There exists a philosophy of technology that states we should be dedicating specific time in our school day to teach students finite skills of operating computing technology.  That in order to prepare our students properly for the world, we must teach them how to word process and how to operate Power Point and how to keyboard.  The computing instruction is an end goal.  The students should learn these skills because the skills themselves are the important part of technology, and if we don’t stop throughout the day and teach them how to specifically operate the tools or applications within a computer, we will be failing to equip our future.

I’ve had discussions with individuals who say they’d rather see the students learn technology skills in isolation, and it isn’t necessary to embed or even relate this instruction to curricular content or goals.  The important part is that students learn how to operate the computer and properly work the word processing application.

I’ve found this to be a fairly popular philosophy and culture in many circles of public opinion.

So, you are in this conversation with someone.  Someone who believes adamantly that we must focus time and energy and effort on explicitly teaching students how to operate specific technology.  Someone who says we should have a checklist of computer proficiencies for each student so that we will know they can operate a computer successfully.  That if we fail to do so, we will be failing to prepare our students to succeed in the future.

And you respond by saying…

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Thanks to Flickr user wZa HK for the use of the image.

I might be wrong on this.  Feel free to posit your opinion and help me figure out what needs figuring.

There is a philosophy of technology in education that says we should afford students the chance to interact and explore specific technology experiences to ensure exposure to the technology.  Let me give you an example.

A program could be established at a school allowing all students at all grade levels in the building to engage in a short unit on digital video editing.  The unit would be done for the sake of exposing students to the process and skills of digital video editing as many of them may have cause to use those skills in a future class or occasion where they would employ the learned skills.  We also want to expose as many students as possible to the process as it may spark an inert interest and fan it into a full flame of passion for the experience, and thus, give cause for the said student to pursue a career in the field of video editing.  We also want to make sure all students in the building have the opportunity to have a common experience and exposure, so we’d make sure we work the video editing unit into a rotation outside the general classroom to ensure all students have the experience.  If we left it up to the general education teachers, it may well be that some students wouldn’t have the experience as their teachers may not be comfortable with the technology, or have the time, and thus not choose to do a digital video editing experience embedded in their class.

So the philosophy is to have all students work with digital video editing outside the general classroom to give them exposure and skills for the future.

Frankly, I don’t agree with this philosophy.  This is where I could be wrong.

I believe we should work to create both an opportunity and cause for teachers to have access to the necessary environment where they use the digital video editing as a means to engage students in embedded learning.  Allow an english teacher to dynamically engage literacy by creating a lesson that utilizes this technology.  Allow science students to demonstrate scientific principles by creating a video representation of a concept of study.  Allow foreign language students to produce a video entirely in the language they are learning.

I believe if we isolate the experience for the sake of affording the experience, we’ve made it solely about the experience and not the learning.  Yes, digital video editing is rife with opportunities for learning, but wouldn’t those opportunities be magnified when coupled with specific curricular goals?

To me, the former feels like the “just in case” model we’ve been trying to move away from for a long time.  The problem is, if we use the “just in time” of the latter, some students may well not get the experience.  But, is that a problem?  Do we think every student needs this experience?

Personally, I think we want the latter.  This is the epitome of my philosophy of technology.  My philosophy has been disagreed with as of late, and I’m wondering if I’m wrong.

Am I?

Thanks to BAMCAT for the Flickr image.

I read a story today that all but requires me to follow up with the ideas discussed in my recent post, “Technology Guidelines.”

I’ve been simultaneously encouraged and challenged by the comments to the post, and I’m heartened to see many affirm my position on the issues.  There remains, however, one nagging thought that I can’t seem to convince of its irrationality.  It’s an issue of liability.

In the first point on the post, I make mention of the implications of hosting student content on a server that a district doesn’t control.  This would include services such as WordPress hosted, Wikispaces, VoiceThread, etc.  I would say this would also include students using their own cell phones in class for learning.  The overwhelming response to this issue was that the experiences such services afford students far outweigh any potential consequences of the environments being abused.  In fact, many people poignantly pointed out that the transparent nature of learning as well as the obvious lack of IT support in most districts necessitate the decision for districts to seek outside resources for their students.

I found myself in complete agreement until I came across this article today.  I can’t encourage you enough to take the time to read it in its entirety.

I know many will respond that we can’t let such things cause us to fear making progress and moving forward with engaging students in a digital world.  However, I can’t help but wonder if those people would advocate for the same if they were in Ting-Yi’s position.  This is the very reason why this issue is much more complicated for me at the present.

Given the litigious nature of our society, and the fact that so many of you would be the ones lawyers would come to directly should something happen to the students in your district while they were online in the very environments which you established, I wonder if we shouldn’t give pause to consider the issue a bit further.  I want to offer my students the best learning experience possible.  In fact, I argued almost to the point of absurdity with the person whom which I first engaged this discussion.  I’ve now been given reason to pause and renumerate my position.

We know, as is evidenced in the article, that far too often blame is defrayed from the student and placed on the one who set up the system.  As wrong as that is, precedence proves it to be true time and again.  The last thing I want to do is let fear of misappropriated blame stop me from seeking dynamic learning opportunities for students, but I do think I need to fully consider every angle should something like this happen in the district where I am responsible.

I’m not saying I’m shuttering the windows and locking all the doors I can find.  What I am saying is I need to consider how we all respond to such issues when they arise.  What do we say to those who ask or to the angry parent who accuses us of willingly setting up an environment in which students can be harmed?  How would you honestly respond if someone purported you were to blame for students finding serious trouble within the spaces you setup outside the district?  I find it a very critical point in time for us all to work together and create a coherent, cogent response to the question.

Thanks to Chris Owens for the Flickr image.

On Thursday, January 22nd, I became a father.  Life hands us many unfathomably incredible experiences as we live it, but none can compare to seeing life that you halved the responsibility in making come into existence in this world.  I must be forthright and admit, I was warned by many.  I was told it would be an amazing experience.  I was told it has to be lived to be understood.  I was told I would be overwhelmed with emotion.  But I don’t think I was told the real truth.  Nobody warned me what it was really going to be like.

Nobody told me…
-your wife becomes an even closer treasure as she shares your joy in parenthood
-you’ll lose the capacity to speak when holding your child for the first time
-there is no chance you’re not thinking about him every waking moment
-no obstacle seems insurmountable if overcoming it means his life will be made better
-you think about him and you lose the ability to stop a smile
-you see a portion of your living purpose rise and fall with each breath he takes
-there is no greater pride than that which lives because he does
-sustaining his life is the greatest cause you will champion in your life

I was thinking about this tonight as I was driving to pick up some needed baby supplies, and I found that in simply ten minutes of his absence, I missed him incredibly.  And then I realized, my experience is not unique.  It is something hopefully every parent has the joy of living.  And it means something beyond just my own indescribable emotions.

As I was reflecting, I was struck by the thought that this experience was sustained by every parent of the roughly 10,000 students being educated in the district where I work.  And in that moment, I was overwhelmed.

Each of those parents entrusts me and my colleagues with that which they most dearly treasure.  They trust us to do what is best for their children.  Someday in the near future, I will place my trust in the same way in those who will endeavor to educate my son.  It suddenly brings a great sense of focus to my professional purpose.

I am the Instructional Technology Coordinator for a school district in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.  My job exists so that I might bring vision, clarity, and purpose to the utilization of technology in a student’s learning experience.  We are all aware of just how important this has become in the age in which we live.

My son’s birth has brought with it an unexpected sense of clarity.  A focus on what is important.  I’ve been caught up in some very insightful, meaningful discussions lately, but I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t time to disengage a bit from that space.  I know there were several very powerful, purposeful conferences that took place this past week, but I’m beginning to wonder if that’s where my attention should be.

So many are engaging in discussions that seem to be resounding loudly only as echoes against the walls of the chamber from which they are being contained.  A cry for change is bellowed, but does the cry carry the weight and momentum necessary to exact real change?  Are we focusing energy trying to move the immovable boulder rather than finding ways to push the pebbles we know we could push if we really wanted to?

Jen Wagner put it very succinctly recently with her challenge to move away from the circular discussions and put one foot in front of the other on a path of practical progress.  I think that’s the direction in which I need to start moving.  I have influence in areas of my life where more change could be manifested if I stopped thinking in global terms and started moving locally.

If I think of my own son, and consider that my passion and dedication to his life are truly multiplied 10,000 times over in my own district, I can readily find the motivation I need to keep fighting for what I believe is the best and in the best interest of the parents and students which I serve.

It’s time for me to readjust the focus and start seeing things through the lens of fatherhood.  I believe this could be the view that changes many things for me in a very profoundly positive way.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional baseball pitcher more than anything in the world.  I’d go outside and throw a tennis ball against my front steps and play every ricochet as if it were a batted ball.  I’d write out a lineup of the Cubs vs. whomever they happened to be playing that day, and I’d play out a full nine inning game.  I even recorded the stats for every player.  If it rained out, I’d wad up a pair of socks and hit them around my front porch with a wiffle ball bat – still keeping copious stats.  Now that I think of it, this is the first time I’ve ever admitted this in public.  I imagine my wife has never been prouder of me.

When I got older, I graduated on to pickup games at the schoolyard near my house.  I played little league, high school, and eventually college baseball.  I worked as hard as I could, and I always kept the goal of becoming a professional front and center in my mind.  I worked out six days a week (wish all that work was evidenced a bit more obviously now days), and I went to pitching lessons in the offseasons.  I knew what I wanted, and I worked with every bit of who I was to get there.  There was only one problem.  I wasn’t good enough.

I always had visions of throwing a baseball 95 miles per hour, but despite all my concerted efforts, I never managed to break 82 on the radar gun.  I just didn’t have the physical ability to do so.  I could have tried harder, I guess, but I’m not sure there was much more with which to try.  I could have gone to more clinics, lifted more weights, done more drills, ran more miles, or even watched more tape, but in the end, I don’t think it would have made a difference.  My body just wasn’t made to throw as hard as I wanted it to.

I believe there’s something very significant here.  We all have obvious physical limitations.  When we look at kids today, it would be absurd to expect them all to perform the same on any given physical task.  Think of what would happen if we said that every kid in 8th grade had to run a 6 minute mile.  Or that every 5th grader had to be able to do 25 pull-ups.  Or even 5 pull-ups.  It would be absurd.  Now think of the obvious parallel to learning.

Why is it when it comes to learning that we expect every kid to be able to perform at the same level?  When will we realize that kids are just as different mentally one from another as they are physically?  Not all kids can think at 95 miles per hour.

I know some people will disagree with me.  There are those who think all kids have the capacity to pass all of our given standards on performance assessments, but think about how fundamentally wrong that is.  If all kids can pass the standard, then what kind of rigor is built into the standard?  It would be an obvious sign that our expectations were too low as there would be at least 25% of the students who wouldn’t even have to try to achieve passable marks.  Conversely, if the standard was more rigorous and required much more effort of the students, there would be a percentage of the population who couldn’t possibly achieve passable marks.  It’s an indefensible notion to think that we can build tests that are appropriately difficult for all students and that all students can potentially meet the standard.

Some would say that I’m advocating for lower expectations for our kids.  I would counter just the opposite.  I expect every student in our world has the potential to achieve and perform at the very best of his or her abilities.  That he or she can apply all of his or her skills and thinking to any problem at any time.  To me, that is the absolute highest expectation there is.

If my goal in playing baseball had really and completely been to throw 95 miles per hour, I would have been a complete failure.  I would never have measured up, and I would have grown to resent the game.  Instead, I gave every bit of what I had, and I just enjoyed playing the game.  I believe we need to be very wary of setting up expectations that all students should be expected to perform and strive for the same goals.  If we do, too many students will think themselves complete failures, and they will grow to resent learning.  Instead, I think we need to let kids give every bit of what they have and just enjoy the process of learning.

Thanks to Anne Ruthmann for the Flickr image.