tmarch

The “outsourced brain”

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socrates vrDavid Brooks’ Op-Ed piece “The Outsourced Brain” in the New York Times is a must read for educators. Beginning with a GPS goddess that gently steers the author in the right direction, Brooks goes on to invoke his use of calculators for math (a given), iTunes for musical selection, search engines for memory of spot knowledge, smart phones for all the personal details we used to memorize, and finally syncing it all together with the wisdom of crowds that actually makes such “choices” with more validity than most of our own decisions.

It’s a fresh look with a bit of tongue in cheek, but what I love is that there’s plenty of common sense that’s obvious for any who live much of life “enhanced” by the New WWW (90% of those between 12 and 25?). What I find interesting is that many teachers object on something like moral grounds: “it’s just not natural,” “not the way it should be,” “isn’t what was good enough for us,” etc. These comments remind me of two anecdotes related to change. First, we know that Socrates objected to writing as it would diminish the power of the brain and oratory. The fact that what this wisest of men said was true didn’t alter the outcome: tablets, papyrus, scribes, Gutenberg, newsprint, paperbacks, Webpages, etc. “Digging in” against change “on principle” is no more valid than excusing ones self due to skill deficits or technophobia. Professionals work within reality to continuously improve what they do.

The second anecdote I’m reminded of springs from the complaints made by the parents of many of today’s veteran teachers during the last Generation Gap. The complaints could have been about Rock ‘n’ Roll or cohabitation. Even though parents in the 60s didn’t like the, these seismic shifts, they are now mainstream: The Beatles are Muzak and living together commonplace. The point of this minor rant is that many in education have to get over the “liking it” delusion. Not liking the firestorm doesn’t dampen the flames, but turning your back on it is likely to get you burned and place our children at risk.  Maybe part of the trick is learning to live in a reality that seems so unreal?

NavCon 07

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Navcon 07This week sees another iteration of the NavCon Conference. This year it’s held in Gosford on the Central Coast of NSW and is hosted by the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay.

I am presenting a spotlight presentation and a workshop.

A handout for the workshop outlines Four Main Strategies (doc) for integrating Real, Rich and Relevant Web resources into pedagogically sound practice. Help links are available on the 2nd10 site.

Teachable Doh!-ment

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Homer

The Age reports how a Sydney resident recorded The Simpson’s Movie on its premiere evening via his mobile phone and had it posted on the net within two hours. It only took that amount of time before representatives of 20th Century Fox alerted Australian Federal Police about the copyright violation. Of course, by then over 3000 people had downloaded the move and it found its way onto a BitTorrent site that served another 110,000 downloads in 72 hours.The 21-year-old man faces up to five years’ imprisonment.

d’oh – Expresses frustration or anger, especially at one’s own stupidity. (wiktionary)

Jimmy Wales Podcast

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Jimmy WalesFor those of you who haven’t heard Jimmy Wales (of Wikipedia fame) in person, the ABC radio in Australia provides a podcast of his recent presentation here. Featured on Big Ideas, May 6, 2007, you can listen to the whole program either as streamed RealAudio or download as a podcast. I’ve been working the “open source” metaphor for renewing schools and in his presentation, Jimmy Wales used a terrific analogy comparing designing a restaurant to how schools often view potential dangers. The program is definitely worth a listen if just for this piece (it comes after about 30 minutes).

“Big Mother” as Cognitive Tutor

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tutorIn my last post, I suggested that education would do well to mine the wealth of information that can be derived from digitally tracking student movements. A lot can be learned through amassed patterns of student use within software virtual environments and actual physical environs. Today Education Week reports about a New Breed of Digital Tutors Yielding Learning Gains. The article focuses on a school district in Everett, Washington where:

all of Everett’s high school students have a choice in signing up for Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and geometry: a traditional class or one that mixes teacher-led lessons with a sizable dose of machine-based tutoring.

Later in the article, the point is made:

Studies suggest that, on average, students who use Cognitive Tutor make learning gains that roughly translate into the equivalent of as much as one letter grade—the difference, in other words, between an A and a B.

So here’s one more example of how technology supports the individualization of skill-building in the cognitive domain. With teacher-shortages in many areas and a graying of the force, it’s not difficult to see how this trend will continue and become more sophisticated.

Big Brother or “Big Mother?”

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A few years ago Coca-Cola ran a promotion called “The Unexpected Summer.” In it a combo cellphone GPS device was rigged to look like a can of Coke and placed in over a hundred 12-packs around the country. A companion Web site allowed people to watch the blips as satellites tracked the lucky winners within 50 feet of anywhere the US.

Recently a few news items reminded me of this and the role of technology in keeping track of our whereabouts. Hitachi has developed a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) “powder.” The chip measures .05 millimeters square and 5 microns thick, about the size of a grain of sand. Another interesting development in the world of RFID was a patent taken out in February by Kodak for an edible RFID chip. Among other potential uses is for nurses to know if you’ve taken your medicine.

Less invasive might be the GPS sneakers now on sale from Isaac Daniel. The sneakers work when the wearer presses a button on the shoe to activate the GPS. In some emergencies — such as lost child or Alzheimer’s patient — a parent, spouse or guardian can call the monitoring service, and operators can activate the GPS remotely.We could add to this list the cell phone services and GPS car units designed to let parents know where their children are – out of harms way, one hopes. What will be very interesting as these technological developments continue is who monitors them and for what purpose.

In 1984, Orwell invoked a Fascist “Big Brother,” representing the power and interests of the state. In “Big Brother – the TV series,” a house and voyeuristic citizens take the role of omniscient observer of our every move. As Web 2.0 technologies converge with mobile communications, multi-nationals and corporate marketers anticipate the day when our physical location and long tail of previous purchases unite in an endless stream of opportunities to “impulse buy.”

Stopping this movement isn’t within our means. What might be – for those of us who are parents and teachers – is to advocate and champion a human side to this potential. In other words, demand educational applications that side-step Big Brother in favor of “Big Mother.”

  • We know what people surf for, but do we have an algorithm to help us match students’ learning to their interests?
  • Databases keep track of what we buy online, but can teachers access a similar tool that provides information about an individual’s knowledge, skills and attitudes?
  • Social networking sites match us up with thousands of “friends,” but can the software also help us reflect on the wisdom of our choices?

Welcome to “MyPlace”

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Myplace

This is the first public announcement of a new project. Targeting promotion of intrinsic motivation and critical thinking, MyPlace uses Web 2.0 technologies to enrich personal learning.

(Okay, so that last paragraph and image were a quick post made in the minutes before a presentation in Melbourne, Victoria. Thanks to the colleague who provided the nudge after noting the long-lingering New Year’s Eve posting.)

MyPlace is a multidisciplinary, multi-age project that attempts to provide a Real, Rich and Relevant learning environment for students.  Using the latest social-networking Web tools, the project invites students to find personal meaning in an exploration of what the world might look like for them.  Climate change, global economics, shifting demographics and geo-political tensions virtually guarantee that the world of our students’ early adulthood will be anything but predictable.

You are invited to explore the MyPlace site.  Contact tom at ozline dot com if you are interested in participating.  A Users’/Teachers’ guide blog also supports the site.

Interesting Bits from 2006

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G’Day Fellow Year-End Revellers,
cork
In the spirit of re-capping 2006, I’m weighing in with quirky twists that I think portend the end of “school-as-we-know-it.” Certainly the biggest story of 2006 is the emergence of Web 2.0 (audio discussion) and the flourishing that followed Tim O’Reilly’s What Is Web 2.0.But I like to get a feel for the littler moments within the grander sweep to sense which way the wind might be blowing for education. With that in mind here are my top five interesting bits for 2006.1) Early in the year the Wikipedia vs. Britannica battles began. The skirmish was well-documented with a little fudging room on either side of the debate, but the key point for me was not the 162 versus 123 flaws in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively, but that within a week, Wikipedia’s errors had been corrected. How long before the next edition of EB?

2) Biting the hand that feeds them… When a UK security firm discovered a high frequency tone that drove away teen-aged loiterers, the teens turned the annoying sound into the Mosquitone, a ringtone that only youths can hear. When asked what schools should do about the scenario of kids phones going off in class and teachers not being able to hear it, one said, “hire more young teachers.” Ouch, but true?

3) Corruption as a sign of maturity… Most commentators are anointing You Tube as the big story of 2006. I’d point to a sign of its maturity even within its short lifetime. As Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth gained traction world-wide, a PR firm working for energy producers got caught when they used YouTube for “Astro Turf”, the false presentation of what appears to be a “grassroots” up-rising. To me this is just one more padlock on the gates of the Factory School. Inquiry always trumps “information.”

4) Mashup as Art… Another popular sensation this year has been the emergence of Mashups. The most well-known examples often include Google Maps and other databases (wikis, classified ads, etc.). One that is close to my sensibility is Jonathan Coulton’s “Flickr”, a song that seems to begin like any other alternative folk song and then morphs into a post-modern collage of images drawn from people’s Flickr galleries. Here’s the kicker for education: what grade would you give this song if a student turned it in?

5) The New WWW & addiction… Finally, I’ve been predicting / watching the development of new forms of addiction as we enter into an era of the New WWW (Whatever, Whenever, Wherever). An archetypal example this year wasn’t when a hardcore World of Warcraft leader abdicated, but the 234 pages of heart-wrenching comments that followed the post. No wonder some call it “World of WarCrack”. Our task isn’t to bemoan, but to model what it means to be happily human. Not always easy, is it?

That’s it for me. I hope you all have a great holiday season and a terrific 2007.

Tom

(this post was cross-listed on the InfiniteThinkingMachine Blog)

Getting Serious about Play

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It seems Scotland public schools are in for an overhaul according to a recent BBC News article, School lessons to focus on play.

Schools will still use traditional methods when necessary to teach pupils to read, write and count. But the Scottish Executive also wants teachers to use play-based techniques.

Isn’t this a refreshing change?  I wonder how many students in the US will have to fall on the sword of external motivation and come up swinging or apathetic before the balance shifts toward valuing children over scores?  I continue to  be impressed and influenced by the work of Edward Deci and  Richard Ryan on intrinsic motivation.  Read their paper Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being  (downloadable from their Web site).  While there, view what should be mandatory reading for every politician making educational legislation: The High-Stakes Testing Controversy: “Higher Standards” Can Prompt Poorer Education.

Powerful Principals & Culture

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An article in The Sydney Morning Herald reports on findings in a recent study conducted through the University of Wollongong. Entitled Students’ academic success can be a matter of principal, it highlights that

Good principals were identified as those who were open to change, were informed risk takers, and were friendly and approachable. Their leadership was highly influential in the development of a positive school culture.

This brings up research that I am using in a study we will be conducting through the Association of Independent School – Victoria in 2007. One of the components is based on the work of Wayne Hoy and others who have identified what they call “Academic Optimism.” It is a school-wide measure that recognizes three interwoven criteria: “academic emphasis,” “collective efficacy,” and “parent and student support.” When these three aspects are strong, the culture of the school is a stronger predictor of academic success than socio-economic status. This is a powerful finding: more important than home income and all it reflects (parental education levels, enriched environment, etc.), is the culture of the school that says, we value learning, we can help children learn and we are trusted by parents and students as professional educators. If you want a terrific study, Hoy’s research study can be downloaded from his Web site at Ohio State University.