"Anything that you can do in chemistry is done with computers these days."

The Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded today. I heard this story on NPR (more info) this morning and one line at the end struck me:

Anything that you can do in chemistry is done with computers these days.

Now, I don't think he meant that completely literally. Clearly physical experiments are still done and the end result of chemistry research usually ends up in some kind of physical, manufactured substance. But just as clearly computers are an integral part of chemistry today.

And that got me thinking (as always) about K-12 education. We have a great deal of technology in my high school, and in chemistry they do use probes connected to computers to gather and analyze data. And they also use computers to run some types of simulations and do all sorts of collaborative work.

But we're still not doing anything like what real chemists are doing. Even if our curriculum/standards allowed it, and even if our teachers agreed it was a good thing to do, we don't have the equipment. We have a fair amount of technology, and just got a boatload of chromebooks and some new probes down in science, but that's not the kind of equipment these guys are using, nor is our curriculum designed to allow students to do this kind of work.

So I'm struck again by all the talk of "STEM" and "world class education" and "raising the bar" that dominate so many of the education conversations among politicians and business leaders, yet no one appears to want to fund what it would really take to do this. All those folks seem to want "accountability" - dubiously measured by test scores - but don't seem to want to be accountable for providing the resources (and the freedom) to actually help our students achieve these goals.

These scientists used powerful computers, collaborated across distance and time, and spent a good deal of their time simply being curious (and failing at what they were trying to do). Those three things are not adequately supported, encouraged, or often even allowed in our K-12 schools.

If you want our students to really learn chemistry, we can't do it by using "ball-and-stick model" resources and "carrot-and-stick model" approaches. We need the funding - and the freedom - to learn.

Journalist Citizens?

Let me preface this blog post with the following disclaimers:

• I’m not a journalist (at least by the traditional definition).
• Lots of really smart folks have thought about these issues for a long time and I’m not presuming that I know better.
• This is complicated (but I think it’s important to think about)

Is a “mainstream” journalist allowed to be a full-fledged citizen?

Do professionals of any kind have to be hamstrung by rules just in case someone makes a mistake?

Is avoiding the “appearance of impropriety” and “protecting your brand” more important than seeking the truth?

There’s currently a little dustup over a memo NPR put out to their employees telling them they could not attend the Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert rallies in Washington, D.C.:

NPR journalists may not participate in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers, nor should they sign petitions or otherwise lend their name to such causes, or contribute money to them. This restriction applies to the upcoming John (sic) Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies.

This is nothing new in journalism circles, as they’ve typically had these kinds of policies. But what is new is that people like Jeff Jarvis are questioning the wisdom of such policies:

But my real problem here is, again, that NPR is forbidding its employees to be curious. There’s a big event going on in Washington. It could — just could — be the beginning of a movement mobilizing the middle. But NPR people are not allowed to even witness it, to go and try to figure it out, to understand what’s being said and why people are there. No, they can do that only if they are *assigned* to do that. Otherwise, it might seem as if by merely showing up they might have a forbidden opinion.

NPR has responded in several ways, including this post by their ombudsman:

But there’s another, more important issue than management botching a memo. The question arises in every election season, and boils down to this: If you become a card-carrying journalist, do you have no freedom outside of work?

. . . Media guru Jarvis agrees with these views. He even encourages NPR staffers to protest management’s decision. “Use social media, folks, and have an opinion about opinions,” he wrote.

I don’t agree.

Sure, journalists have opinions and causes they support.

But at the end of the day, they have to be professional – and that means avoiding actions that create the perception that they are taking sides in political controversies, including elections.

Specifically, mainstream journalists can’t put a political sign in their yard or carry one at demonstrations. They can’t donate money to candidates. They can’t sit on a school board. They can’t participate in political rallies. They can’t lobby, and they can’t become partisan activists.

To me, it’s a small price to pay for the privilege of being a journalist.

NPR is not restricting its staff’s freedom. It’s protecting its credibility as a news organization that tries to give its audience fair, non-partisan coverage.

Interestingly, folks at some NPR affiliate stations don’t necessarily agree:

The issue isn't whether reporters "take sides" in political controversies. They do. They're not mummies. The issue is whether those opinions make their ways into news stories or in the process of selecting what stories to cover in the first place. Not allowing you the opportunity to know what the biases are does nothing to guarantee the impartiality of NPR (or any other organization's) content. It's designed more to prevent the questioning of the impartiality of the content.

The two are not the same thing.

I came upon this story via some tweets by Andy Carvin, Senior strategist at NPR (but tweeting as himself). Andy was simply pointing folks to the controversy, not taking a position, but it stirred my thinking about this in relation to how we are preparing our students.

Citizen journalism has been a term we’ve talked about a lot the last few years, arising from lots of places but not least the work of Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen. But in this case I think we’re really talking about journalist citizens – what rights, responsibilities and restrictions does a “mainstream journalist” have in a participatory age?

According to Alicia Shepard, the NPR ombudsman, “mainstream journalists can’t put a political sign in their yard or carry one at demonstrations.” But I wonder if that wouldn’t tend to drive people who want to be active in their community to become “non-mainstream journalists,” and wouldn’t that be bad for both the community and for mainstream media?

And the letter from NPR’s President Vivian Schiller comes across as defensive and a little elitist:

This is the case in almost all legitimate news organizations, indeed in many professions. In our case, the rules are designed to protect the impartiality of our content.

“Legitimate" news organizations? As opposed to, say, illegitimate ones? I think I understand the intent of this, to underscore that “legitimate” news organizations attempt to maintain impartiality in their reporting, whereas other ones may not. But in the context of this story that comes across as, “We’re legitimate, and you’re not, simply because you have concerns with our policy. And if you don't have a similar policy, then you're neither professional or legitimate.”

She goes on to say:

We live in an age of "gotcha" journalism where people troll, looking for cracks in our credibility. We need to err on the side of protecting our journalism, our journalists, and our reputation. While the credibility and trust that attaches to the NPR brand depends principally on the quality of our news reporting, it can be easily undermined if our public conduct is at odds with the standards we seek to uphold as a news organization.

But can’t we trust good people to do that? Can’t we trust them to do their jobs well, yet still fully exercise their rights as citizens? It seems to me that this is very similar to the restrictions placed on teachers. We can’t campaign or advocate for issues at school, but once we leave we retain our full rights (and responsibilities for that matter) as citizens. Couldn’t journalism operate the same way? Couldn’t we expect journalists to have journalist integrity, but still participate in and contribute to their community? In fact, isn’t it actually poor “public conduct” for them not to participate? This comes across more as trying to protect the NPR “brand” instead of pursuing truth and good journalism.

Finally (and thankfully now I’m going to try to relate this back to education), it seems to me that journalists actually can’t do their jobs well unless they are participating to a certain extent. In this participatory age, how can a journalist possibly do their jobs to the best of their ability if they aren’t participating? Whether that’s by attending rallies (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and/or Glenn Beck), participating in social media (not just broadcasting using social media, but engaging with it), or putting political signs in their yards, journalists have to participate if they are going to truly understand – and help us understand – what is going on. As long as they don’t represent their activities as NPR’s views, and as long as they do their best to maintain impartiality in their reporting, can we not expect that these professionals are capable of doing this? Sure, mistakes will be made, but instead of issuing blanket policies assuming that your employees will be unprofessional, why not trust your employees to do the right thing and then deal with the few that don’t? The idea that anyone is truly “unbiased” seems quaint, why not simply acknowledge your biases (publicly) and then do your best to overcome them? Wouldn’t that actually be more honest and show more “journalistic integrity?”

In the end, this feels like so much of our current public policy and leadership debates. People seem more concerned with avoiding the “appearance of impropriety” instead of doing the right thing. Organizations (and politicians) seem to be more concerned with protecting the “brand” instead of actually accomplishing good things. We’re more willing to run attack ads then simply lay out our own positions; more willing to hide behind blanket “ethics policies,” instead of struggling with complex issues in an honest and transparent manner.

So much of this is in direct contradiction to what so many of us are trying to accomplish in our classrooms. We encourage our students to be active, involved members of their communities, to be curious, passionate learners. We encourage them to think critically, and to wrestle with complex issues, instead of removing all possibility of independent thought and action. We encourage them to think out loud, to debate in public (including through social media), and to continue to evolve and adjust their thinking through their interactions with others. By prohibiting their employees from experiencing the full gamut of citizenship in a participatory age, NPR (and many other organizations) are crippling their employees’ abilities to learn and to do their best work. If we don’t allow our journalists to be citizens, and to be curious, passionate, participatory learners, then what kind of journalists can they possibly be?

A Shift in the Digital Divide?

NPR has a short, but interesting story on the use of mobile devices by young people. Citing research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the story states that in regards to "robust" uses of mobile devices, "most of those hyperusers are young Latinos and blacks."


Chart from NPR, source data from Pew Internet and American Life Project, refers to above uses on mobile devices only

Now, the story is certainly not saying that the digital divide is no longer an issue, but it does bring up some interesting points. It attributes the higher and more sophisticated use of mobile devices among Latinos and blacks to four factors:

• Networking teens that spread the use to older members of their ethnic group (happens in all ethnic groups, but faster among blacks and Latinos, perhaps due to the relatively higher proportion of young people)
• Cheaper than a home connection (mobile upgrade cheaper than buying a computer and broadband)
• Communication across borders (easier on both sides)
• Convenience (the phone is always there, always gets a signal, no need to worry about wifi or battery)

I see some similarities to the cell phone versus landline access in countries like China and India, where lots of folks have gone straight from no phone to cell phone, skipping the landline phase. I wonder if we're seeing a similar leap among the traditional "have-nots" that have been on the "losing" side of the divide, where they are skipping the home computer/broadband phase and going straight to the mobile Internet phase.

If mobile devices (think phone, not laptop) become the dominant way of accessing the Internet - and I think that's still very much up in the air (pun intended) - then this just may signal a coming shift in the digital divide that might mirror the demographic shifts in the United States. We still have a long way to go in eliminating access issues, but perhaps this is an encouraging sign that the divide might be narrowing.

Learn Something. Pass It On.

I heard a story on NPR this morning that this Friday, the day after Thanksgiving here in the U.S., is dubbed the National Day of Listening. They are hoping people sit down and talk with a loved one, part of their StoryCorp project. From the National Day of Listening site:

This holiday season, ask the people around you about their lives — it could be your grandmother, a teacher, or someone from the neighborhood. By listening to their stories, you will be telling them that they matter and they won’t ever be forgotten. It may be the most meaningful time you spend this year.

In the NPR story, Steve Inskeep (NPR Morning Edition host) talks with his mother. It’s an interesting conversation and I particularly like how it closes:

Maybe I got my desire from [my parents]. The desire to learn something, and pass it on.

That’s a pretty good description of why I blog.

Consider participating on Friday, and ask your students to do so as well. You might learn something. If you do, pass it on.

Questions for Senators Obama and McCain

So, both the calendar and my jam-packed and very messy office tell me it’s August. In addition to the usual "It’s the beginning of the year how am I ever going to get all the stuff done that I need to get done before the students arrive?" panic attack, I had an additional panic attack. What if I bump into Senator Obama and I don’t have a good question ready?

Seriously, I’m worried about this. I live and work just south of Denver and, as you hopefully know, Denver is hosting this little thing called the Democratic National Convention coming up here at the end of August. While I know that conventions are pretty much completely scripted, Senator Obama doesn’t strike me as a man – or a candidate – who would spend the entire four days in his hotel/the Pepsi Center/Invesco Field at Mile High. So what if I’m at the grocery store and run into him, or what if he decides to visit my school? Hey, it could happen. George Bush (#41, not the current President) spoke at my school when he was Vice-President (before my time, but there are pictures to prove it – and we didn’t own Photoshop then), so I think it would be somewhat symbolic if Senator Obama stopped by.

I’m not very good at the "elevator pitch" - once a conversation gets going I think I get warmed up and can contribute, but put me on the spot for a serious and thoughtful question – not so much. So I’ve started trying to think of the one question I’d ask him if I did bump into him by the blueberries (or walking across our cafeteria).

I mean, there’s the obvious:

When are you going to name Chris Lehmann as your Secretary of Education designate?

Yes, I realize I already volunteered for this position, but sometimes you have to take one for the team.

Or there’s the standard:

Most educators think that NCLB has some serious flaws, and you seem to agree. What would you replace it with?

But then I’d just get the talking points.

Or I could reuse the question I didn’t get to ask Governor Richardson:

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?

But I didn’t particularly like that question and it was directed specifically at a statement Governor Richardson had in his own plan.

You see, I’ve read the highlights of both Senator Obama and Senator McCain’s education stances, and looked more deeply at their web sites (Obama's Education Page, McCain's Education Page). And I’ve even listened to these three short NPR pieces on their personal tech literacy and how they would address technology in their administrations. (Apparently it’s a necessity to have a former FCC chair – from your own political party, of course - as a technology adviser. Hmm, if not Secretary of Education, perhaps I could be Senator Obama’s Technology Czar. I’ve never been a Czar.)

But I’d really like to ask that deep, meaningful, thoughtful question that gets to the heart of it all and allows us to really see his baseline, fundamental beliefs about education and what needs to change in order to meet the needs of our students. To help us understand if he thinks education is at a tipping point, and that it’s a different world out there, and schools need to adapt and change to meet it? Or if he believes that, while changes and improvements are always necessary, things are basically good as they are. And a question that gets beyond the usual talking points and helps explore all the ideas we’ve been talking about in our blogs for the last few years.

Now, I don’t mean to be partisan about this, I’d want to ask the same question of Senator McCain, but I just figure that’s it’s more likely I’ll run into Senator Obama here during the Democratic Convention than Senator McCain. (Although Arizona is just a long day’s drive southwest of here, perhaps he could come up for the day.) So, I said to myself, "Myself, you have a blog. Why don’t you ask for some help?" If you’re so inclined, please leave a thoughtful question in the comments for Senator Obama, Senator McCain, or both of them.

This is not a political blog, and I don’t want your "question" to really be a statement of political beliefs. So, if you comment, please honor this post in the spirit in which it's intended. I really want to know the one question you would ask either of these gentlemen that might help us better understand their beliefs on education. A question that hopefully gets away from the talking points and gives us a glimpse of the vision they have – or don’t have. This would help me out if I happen to run into either of them and, frankly, would help me out in case I find myself in an elevator with other important folks. (I’ve been having more of these "opportunities" than usual in the last few months, and have a few more coming up, it’s kind of weird - and I don't think "Hi, how are you?" is quite cutting it.)

Finally, if either Senator’s campaign staff stops by, I’d also like to formally offer to host a conversation between the two Senators regarding education. (Come on, staffers, Colorado may be the swing state, it's the perfect place to do this.) And I chose the word "conversation" very deliberately. I don’t really want to host a debate, at least not what passes for political debate these days – where each candidate takes whatever the question is and morphs it into the same old sound bites. I really would like to see both of these men have a thoughtful conversation about education. A conversation where, yes, we would indeed see the differences between them. But also a conversation where we could see the similarities, the common ground where we are most likely to be able to move forward together. A conversation where they were genuinely looking for solutions, not just trying to score points off one another. And, while I know this is terribly naïve of me, a conversation that perhaps actually generates some new ideas of how we can move forward together. Wouldn’t that be something?

(As a mostly irrelevant side note, I happened to mistype a URL on Senator Obama’s site while testing a link in this post and got the image below, embedded within the frame of his site. I gotta say, it seemed consistent with his campaign and made me smile a little. For the record, Senator McCain’s site gave me the standard 404 Page Cannot Be Found page, without the frame of his site around it.)

Poetry Out Loud (and read to yourself)

I meant to write this a couple of weeks ago right after National Poetry Month ended, but better late than never.

First, this story on NPR lets you hear Shawntay Henry, this year’s winner of the Poetry Out Loud contest, read “Frederick Douglass” by Robert E. Hayden.

Second, you can listen to the winners of AHS’s first iPoem contest. This was a last minute idea, so we didn’t get as much participation as we would’ve liked, but we’ll start earlier next year. First place, for the poem “Cthulu (pronounced ku-thew-lew) Converses with his Master” by Allie Fresch (Video, Text). First runner up, for the poem “Tekel” by Olyver Mycroft (Audio, Text), and second runner up for the poem “The Difference Between Life & Living” by Brittany Knigge (Audio, Text).

Finally, from the Summer 2008 issue of Mountain Rise, the International Journal of Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (published at Western Carolina University), the poem Teachers Must by Joe Mills, North Carolina School of the Arts.

Each fall when the new grapes arrive,
we sift and evaluate them,
trying to determine how best
to help them be what they can be.
Some are thin-skinned and delicate,
others gruff and independent.
Some need oak, others stainless steel.
No single process works for all,
so first we must identify
the grapes for what they are, not what
we wish they were. We also must
believe that careful attention,
time, and the right environment,
can help develop character,
complexity, balance, and depth.
But, most of all, we must have faith
that even when we can’t see them
fundamental transformations
bordering on miraculous
are bubbling under the surface.

The Rise of the Rest

I heard an interesting interview of Fareed Zakaria, a Newsweek columnist and editor of Newsweek International, on NPR the other night. He has a new book titled The Post-American World and this short interview (7 minutes) discusses parallels he sees to the British Empire at the dawn of the 20th century (shades of The Presentation That Shall Not Be Named?) and compares the Boer War and how Great Britain dealt with that with the current U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But before you decide this is just more gloom and doom, he also expresses his optimism that the United States can adapt and take on a new role as “Chairman of the Board” as opposed to dictator of the world. He makes some interesting points about the “rise of the rest”, not just China and India but others as well, and how leadership in the 21st century needs to look a little different than perhaps it did in the late 20th century.

I don’t know if this holds any particular lessons for education (I’d like to find time to read the book to see if he talks about that or not), but my thoughts after listening to the interview were that, once again, we need to make sure our students are engaged on a global level. Not just for economic reasons, but in order to help solve some of the major issues facing all of us today – issues that are global in nature and therefore need input and action from citizens across national boundaries. It makes me wonder that with all the lip service that schools typically give to creating “global citizens” in their mission and vision statements, how many of us are actually actively pursuing this in our classrooms?

The Future of the Newspaper

I had the pleasure of listening to John Temple, editor, publisher and president of the Rocky Mountain News speak to some of our Journalism students last week. I’ve written about Mr. Temple and the Rocky a few times before (here and here). He’s an editor that seems to be doing some interesting things with a newspaper in this new media landscape, so I was very interested to hear what he had to say.

The topic he presented on to our students was basically the future of the newspaper (as he currently sees it). I took fairly decent notes, so this will sort of be a “delayed live blog” with a few occasional thoughts from me added in. His session was very interactive with the students, asking them questions and then replying to those, so this will jump around a little (just so everyone’s clear that he’s not disorganized – he was just reacting to their questions).

My notes:

Temple references NPR story he heard this morning on music magazines going out of business.

I actually heard the same story on the way in that morning.

Music is not dying, but business model is dying.

Ask students where they get their music – lots of sources, but few purchase CD’s.

80% of newspaper’s revenue from ads. Can a newspaper survive in this era? Will newspapers be around?

Student brings up reliability issue – that the newspaper is checked. Temple talks about Wikipedia – he uses it all the time.

References study about reliability as compared to Encyclopedia Britannica

He's a big fan of the Internet – self policing mechanism is fascinating. Refining what the truth is.

RMN won’t allow anyone to use Wikipedia as source for article because no authority, but they use it to find other sources that are more primary about a topic – start at Wikipedia, go further.

Boy, does that sound familiar. If the RMN starts at Wikipedia and then goes further, why do schools try to block or ban it?

Here’s the dilemma – most of the news on the Internet – where does the info come from? Taking content from newspapers, AP, Reuters – here comes the problem, you don’t want to read a newspaper, newspaper goes out of business, where does the news come from?

Hmm, I get what he's saying and agree to a certain extent, but I think at least some of the news these days comes from "the people" as opposed to the professionals. I think we're just starting to see that grow, so he might be overstating the case a little.

I (his newspaper) can’t survive without readers and advertisers. About 450 journalists at the 2 Denver newspapers. What if revenue is 1/10 of what it is today – then 45 journalists. Are 45 people enough to give you the info you want to know?

Maybe instead of large news organizations like RMN and Denver Post, lots of specialty organizations linked together in some way

Student asks if that’s inefficient – have to go too many places. Temple talks about aggregating content.

What if I get compensated on number of people that look at my story. Smart people all over the world trying to figure this out.

His big worry is reliability – we all want information we can trust, and if we don’t have a big organization – he’s worried about the future of journalism.

I wonder about this as well. But I wonder if it's a question of the future of journalism, or the future of the business of journalism? Are they one and the same?

Mentions voting in November – where are you going to get the info to help you vote. Journalism is independent (vs. candidates’ website)

Wanted to ask whether he thought the charge that journalists were going too easy on Obama was accurate, but didn't.

Student asks what if the newspapers change to online – totally.

Temple thinks that’s largely what’s going to happen, reduce their costs.

Talks about printing plant – we are a massive manufacturing company – 450,000 a day, stick in a plastic bag, massive distribution company – that’s super expensive. They send someone to every street in the metro area every day – think about that.

If they distribute it over the Internet it's essentially for free – a lot, lot cheaper. They'll lose all the subscription money – but that's only 20% of revenue, offset by cost savings. They use $70 million dollars worth of paper a year.

That's a lot of paper. Now why did I just think of Will?

Transition period – grandparents need a newspaper, but younger generation may not.

On Sundays – not as busy, you can read the paper.

What about if the future news organization that looks like:
On Sunday get a really nice paper.
Then during the week – it's all on the Internet, but then special, high quality print publications for certain audiences: preps publication one day a week, entertainment magazine once a week, sports a couple of times – small newspapers, really high quality.

References craigslist, ebay, monster vs. classifieds in newspaper – it’s a given that the classifieds have moved online – very specific needs/searches. Look at today (Tuesday) – look at size of classified section – maybe 10 pages – not big enough anymore to be really meaningful. Around 1999 about 5 million classified ads a year at RMN, intense marketplace, nothing to compete with them.

We don’t know what the model is going to look like, but we know we can’t afford to keep printing like we do now. He sees the Internet as the center. Paper is not going away – people like print publications, but may not come to you the same way (may be higher quality, but less of it - as in specialty publications mentioned previously)

Mentions YourHub – anybody can share information, starts on the web – post photos, stories, listings, etc. – then published to print – but they select what they publish to print – he likes that model for the future.

Interesting - using "citizens" as their story/data gathering mechanism, then they sort/select/make decisions on what rises to the top.

He’s talked about this before in his column – that they are really changing the way they do things at the Rocky – starts on the web, then to print – readers of the web become their editors. Used to be somebody would point out an error and they would print a small correction a day or two later, now the error is caught on the web, before it goes to print.

Everything will start on the web, then print will have many smaller specialty areas.

New printing technology allows them to print really quickly small batches of publications, new presses allow for micro-jobs.

This is long tail stuff, niche “programming” and marketing.

Tremendous amount of micro-publishing coming out of big web database. Can do a run of 1,000 and it would be economical, wasn't with the old presses.

Think about: Is the value in the newspaper the paper, or is the value the independent, authoritative, verifiable reporting.

Ahh, I think that's the heart of the matter. Where does the value reside? I think that question resonates for me in regards to schools. Where does our value reside?

If it’s the reliability, how can you translate that to this era – the digital world?

Talks about avatars – here’s my personality – I like basketball, wine, politics – will be out there working for me on the web gathering stuff for me.

He’s using the term “avatar” more as a personal digital assistant type concept. He’s also talking about deep personalization.

Student questions whether we are too dependent on technology, won’t be able to think for ourselves.

Temple mentions Redblueamerica. Always two views – get the other side. Mentions stumbleupon – it’s driving traffic to redblueamerica – he finds that fascinating.

I can tell he’s really thinking hard about how this all fits together, how to leverage sites like stumbleupon.

Embrace change find out where it takes you. It will make people smarter.

There’s a lull in the questions, so I ask my question, something along the lines of: You’re talking about deep personalization in your product, meeting the individual needs of your customers, utilizing technology to facilitate that. So what lesson does that hold for schools and educators? What should we be doing?

Big challenge for educators – he’s not obliged to provide building blocks to grow kids like we do – to prepare kids to be successful when you leave here, independent, critically think and learn as you go.

Big problem for educators – talking about moving from school to school, how do they connect – argues somewhat for standardization across schools. Schools need a spine that’s very structured, but individualize from there . . .

I can tell he’s not satisfied with his answer, but he moves on to another question. I hope I’ve spurred him to think a little bit more about this. I can tell he’s intrigued by this and hasn’t made the connection between the disruption in his business caused by technology and the network and a possible similar disruption in education.

This generation is bright, doesn’t agree with “those kids today” – you can do things today that would’ve been impossible when he was growing up.

He asks the students – what’s the media world going to look like? What do you use your portable device for?

Answer: everything

Redblueamerica.com is not located anywhere – distributed, folks are not located in the same place geographically – they do everything on Skype.

RMN is a broadcaster today – they produce video, stream video, audio. Traditional TV broadcasters are being eroded just like newspapers. Sees a big database of video and you choose which clips and segments you want to watch. Talks about all of us being news/video producers – but we’re going to need help because it’s splintered, he’ll bring it together somehow.

Larger trend – power being taken from the big companies and being put in your hands – as consumer and creator, playing field has been leveled and we’re all participating in it. But it’s really noisy, no one is organizing it, how do you find things of value, that’s why Google is so valuable right now – they’re doing it somewhat. Google is putting advertisers together with viewers, that’s the traditional role of newspaper.

So how does the Rocky compete with Google?

End of notes.

So, that’s pretty scattered and since it was over a week ago I’ve lost some of my usual brilliant thoughts I had at the time, but hopefully it’s of interest. I walked Mr. Temple out and asked if he would consider coming back and talking to our teachers about the same topic and he seemed interested, but also said his schedule was pretty full. I have an email in to his secretary about trying to get him back out here, we’ll see what happens.

All in all, I still think Mr. Temple and the Rocky have some pretty good insights into how to transform the newspaper business to the digital age – we’ll have to wait and see how successful they are making the transition. I know I’m asking for too much here, but I’m really hoping that my question will spur him to think some more about the impact this could – or should – have on education.

Cell Phones That Read

I heard this story on NPR today:

Gashel is showing off his new phone in a hotel ballroom filled with people who have come to check it out. Many are holding white canes, and there's a guide dog resting by the wall. Everyone listens to the small silver phone as Gashel holds it a few inches above a green rectangle.

"Taking picture ... detecting orientation," a digitized voice from the phone says. "Processing U.S. currency image, please wait … $20."

The phone is loaded up with software developed by the company Gashel works for —K-NFB Reading Technology, a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind.

Besides reading labels and telling a $20 from a $10, the phone can read pages of printed text.

Reading machines have been around for decades — this company already makes a hand-held device. But this reader is the smallest yet — just 4 ounces and a few inches long. And it's in a high-end Nokia phone with features like an MP3 player, high-speed data connection and a GPS navigation system.

If you listen to the NPR broadcast, you can hear what it sounds like when the cell phone "reads" part of a page of text - and the cheers from the audience (about the 1:47 mark). Pretty cool. Oh, by the way, yes it's that same Kurzweil that I reference in Did You Know?/Shift Happens.

Now, it's still very expensive, about $2000 for the cell phone (Nokia N82) and the software, but I imagine that will come down quickly. I'm thinking some schools may have to adjust their cell phone policies pretty soon . . .