches, or whatevers and be connected. We have theoretical wireless coverage for about 95% of the footprint of the building, although I suspect that we will find quite a few dead spots as students start bringing more and more devices. We may also have density issues, although we did put extra wireless access points in our media center and cafeteria, figuring those areas would see heavy usage. (Because of our variable schedule, our students have a fair amount of unscheduled time at school to work on assignments, seek out teachers for additional help, meet with counselors, and use our media center – including the computers. While we currently have 35 computers available in our media center, they are still often all being used, so this will begin to help students have access whenever they need it, not just when the computers are available.)

The second step forward has to do with the filter itself. One of the reasons my district chose 8e6 was because of its ability to include overrides. There are actually two levels of override, an Active Directory override and a Building Level override. The Active Directory override allows all staff members to enter their login credentials and override many of the sites that the filter blocks. This allows them to use their discretion about using a site that may be blocked but is still educationally appropriate, and also allows them to get to a site to evaluate if it is appropriate. The Building Level override then gives an even higher level of access. I’ve questioned whether there is a need for two levels of override, using the seemingly incontestable argument of why would they trust me more than my staff. Those discussions are still ongoing, but I’m hopeful that they will eventually give all staff the same override rights as the building level override.

This is a huge improvement over last year, where we did have a building level override but no individual overrides, making it much easier for teachers to do their jobs “just in time.” If you are using 8e6 in your district and don’t have these overrides, you might ask (nicely) why not. This is built-in to 8e6, so I don’t think there’s a huge technical hurdle to implementing it. Keep in mind that it does keep a log of all overrides, and that log is attached to the login override that’s used, so there is still some “tracking” that can be done.

So, what’s the one step back? With the implementation of the new filter over the summer, they had to re-setup the categories of what was blocked and what was allowed. As part of that process, we now have lost access to YouTube, Google Video and other similar video sites. Previously we had had full access to those sites, and many teachers and students had used them effectively. Now, they’re somewhat crippled. Yes, teachers can access them with their override, which is annoying but still workable if they want to show a particular video to their classes. But what they can’t do anymore is have their students watch videos on their own, or find videos, or work on presentations that include videos, or upload their own videos. With our variable schedule, this is something that teachers had asked students to do in the past, but now we can’t.

I’ll spare you the long, drawn out arguments I made, as most of you can probably make them better than I did. But I will say this much. This completely contradicts the philosophy of my high school (and I thought my district). Our philosophy is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don’t, they know we’ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don’t assume they are going to screw up. In other words, our philosophy has been to educate, not ban.

It appears to me that the basic problem is that the filter, as much as I like some of its features, still cannot do what it purports to do – which is block inappropriate content (however that’s defined and whoever is doing the defining, which is a whole different rant). As it is, the filter is only capable of blocking categories and all of YouTube, not just inappropriate content on YouTube. While I understand that that is technically daunting, I don’t really care – that’s not my job, that’s the filter company’s job. Until they can do that, I think we should stop calling it by the euphemism “Internet Filter,” and instead call it what it really is, an “Information Censor.” It still amazes me that schools are so willing to abrogate their responsibilities and turn over control of the resources their students are allowed to access, the information and ideas their students are exposed to, to a third-party, for-profit company that does not hold education as its primary mission. What's next, are we going to start buying textbooks? OK, so maybe I shouldn't be so amazed.

So, as one example, our students won’t be able to learn from and participate in Pangea Day while at school. From the TED blog:

On May 10, 2008, Pangea Day, sites in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali will be video-conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, supplemented by visionary speakers, and global musicians.

The purpose: to use the power of film to promote better understanding of our common humanity. A global audience will watch through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones. Yes, of course, movies alone can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can.

To start the process, a short Pangea Day trailer (2:30 min) has just been given front-page exposure on YouTube, inviting anyone to submit their films. Pangea is seeking films "that provoke, entertain and inspire". "Images are powerful to divide, but also to unite", says the trailer.

Here’s the trailer. Note that while the trailer can be viewed on the Pangea Day website, films are submitted to a group at YouTube, meaning our students won’t be able to view them, or submit their own.



Sorry, LPS students, you won’t be able to view this at school. Please go learn – and change the world - at home.

A Google Earth Odyssey

Over on Learning and Laptops, Anne Smith describes a recent project with her freshmen using Google Earth.

During my first few years at AHS, Maura Moritz and I developed an assignment where we had our freshmen complete personal learning journeys on a big laminated map mimicking Odysseus’s own journey. Along the map, they had to carefully mark 10 places they had visited, what they did there, as well as what they learned from the experience.

. . . My students will be creating a Google Earth journey of their travels following the same criteria as before looking at where they went, what they did there, and most importantly, what they learned. Odysseus during his travels learned something about himself as well as other cultures along his journey home, and I hope they will do this as well. I am hoping that these will be true reflections of their learning. Also, I am anxious to see the impact that these presentations will have on one another. Will they find they have visited similar places? Will they see and reveal the lessons they have learned over their short life thus far?

With help from Mike Porter, our Assistant Director of Technology (who I can’t link to because he’s still not blogging), the students created their own journeys. I think it was a good first attempt, although I think we were all a little disappointed that they didn't include any pictures, audio or video in their journeys (but perhaps that's just me being enamored with the capabilities of Google Earth). You can download their kmz files from their class blog. Also read through the comments to see the students’ perspectives on the project.

Sharing Our Staff Development – Session 3

Last week both cohorts met for their third session of the year. Our goals for the session were:

1. Write a 21C mission (worked on by all 3 groups)


2. Start working on a 21C Vision.


3. Learn from their colleagues by observing their classes and then debriefing.


4. PLN Time: Read. Think. Write. Reflect. Repeat.

Here is the mission statement they came up with:

The 21C Collaborative Learning Community exists to model continuous learning and to encourage innovative use of technology by using constructivist teaching techniques.

Note that this is a mission statement for our staff development group, not for our school as a whole. It focused on why our 21C staff development group exists. Also, please note that I am very carefully using the term “they” – this is their mission statement, not mine. And I don’t mean that in a negative way.

When we started this two years ago, our group was driven somewhat by my vision (along with my planning team’s vision). That was somewhat by necessity and somewhat by design. We made the decision as a planning team not to have the whole mission/vision/values/goals discussion at the start of our staff development, but to go ahead and jump in with readings/discussions/arguments/technology. We felt we really needed to get into all this, the theory and the practice, the technology and the “shifts,” the reflecting and the soul-searching. I don’t know if that was the right decision or not, but it certainly seemed to work out okay. The first year for both cohorts seemed to follow the same pattern. A lot of excitement, then a fair amount of push back, frustration, and even anger, then the groups came together and – while we certainly don’t all agree about everything – there seems to be a general consensus on many things.

Now comes the problem. Now we need to define where we want to go from here. I am really trying to step back and turn control over to the participants in the staff development – that’s why it’s “their” mission statement, not mine. I’ve probably been a little bit too controlling up to this point, wanting to share so many different ideas and resources, and wanting to make sure they find each three-hour session worth their time. It’s tough for me to step back because I think I’m genetically programmed to open my mouth and voice my opinion on just about every topic conceivable, but I think I’ve done a reasonably good job the last few sessions of not doing that (21C folks, you’re welcome to disabuse me of that notion in the comments). But I think we’ve struggled a little bit with this (certainly the second year for Cohort 1 was not as “productive” as the first). We still have a limited amount of time (and energy) to do this and – just like it is for our students – it’s easier if someone is telling you what to do (even if you sometimes think that someone is a little bit nuts). That’s why I think this mission/vision/values/goals discussion is so critical for us right now, because it’s going to determine whether we (as a 21C group) continue to act as a force to improve the teaching and learning at our school, or not. As I try to remove myself more from the process I wonder a lot what my role should be.

Anyway, back to the session description. We also took time during the session to observe one of our colleagues. Since we have three separate sessions (cohort 1 on one day, cohort 2 split into a morning and afternoon group on another day), each group got the opportunity to observe a different teacher for an entire period. This is something that we are always encouraged to do in our school, but it’s hard to find time for. Our focus was on observing different approaches/methods relating to constructivist teaching and/or the use of technology in their classrooms. Technology use was not a requirement, although all three did use some technology in their lessons. We then debriefed immediately following the class with the teacher that was observed present and participating in the debrief. We used a protocol based on Diane Sweeney’s work to guide our debrief. This is not an area that I have any particular expertise in, but it seemed to work fairly well. The feedback on both the usefulness and the process was positive, so we’ll be doing this again in the future.

Finally, we had some Personal Learning Network time – time for folks to read, think, write, reflect and repeat. As usual, we didn’t have enough time to do this well in two of the three sessions, so that’s something we still need to work on.

Their “homework” for next time includes watching the Creativity Panel Presentation (Elizabeth Streb, Michael McCauley, Mary Cullinane, and Francesco Pedro - moderated by Andrew Zolli) from NECC, and doing some more thinking about the vision statement for 21C.