Drape's Takes

Last week I was given the opportunity to share my TEDx talk on balance with all of the principals and other academic leaders in my district. Just like 2nd Period's instruction is always better than 1st Period's stumbling, I felt like my timing and delivery were finally up to par this second time around.

I also added a few slides to elaborate on my description of the Year of the Selfie, not posted below because I never obtained permission to share them with an extended audience. (Have you ever noticed how crazy difficult it can be to find #selfies that are CC-licensed?) Seatbelt selfie, pet selfie, bathroom selfie, and gym selfie all made the list. For good measure, I even found a crowd-pleasing "We're in the bathroom of our gym" selfie to make the description complete.

Dean Shareski wrote an interesting post last week that continues to rattle around in my brain. Of blogging and other online spaces, he writes:

We need to understand that this space is different, that this medium breaks down the requirements and allows for much quicker and primarily more conversations to take place means we can’t still think about publishing in the same way. I’m not suggested spelling and revision isn’t important but THIS SPACE IS A CONVERSATION, not a monologue. In this space, I have no intention of writing and ending an idea or conversation.

We all have different frames for both writing and reading, and I shy away for passing my preferences on others, As a reader, I am in it for the ideas and the personality behind it, not the comma splices or dangling modifiers. Like Andrea suggests, writing is an iterative act of becoming better at it, and we are climbing out own curves: "Growth happens through the doing." yes!

As I writer in my own blog, I am writing predominantly for me, as a sketchbook of ideas, a "memory palace" (I cannot remember where that term came from), not some fancy magazine. If someone cannot deal with the style, that's fine for them to move on.

A blog (to me) is not a job interview, it is not a published essay, it is not a literary journal. It is a thinking spot, a rough draft, a place to be wrong and figure it out. (To me) this expectation of perfection and "final product" misses the opportunity for being in that messy place where ideas can emerge (ahem, Where Good Ideas Come From).

I have a small work shed outside and its not a pretty place. There are spilled nails, paint drop,s it smells of things I cannot name, the tools seem to move around, boxes fall from the rafters. A workspace that is spotless, polished, and the tools were hung in alphabetical order, to me is one that focuses more on its own cleanliness for cleanliness sake than for doing work.

Yes, it is important to be understood. And we all (especially me), students, teachers, can always do a little better to write more clearly. But to be compulsive to the point of not publishing seems a huge waste to me.

If you are counting missing commas, you might be missing the point.

The TEDx talk I gave a few weeks ago is now available for viewing online.

We live in a world filled with intense and constant opportunities for learning, engagement, and connectivity. Hence, the need for balance has never been greater.

• The words and slower pace I followed in this TED talk were very measured and intentionally slow. Because this message contrasted so greatly from previous talks and because I was last on the schedule, the in-person participants needed additional time to process. In the future, I wouldn't change my timing, but it may appear slow to the casual YouTube observer. 
• To come to the conclusions I've made in my eleventh slide, I compared statistics published on the List of countries by number of mobile phones in use Wikipedia page (e.g., November 2013, November 2008). 

• A few minutes into my talk, I reference an interview that Michael Wesch gave to Gillian Shaw of the Vancouver Sun. Unfortunately, I failed to mention that I paraphrased Dr. Wesch's words during the talk itself, although I've described this fact in my final Attribution slide.
• My inability to control emotions at the end of my talk impaired my ability to finish with power. If I were to do this again, I would hope to circle back to the idea that if we (as adults, teachers, and responsible citizens) don't find, teach, and model balance - then who will.
• Finally, I appreciate the willingness of others to share. My attribution slide follows, click to enlarge:

I don't habitually quote USA Today, but the ideas published yesterday by Michael Wolff are brilliant:

It is something of an impossible, or tragic, or existential predicament, coming to grips with your own obsolescence: Technological astuteness or intuition or cool is less a skill set than a culture or language or temperament — it is also, more and more, a market expectation.

Non-tech people, no matter their good intentions, can't do tech, at least never as well as tech people do it. This is something ever-more evident to people steeped in daily digital life, as most Americans are...

How do important American institutions — pillars of government, media, health care and business — compete with, and serve people, accustomed to, ever more remarkable, easy-to-use, high-performance and empowering new technology?

Most can't.

On the heels of yesterday's get-out-of-jail-free notification, my son's teacher surprised me this morning with this:

The last day of school for the year is next Thursday. I got this email today.

Can you think of any ways my son might benefit from attending school next week? What might other parents/students be thinking - especially if this teacher hasn't established other effective motives for learning in his classroom? 

I responded to Jim Groom's assertion that 10,000 students might just enroll in Georgia Tech's newly announced $7,000 Master's Degree program:

Jim,

You might very well be right. As I try to wrap my head around the implications of this Georgia Tech/Udacity deal, I keep bumping into the fact that they chose to offer a Master's Degree program first.

Can you imagine what will happen when a comparable UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM becomes available for this price and at this scale? It seems to me that the role of *public* K12 in preparing students for college would/will immediately shift - from helping students to acquire the SKILLS needed to succeed in college, to helping them acquire the SKILLS while also providing underprivileged students with ACCESS to *college*.

We all know there exists a percentage of students who are academically prepared for college while in their early years of high school. When we were in high school, we had little choice but to wait out our high school years (possibly earning AP credits along the way). Today's students are able to take concurrent enrollment courses - or also AP - earning their way to an Associate's Degree upon high school graduation. When quality undergrad MOOC programs become available, is it really that hard to envision our best high school students also leaving high school with their Bachelor's?

Twenty-four year old PhDs will become commonplace.

I remember the good ol' days, when teachers could actually tell when their students were using the Internet.

Based on our latest intel, the sweet spot for ideal high school staffing ratios hovers right around 16.41 students per teacher.

US News and World Report released their rankings this week of the "Best High Schools" in the country.* After evaluating more than 21,000 public high schools in 49 states and the District of Columbia, schools were awarded gold, silver or bronze medals based on "state proficiency standards and how well they prepare students for college." The American Institutes of Research (AIR) paired with US News to conduct much of the analysis.

The methodology used for selecting this year's cream of the crop included three steps:

1. Determine whether "each school's students were performing better than statistically expected for the average student in the state."
2. For those schools making it past Step 1, determine "whether the school's least-advantaged students (black, Hispanic and low-income) were performing better than average for similar students in the state."
3. For those schools making it past Steps 1 and 2, judge schools nationally on "college-readiness performance – using Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate test data as the benchmarks for success, depending on which program was largest at the school."

I jumped into an interesting Twitter conversation last night between Dean Shareski, Karl Fisch, Chris Lehmann, and several others about how and why schools might use Twitter. Dean kicked off the discussion with this:

1. Different people find different purposes and uses for Twitter.
2. Districts (and schools) who use social media to only broadcast are missing out on a valuable opportunity to engage with their patrons.
3. School (and district) time and resources are an issue.
4. If organizations can't engage with other social media users, they may be better off not using social media at all.

I was catching up on my MacWorld reading the other day and I came across this gem.

Dave Wiskus, on Apple's approach to marketing and design:

Apple’s approach to the problem was to first connect with the human holding the device, then present you with neat things you could do with it. Advertisements for the iPhone and iPad never discuss features; they show human beings using the devices to enrich their lives.

Add Teachers pay Teachers to my list of Dilemmas of Openness. Teachers pay Teachers appears to be a successful private marketplace from which advocates of OER might gain valuable insights.

"The world's first OPEN marketplace where teachers

buy and sell original teaching materials."

Stephen Downes discusses a "great rebranding" that is apparently taking place with regard to the concept of MOOCs:

MOOCs were not designed to serve the missions of the elite colleges and universities. They were designed to undermine them, and make those missions obsolete. 

Yes there has been a great rebranding and co-option of the concept of the MOOC over the last couple of years. The near-instant response from the elites, almost unprecedented in my experience, is a recognition of the deeply subversive intent and design of the original MOOCs (which they would like very much to erase from history).

Don’t mistake lust for fame with forethought. The current mania around MOOCs has nothing to do with strategic neutralization of a potential threat to higher education’s business model and everything to do with needing to be in the New York Times. Assuming the prior gives way too much credit where it isn’t due – twice. First, to the leadership of schools who have jumped speedily on the MOOC bandwagon. And second, to the creators of the MOOC approach who by implication have supposedly devised a method so brilliant as to be capable of destroying formal higher education (which, apparently, is to be lauded).

To be clear, Stephen's assertion of a great MOOC re-branding smacks of Edupunk (2008-2011, RIP). In spite of the first-sentence claim in the Edupunk Bible that this favorite movement died in 2011, Edupunk's rebellious redolence and distaste for all things formal can still be felt throughout online conversations today. Yes, the Edupunk spirit lives on; promulgated by Stephen and obviously flourishing among those who enjoy life in the "Schools Are Broken" fringes of society. To me, there is very little difference between the "We can do things on our own, who needs institutions?!?" attitude of an Edupunk, and the "We can do things on our own, who needs everyone else?!?" attitude of most private schools. Both attitudes are elitist, and ultimately in both sibling camps, some people win while other people lose. Perhaps in the end, it really is a dog-eat-dog world, as the fight for an educated populace continues to be trounced from nearly every possible angle.

Let the record show, nonetheless, that there were explorers in the days of pre-MOOC open online learning who simply wanted another quality method for all people to learn.

The 4th Annual Canyons District Film Festival was held Thursday night at Eastmont Middle School.

Intense. A real heart-pounder, this clip does an outstanding job building tension and suspense while omitting the violence we'd rather not have our younger audience see. As I watched this on the big screen, I think I almost had a heart attach. Made me want to forward every piece of spam I get.

Poster Contest Winner
David Skorut - Hillcrest High

I'm already excited about next year's Festival. The poster below was created by David Skorut (who's quickly becoming a local celebrity) and will be used to advertise the event next year.

Great job students, on-stage talent, and skillful specialists behind the scene! You made this year's Film Festival a complete success!

Dan Meyer, quoting Freddie deBoer (bracketing and emphasis mine):

I've said this before: let's have an academic decathlon... I would bet the house on my team [of privileged demographic], and I bet if you're being honest, you would too. Yet to accept that is to deny the basic assumption of the education reform movement, which is that student outcomes are a direct result of teacher quality.

I currently serve as the Director of Education Technology in a mid-sized public school district. As such, I feel a keen duty to spend public funds responsibly and in a manner that would be pleasing to the vast majority of those tax-payers who provide for the students in our care.

Because my department is in the business of technology and because technology lives in constant flux, I receive my share of requests for technology purchases: by teachers, by staff members, and even by principals in the schools I serve.

• Do you think requiring openness when making purchase requests would be worthwhile? 
• Would it potentially cause more issues than it might alleviate? 
• Would it save money? 

Making accurate predictions is difficult.

After the New Media Consortium released their 2013 Horizon Report for Higher Education, I reviewed the predictions they had made annually since their first report in 2004. Having nothing but the highest respect for members of the NMC community and appreciating the process followed to make their projections, I was curious to see how things have turned out through the years.

• Mobile (education) won't be going away anytime soon. Greater society's adoption will make sure of that.
• Educational gaming will NOT hit widespread adoption in 2007 (2005 + 2), 2008 (2006 + 2), 2011 (2007 + 4), 2013 (2011 + 2), 2014 (2012 + 2), 2015 (2013 + 2), nor - based on NMC predictive patterns - at anytime before the year 2020. Gaming is DUE, however, to spend several years in the "1 Year or Less" category.
• We may actually see solid in-class teacher use of learning analytics by 2016.
• Wearable technology should spend at least ten years on NMC lists, as Google Glass and its counterparts work their way around the body.
• The best way to predict the future is to invent it.