Educational Technology and Change Journal

By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Bonnie Bracey Sutton‘s coverage of the 2011 Supercomputing Conference (More on SC11 – “Broadening Engagement” and Conferences Are About People – “Broadening Engagement”) brings one of the most critical developments in technology to the rest of the world. With supercomputing, we may begin to see change as a line that curves upward, beginning slowly but gradually accelerating at an exponential rate. As the curve grows increasingly steep, we approach the singularity.

Frank Withrow has mentioned Ray Kurzweil in a number of articles in regard to the latter’s work as an inventor. I’ve been intrigued by Kurzweil’s ideas about the singularity, a point in time when computers become not only faster but smarter than humans. At this stage, human history is transcended by AI systems that are capable of improving themselves at exponential rates. (See Kurzweil’s The Law of Accelerating Returns*; it was published over a decade ago, but it clarifies some of his basic ideas.)

Supercomputing is a step toward not only faster and bigger but to “wider” as well for increased accessibility. The speed, size, and breadth will make it possible for computers to become increasingly intelligent and, eventually, reach a point where they can begin to recursively learn and reproduce on their own.

The notion of intelligent computers creating even more intelligent offspring, exponentially and ad infinitum, is the stuff of sci-fi for most people, but the possibility is more than fantasy. The coming years — Kurzweil suggests by mid-21st century — will no doubt bring us closer to the singularity, but I don’t think the outcome or process will pit computers against humans. We’ll still be in control, using computers that may be thousands if not millions of times smarter than we are. Despite their power, they’ll continue to be under our control as extensions of ourselves, tools that allow us to transcend the limits of our biological intelligence. Continue reading →

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The theme for the 2012 conference is “Emerging Technologies in Education: Trends & Issues.”

Social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, have facilitated communication, sharing, collaboration and creativity among students and faculty.

Students and faculty have converged on the Internet to share their views and utilize Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning. However, many issues and concerns have yet to be answered fully: How do faculty, staff, students and communities produce positive learning outcomes? Can students learn through virtual worlds, educational games, augmented realities, or the use of mobile devices? What technologies continue to reshape e-learning? How do we support our colleagues?

Conference dates: April 17-19, 2012
Pre-conference: April 5, 2012

Links: conference homepage; call for proposals.

UPDATE 1.12.12

TCC 2012, April 17-19: Call for Papers & Presentations, Extended Deadline

Best wishes for a prosperous 2012!

The deadline for submitting proposals for TCC 2012, held online from April 17-19, has been extended until January 24, 2012.

To submit a proposal for a general session or a paper:
http://tinyurl.com/tcc2012proposal

Info about preparing proposals:
http://tcchawaii.org/call-for-proposals/

Homepage:
TCCHawaii.org

Fees for presentations by graduate students will be waived.

TCCHawaii.org produces this event with LearningTimes and assistance from volunteer faculty worldwide.

Cheers,
– Bert Kimura for the TCC 2012 Conference Team

UPDATE 4.4.12

Aloha:

The 17th Annual TCC 2012 Worldwide Online Conference is open for registration. Join us for 100 live presentations over three days about emerging technologies, collaboration, online learning, and social media for teaching and learning.

Register by April 10 for $99. A special fee is available for students at $19.

Contact Sharon Fowler <fowlers@hawaii.edu> for group registration (unlimited participation).

Click here to access the secure online registration forms directly.

We look forward to your support and participation in TCC 2012.

Cheers,

– Bert Kimura for the TCC 2012 Conference Team

Continue reading →

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The amazing thing about the Supercomputing Conference is that it is still growing. I attended two parts of the conference and the exhibits, Education, and then Broadening Engagement (BE). Roscoe Giles chairs this part of the conference. The goal of broader engagement is to change the face of technology to be more inclusive. Remember I asked in my first take on the conference, “Where are the women?” Well, lots of women were involved in the Education and Broadening Engagement program.

Diane Baxter, Director of Education, San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD

We are mentored by these women — and the men. Diane Baxter, of the San Diego Supercomputing Center, is a friend and a mentor. She has been supportive through the years of my involvement, sharing, understanding and taking the pulse of K-12. Continue reading →

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By Melissa A. Venable

[Note: ETCJ’s Twitter editor, Jessica Knott, has been working with Melissa to develop this series. See Part 1: Getting Started, Part 3: Curating the Chaos, and Part 4: Participating in a Live Event. -Editor]

If you’ve set up your account and have had some initial experience tweeting, you may be wondering how you’ll sort through and keep up with the constant flow of information and resources brought to you via your Twitter account.

The main Twitter page can be frustrating to use since it presents long lists of incoming and outgoing tweets in non-sortable, chronological order, which can make data consumption a chore.

Ideally, Twitter will become a source of information when you need it, and not just another item on your already lengthy list of things to do. Dashboard applications offer one way to make the process not only more efficient in terms of your time and effort, but also more user friendly so you’ll want to return.

Try a Dashboard Application

Tools such as TweetDeck and Seesmic are popular options that take the main Twitter page to the next level by providing customizable screen layouts. You can choose what appears on screen: incoming tweets from those you follow, tweets in which you are mentioned, direct messages, specific hashtags, and more. You can also search for information by keyword and monitor multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously, which is helpful if you use multiple accounts for different purposes. These types of tools simplify how you receive information via Twitter, as well as how you share it. Continue reading →

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I should be in bed. I am tired. I am at the Seattle Supercomputing Conference, and in the few days I have been here my mind has been challenged to think, stretch, create and expand my ideas on education. It it not my first time at the conference. As I continue to attend, I gather friends with benefits who have the same mission of changing the world and sharing their expertise. I have learned so much, I had to think how to share. Look here at the conference site and examine communities.

I am part of a team of teachers. We are an affinity team, and we sit and talk after the sessions, to strategize what we will do during the year after the conference is over. Jesse Bemley has created the first Supercomputer Center in a neighborhood. Mano Talaiver is a great friend from Virginia; she works with a consortium out of Longwood University, educating the rural populace and sharing new technologies, gender education and such. Bob Plants is a learning science specialist who trained at Vanderbilt and who currently works at the University of Mississippi; we work together at SITE.org. And my husband, Vic Sutton, is a journalist-educator. That is the core of our group, but already this year we have found a few others to bring along on our journey. No one is in charge of the team.  Henry Neeman and Scott Lathrop are our main contacts within the SC community. Continue reading →

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I am in conference mode.

First was the SETDA 2011 Leadership Summit, Nov. 6-9, at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center On the Potomac in National Harbor, Maryland. U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, along with Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Laura Junor, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Readiness, and Richard Culatta, Education Fellow, Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Washington, and Steve Midgley, Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education, announced the launch (Nov. 7) of The Learning Registry. “The Learning Registry is a new approach to capturing, sharing, and analyzing learning resource data to broaden the usefulness of digital content to benefit educators and learners” (Learning Registry).

The next conference was at FOSI.org: “The nature of evolving technology sees the emergence of new trends and behavior among young people and new efforts by government and industry to combat harmful behaviors. FOSI provides periodic information to keep you informed about these issues.” Here are some featured publications:

• State of Online Safety Report: 2011 Edition (14MB)
• Increasing Youth Safety and Responsible Behaviour Online: Putting in Place Programs that Work
• Cyberbullying
• Sexting
• Self harm in the digital age
• Broadband Responsibility: A Blueprint for Safe and Responsible Online Use

I am currently at the Supercomputing Conference (SC11)  in Seattle, Nov. 12-18: “Connecting Communities through HPC [High Performance Computing]. To build a larger, more diverse, knowledgeable and skilled community, SC11 is focusing on innovating HPC applications and advancing scientific discovery for the local, regional, national and global society.”

I will share more about these in an upcoming article.

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Games and education seem not to fit for those who are traditional educators. For some reason they don’t think learning is fun. In a recent article, I shared how interactive demonstrations at museums captivate the interest of children. The interactive modules often integrated a short game. Here’s the thing. Games don’t write red marks all over the paper if you make a mistake. Instead, they are engaging in that you can continue to play to improve your scores.

Games let you explore different ways of working with data. I had a game, something about warlords, and I took the role of each of the groups to learn techniques that would let me play well. In some games, when you get a top score, you receive some type of special recognition.

Unfortunately most educators and administrators do not wade into games to understand the fascination, the intricacies and the methods that games use to entice, enchant and involve students, teachers and players.

I have worked with MECC, a group that started games in education. The great thing about it was that you had license to replicate the games in the school system. So, as fast as the ed tech people could copy, you could use the games. They were originally quite simple, but complicated enough to interest children. Continue reading →

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My wife and I took a cruise around Italy, Spain and Portugal this fall. We were amazed at the number of iPads, Kindles and other devices being used. There was on the ship the usual room of computers and email connections, but WIFI was also available for those who brought their own devices.

There was a cruise ship reporter who had her four-year-old daughter with her. They had been on five cruises this year. The daughter told me how she read her books on her iPad and how she wrote things on it, meaning she spoke to it about the things she saw. She showed me how she could get her favorite stories to come up on the tablet.

Port at Lisbon

Suzy was our youngest fellow passenger, but not the only one with an iPad, Kindle or other mobile communications device. I was impressed by many of our senior ladies and their skills and knowledge about these devices. As far as I could tell they used them in two ways. Before shore visits they did searches on points of interest, the history of the place and other background information. On the shore visits they took pictures and posted notes on what they were seeing. When they got back to the ship at night they shared their shore visit photos with fellow passengers. Of course, the pictures and notes would be shared with family and friends via email and social media or in person when they returned home. Continue reading →

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By Michael Biocchi

[See Educational Games Part I: A Way to Make Even Math Fun and Educational Games Part III: Their ‘Educational’ Characteristics]

Classrooms in high schools and elementary schools are embracing technology more and more as time passes. That being said, some do not yet have whiteboards, projectors and video conferencing equipment. However, all the schools do have one thing — a computer. As of 2008, it is estimated that 100% “of [public] schools [in the United States] have instructional computers with Internet Access.” In fact, the “ratio of students to instructional computers with Internet access” is 3:1 (Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools: Fall 2008, USDE, April 2010, p. 4). With these statistics, it is safe to say that technology is in the classroom. Nevertheless, it is not just about getting the technology into the classroom. It’s about how it is being used.

When looking at combining education and new technologies, such as games, with younger students, it is good to know that most have used a computer to complete homework. Furthermore, 18% of gamers are under 18 years of age (2011 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, Entertainment Software Association, 7 June 2011, p. 2). This means that, while there are a lot of adult gamers, there is still a large portion of players in elementary and high school.

Combining both the classroom and games is a perfect fit. Parents think so as well with 68% believing that “game play provides mental stimulation or education.” Also, 57% of parents “believe game play helps the family spend time together” and 54% “believe game play helps [children] connect with friends” (2011 Essential Facts, 5). Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Jack Grove’s article begins with the phrase “Standardized teacher training,” and it goes on to say that 70% of British academics have rejected this proposal by the Higher Education Academy. The issue isn’t with teacher training per se. It’s with the whole notion of standardization. Grove cites Julie Hall, co-chair of the Staff and Educational Development Association, who defends the rejection: “Universities have designed their own programs over the past 20 years in this area, so this sounded like the HEA was telling ­institutions what to do. We are glad it has listened to us – a one-size-fits-all approach will not work” (“British Academics Reject Training,” Times Higher Education, 11.3.11).

Hall’s comment makes sense, until we realize that this may just be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. She is a staff development leader, and we have to wonder if the one-size-doesn’t-fit-all argument also applies to her work at her own institution. I don’t know the answer and can only hope that it does. However, my personal experience tells me that the vast majority of staff development programs are guilty of the same kind of top-down siloing. Under the guise of “best practice,” they relentlessly champion one approach or another, usually a FOTM with a catchy title. Convinced that they have the one answer for all pedagogical questions, they gather the weary classroom warriors on their parade fields and cheerfully attempt to get them to march in unison to their one-size cadence.

The problem is that “best practice” isn’t an answer. If it were, it would be static and old from the get-go. In other words, yesterday’s best would be today’s worst as a natural correlate of exponential change. The only viable take on “best practice” is that it’s a question, or more accurately, a set of questions. And the set would have to be open since tomorrow’s questions will be based on advances and conditions that we can’t begin to imagine today. Continue reading →

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There was a time in the early days of mankind when life spans were less than twenty years. Today we are seriously finding ways to slow down or stop the aging process. The world just reached seven billion persons. With life spans being extended and more babies being born, we must ask: Are we getting too crowded?

There are researchers that believe we can extend life to 250 years. There are serious questions we need to ask with respect to population and whether or not we are headed to a standing room only Earth. We saw in the 20th Century life spans extend to 100 or more years in one century. We saw women in 1900 on average having seven children to today’s woman having only two. We have seen demographic shifts worldwide and in individual countries. For example, Japan has the oldest median age at about 53 whereas Afghanistan has the youngest median age at around 17.

Nations with younger median ages tend to be more violent and aggressive whereas older median aged nations are more passive and conservative. As life spans expand, there is more time for education and lifelong learning. In fact, older aged societies are more likely to have the senior population engaging in more informal and formal learning opportunities. Increased life spans are altering the stages of life. More and more people are shifting how they expand their life styles. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Even if the difference in learning styles between boomers and millennials is often ignored by educators in schools and colleges, it hasn’t gone unnoticed in the world of business. Douglas Dell, in “Changing Times, Changing Education Strategies: Ways of Learning Have Changed, So Have the Students” (PropertyCasualty360, 10.31.11), says that by 2015 the millennials will overtake boomers as the majority in the workforce.

This shifting demographic has consequences for training programs. Dell says that “traditional” classroom methods that work with boomers “will not suffice for Millennials, who are eager to learn and are used to seeking knowledge on demand. They will not wait to be assigned to classes, as they are true proponents of real-time learning.” Learning programs must therefore have the following qualities:

• Immediate – offering access to knowledge nuggets at the point of application.
• Specific – targeted to needs and focused on practical application rather than theory.
• Validated – with user ratings and feedback to establish the value of learning.
• Multi-channel – providing content in multiple formats, accessible from multiple appliances.
• Collaborative – offering the ability to supplement information with additional feedback and observations.

Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s Apps for Education are the latest in an endless line of gimmicks for supremacy in the cloudy learning management platform (CLMP) battle. They’re waving the “open” flag to attract the administrators who determine how our colleges and schools will spend their technology dollars. But the problem is that free is only one side of the open standard. The other is freedom.

Microsoft and Google — as well as Blackboard and Pearson, with its OpenClass — just aren’t getting it. Free for the enterprise doesn’t necessarily translate to free for the individual in the classroom who actually uses the CLMP — the teacher. For the overwhelming majority of enterprises, the primary concern is control, and that control is ultimately manifested in power over how teachers will use technology.

The result, from the teacher’s standpoint, is the same old restrictions that apply to closed systems. The CLMP may be free to the enterprise, but it doesn’t spell “freedom” for the teacher. Instructional technology administrators are attracted to CLMPs because they cut operating costs while maintaining their power and control in the technology chain of command. Continue reading →

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From: Education Week
Title: Training the Hybrid Educator
Date: Wednesday November 2, 2011
Time: 2:00PM EDT
Note: No special equipment other than Internet access is needed to participate in any of our text-based chats.

Hybrid learning, which blends face-to-face teaching techniques with online instructional aspects, is a rapidly growing sector of K-12 education. Although each hybrid, or blended, program varies on the spectrum of face-to-face vs. online elements, it is always important to properly train hybrid educators to meet student needs effectively. This chat will address what kinds of professional development are available to hybrid educators, as well as the key factors they need to know to be successful in the classroom. Our guests will share their experiences as hybrid and virtual instructors and talk about the role that hybrid education is playing in K-12 today.
Guests:
Erik Toman, middle school teacher, Chicago Virtual Charter School
Tracy Sheehan, manager of instructional development, Virtual High School Global Consortium
Katie Ash, staff writer, Education Week and Education Week Digital Directions, will moderate this chat.

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From the TLT Group
Please join us on October 28 – 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET for FridayLive!

Click here for more information.

This week: Interview with Steven Bell, Librarian/KeeperUpper Extraodinaire!

Steven Bell is currently the Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services at Temple University and the Association of College and Research Libraries vice-president/president-elect. He will become the president of ACRL in July 2012 for a one-year term.   Steven has been in the middle of new ideas in Higher Education Librarianship – notably in collaborating with others – especially Instructional Technologists for many years.  He has also been very thoughtful and practical about “Keeping Up” which is an issue for all of us.

Some areas Steve and Steve will talk about:
1. What’s important, frightening, hopeful?  About eTextbooks,  Open <whatever>, Role of libraries and librarians…
2. How can we keep up without being overwhelmed?
3. Is Information Literacy still alive?
4. What can we all learn from reference librarians and browsing enthusiasts?
5. Top 5 things to help faculty help students become better researchers

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Sessions will take place in multiple time zones and multiple languages over the five days. The conference seeks to present ideas, examples, and projects related to connecting educators and classrooms with a strong emphasis on promoting global awareness, fostering global competency, and inspiring action towards solving real–world problems. Through this event, it is our hope that attendees will challenge themselves and others to become more active citizens of the world. Let us learn, question, create, and engage in meaningful, authentic opportunities within a global context!

Click the image to go to the site.

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The Library 2.011 Worldwide Virtual Conference, November 2 – 4, 2011, is a unique chance to participate in a global conversation on the current and future state of libraries. Subject strands include the changing roles of libraries and librarians, the increasing impact of digital media and the e-book revolution, open educational resources, digital literacy, shifts from information consumption to production (Web 2.0), multimedia and gaming spaces, libraries as community centers, the growth of individualized and self-paced learning, the library as the center of new learning models, understanding users in the digital age, assessing service delivery, and defining leadership and information professional careers in a networked and changing world.

Click the image to log in to the site.

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[Note: This article was originally submitted as a reply to Harry Keller‘s comment (10.19.11) on Bonnie’s “Who Speaks for Teachers?” (10.16.11). -Editor]

Nice response. I read it while at a conference that is very different. I was sitting with a group of teachers at the time. We were at the Wireless Ed Tech Conference, Oct. 20-21 in Washington, DC. I cite it because this conference was sectioned into Business, Technology and Education, and allowed networking, but also allowed the people attending to go to other sessions. Click here to read their research document and to download Chris Dede and Marie Bjerede’s “Mobile Learning for the 21st Century: Insights from the 2010 Wireless EdTech Conference” (March 2011).

The fun of the conference — a conference is fun? — is that it was not a big box carnival of things to buy. It was ideas to think about and engaging in conversation with people who were educators, policy makers or researchers. And everyone was allowed to ask questions. We were not in carnival mode with so much going on that there was not time to think. Carefully crafted, this conference allowed networking time. It was assumed that we would network, and we did.

There were real teachers at this conference, and some of the content and activities met their needs. We were able to see the big ideas, to meet the mentors, to be involved in the dialogue that is so usually top-down. We heard Chris Dede, Elliot Soloway, and Shirley Malcom from Digital Promise and James Shelton from the Department of Education. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

One of the award winners for the 2011 Sloan-C Effective Practice Award is a paper written by six Seattle Pacific University professors, David Wicks, Andrew Lumpe, Henry Algera, Kris Gritter, Helen Barrett, and Janiess Sallee. The title is “bPortfolios: Blogging for Reflective Practice” (Sloan-C, 18 Oct. 2011), and the “b” in “bPortfolios” stands for “blogs.”

The use of blogs as eportfolios, in and of itself, is not especially new. Individual teachers in the field have been doing it for years. However, the fact that this move is being made by a large group of programs in a college of education – “undergraduate teacher education, Masters of Arts in Teaching, Masters of Teaching Mathematics and Science, and Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction” – and that the movement is outside the campus e-silo is definitely a radical departure from business as usual. In the last few years, blogs have been available in most LMSs (learning management systems), but the SPU group is emphatic about using WordPress, an “open” blog environment that’s freely available to everyone.

Here are some reasons they cite for their choice of an open blog service:

• “Basic WordPress accounts are free of charge.”
• The portfolios promote and support “autonomy,” i.e., “Students have ownership of their personal content management system.”
• Students can use the portfolios across an entire “degree program” for “numerous on-campus and online courses and/or during … field experiences.”
• The portfolios promote and support “social interaction,” i.e., “Students share their learning reflections in an open format.”
• Students can “continue to maintain their site upon completion of the program as their individual accounts are not registered on a university server.”
• The portfolio is “stored in the cloud (WordPress.com).”
• The portfolios are “highly cost effective” and sustainable: “The university can focus its time and efforts on improving instruction and student support for the bPortfolio rather than allocate funds and personnel to web-hosting, software upgrades, and software support, etc. in the bPortfolio project.”

SPU’s movement away from the confines of closed campus systems to the open web is a sign that colleges of education – or at least this college of education — are beginning to expand the role of 21^st century teachers to include independence and empowerment in making technology-related curricular and pedagogical decisions. In this scenario, teachers and students are firmly in charge, and IT staff and resources are clearly in a support position to facilitate rather than dictate. Continue reading →

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By Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

[Note: The following article originated as a comment (10.19.11) to Bonnie Bracey Sutton’s “Who Speaks for Teachers?” (10.16.11). -Editor]

I don’t have your answer. So, don’t misinterpret my musings on this subject. That’s all they are.

Lots of people blame teachers for our problems because they’re an easy target. It’s not so simple. I see several sides to this discussion.

On one side, you have hard-working, capable teachers who just cannot cope with all that’s going on. Their class sizes have exploded, and their budgets have shrunk. Meaningful learning is hard to create under these circumstances except for the most talented and motivated (at the same time) teachers.

Another side shows us teachers who have chosen the wrong profession for whatever reason. Their personalities just don’t fit the necessities of teaching. Most of these will self-select themselves out of the profession, but some remain.

Some teachers have been assigned classes for which they were never trained. You see this problem in science where a life science teacher is given physical science classes or where the science teacher was trained in mathematics and not in science. Someone recently pointed out that only about 10% of K-12 STEM teachers have adequate training in their subject. Continue reading →

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By Lynn Zimmerman
Editor, Teacher Education

Over the ten years that I have been at Purdue University Calumet, I have seen the evolution of courses from being offered almost completely face-to-face to having a wide variety of hybrid and online offerings in all schools and departments. For a predominately commuter campus, the online format is a way to give students more choices and flexibility to fit around their busy schedules. The university has supported and encouraged this move to more online offerings.

Janet Buckenmeyer, PhD, Purdue University Calumet

About six years ago an online training/mentoring program was developed to train and certify faculty in the building of online courses. The idea was that if we are going to offer courses online, faculty would benefit from instructional designers helping them develop courses that fit seamlessly into the online environment. Although participants were taught some technology skills, the focus was on how to develop a pedagogically sound course using techniques and strategies that have proven successful in the online environment. Up to this time, faculty have generally had latitude in deciding how they want to deliver their courses and making decisions based on their own knowledge of the content and their students. Continue reading →

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Surely the past few years we have heard people speak about teachers, and they have had plenty to say. Most of it was negative. Most of it was demeaning to the people who chose teaching as a profession. In 2009, the media featured Michelle Rhee with a broom, sweeping out teachers that were not wanted. The assault on teachers continued with the LA Times picking up the pace, and we learned about teacher evaluations. Here’s a thought: I kept wondering who would speak up for teachers. That discussion was very slow in coming. Incredibly, Diane Ravitch and Larry Cuban picked up the baton.

I was waiting for the groups that teachers support to come forward, but teacher unions were under the gun and had to circle the wagons in their own defense, and the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) was shocked at the defunding of ETAN and they were circling their wagons, mounting a defense for the funding of ETAN. And then CoSn came to the fore, with the Horizon report and some good data about education. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Idaho is stepping boldly into the future with its “Students Come First” law. A key emphasis is technology: “the state and local school districts will make every classroom a 21st Century Classroom.” This is how they define their new classroom: “Every student will learn in … a classroom that is not limited by walls, bell schedules, school calendars, or geography” (“About the Laws“).

To this end, they’ve created a technology task force chaired by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna. A topic at the top of its agenda is “one-to-one mobile computing devices in high schools” (Task Force), which they define as “not limited to a laptop. It could be any device such as an iPad, netbook, Nook, Kindle, etc.” (SCF). The group began meeting in June 2011 and will be reporting its findings to the Idaho House and Senate Education Committees by no later than January 31, 2012.

The law, at least on the surface, is enlightened. Its definition of “classroom” reflects the virtual learning dimension opened up by web technology. Its emphasis on internet-enabled personal communication devices for every high school student is a step toward a 21st century classroom. Continue reading →

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From Steve Gilbert, TLT Group, et al.

A free, interactive, online event.
October 14 – 2-3 pm ET
Click here for more info.

We’ll discuss how to recognize counterimplementation tactics, and how to distinguish between careful planning and undue restraint of innovation. We’ll exchange samples of both from participants’ own recent experience. We’ll suggest some Counter-Counter-Implementation Strategies and when they might be useful. We’ll explain how to use the TLT Group’s Fundamental Questions – which, unfortunately, have become especially helpful once again.

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[Note: An earlier version of this article first appeared as a comment (10.12.11) on Jim Shimabukuro’s “University Leaders Beginning to Flex Their eMuscles” (10.7.11). -Editor]

One image that comes to mind when I attend conferences is that of sheep, that is, the people who go to the conferences thinking that the featured speakers know all of the answers and are willing to pay them big money to be “educated.” Not so obvious is the fact that, often, the major conference providers are promoting the resources of the private sector groups who contribute to their conference and who exhibit in their hall.

Many of the stars at these conferences are what I call educational entertainers. Sometimes the keynote speakers are quite entertaining. Sometimes they are educators of note, but all too often most of them have NEVER taught in a classroom. It is a cut throat business so the emphasis is on being entertaining rather than enlightening.

Then there is the hill walk. There are great things to be accomplished going to the hill. I had never heard of it mainly because I am from DC. My friends from other states educated me about going directly to the people who represent you: make an appointment, and go talk with them. The hill walks are sometimes organized by special interest groups to “help” politicians learn about education. It is an interesting process if you have never done it, and there are things to be gained.

In “Free Trips Raise Issues for Officials in Education,” Michael Winerip reports on influence-peddling in public-private collaborations (New York Times., 10.9.11). The article is interesting, but it covers just one of many different types of perks that school officials can get. I am sure that many of you can think of perks that are obtained if one buys a certain curriculum or is able to demonstrate a service or app that’s associated with a major vendor. So the world of education exists in a kind of ideational scaffolding somewhat fueled by money and influence. Maybe it was never any different. Maybe I am naive.

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