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Planning for Innovation
2007-08-15 07:14:00
Some interesting quotes: Stella Gassaway from Stellarvisions wrote as a comment on my last post, "One of our key beliefs at Stellarvisions : Inno vation is about managing change." Woody Allen said, "If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative." Ken Robinson in his TEDTalk called creativity: "If you aren't prepared to be wrong, you'll never do anything original." and again, "Creative [is] having original ideas of value." and Larry Ellison once said, "When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts." There was a fair amount of discussion after my last post, and a few folks wrote and said something along the lines of, "Yes, but how do we get there?" I think, on some level, that's a tough task because innovation is hard to plan for, but also must be planned for. Fun paradox, eh? In the end, innovation can happen in the unlikeliest of places, but with that, here are some things I think we...
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Talking about change and innovation
2007-08-08 15:44:00
I'm in a session with Al Bertani talking about change, differentiation and leadership. I'm sitting in an auditorium with 250 principals listening and watching a PowerPoint presentation with targeted moments of interaction around specific prompts. After spending the summer talking about notions of new professional development, new conferences, networked learning, I find myself missing my network terribly. It's not that I don't have peers here sitting around me, I do. But Dr. Bertani is saying interesting, challenging things, and I want a chatcast session because I want to read what people are thinking about these things not just when he gives a chance to talk. I want to know what people think when he gives us seven things that happen when we talk about change. I want to throw out a question to my peers about talking about differentiated instruction when we don't talk about differentiated assessment. And I want to engage with these ideas and I want to engage in the conversation n...
More About: Change , Innovation , Talking , Chang , Inno

Eight Random Facts
2007-08-06 16:33:00
Dean tagged me so here I go... First, the Rules: Post these rules before you give your facts List 8 random facts about yourself At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know theyÂ’ve been tagged My Eight "Believe" by Cher is a "Secret Shame" song that I do a) love b) dance to when I hear it. I often refer to myself as an "iconoclastic bastard," but I would rather build up than tear down. Movies where sports are a metaphor for life such as Rudy, Rocky and Field of Dreams make me cry. These days, my favorite thing to do is to take a nap with my son Theo. Nothing makes me happier. I've been known to get a bit passionate about things I care about. I'm rather excitable. As much as I am a social person, I need down time every day where I just climb in my own head and reflect. My favorite time as a teacher was from 6:30 - 8:00 am every morning when I got to coach girls basketball (fall ...
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All Children Can Learn...
2007-08-06 05:10:00
... but how and what can they learn? Things influencing this post: Sir Ken Robinson's TEDTalk on Why Schools are Killing Creativity The ongoing debate about NCLB reauthorization. The hallmark of NCLB is that "Every Child Can Learn ," which is a noble thought, but it's also misleading because, given the way that we assess students and schools for NCLB is the high-stakes test, the assumption is that every student learns the same way. This isn't new. This isn't revolutionary. But then watch Sir Ken Robinson talk about the dancer who never fit into the regular class. Then go visit City As School or any other school where kids learn in non-traditional ways. Then ask yourself this -- in making the arrogant assumption that the only way that the state can measure educational results is with the test -- what are we losing? There are more questions... like... what is important for all students to know? What is more important -- demonstrating recall or demonstrating problem-solving s...
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Teacher Learning, Student Learning and School 2.0
2007-08-03 08:51:00
In a comment on Tuesday's post, Will wrote: [I] want to press the question to what extent is it now a teacher's responsibility to make use of these tools in his or her own learning in order to be able to implement one or more when the moment for deeper understanding through the uses of these technologies presents itself? I think it's a question that bears serious exploration, but I think it's a hard one. Larry Cuban claimed back in 2000 that teachers aren't technophobes, in fact, many teachers are early adopters of technology. That may seem a little tough to believe for the School 2.0 advocates who have spent a great deal of time explaining what a blog or a wiki is, but the question is... if you went into a room full of lawyers, doctors, or any other non-tech-specific professionals, how many folks would know how to edit a wiki? Are we frustrated more that the tools we have embraced haven't gotten more wide-spread usage society-wide? I don't know. That's not excusing teac...
More About: Student , Learning , Teacher , Teac

LeaderTalk: Gearing Up
2007-08-02 08:11:00
My August Lead erTalk -- Gearing Up -- post is up. Enjoy!
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Curriculum Design, Reform and Technology Infusion
2007-08-01 05:15:00
Things influencing this post: Christian Long -- Getting Back to Basics Re-reading Understanding by Design The conversations about Twitter and Second Life, such as Will Richardson's What the Tweet? and Sylvia Martinez' Second Thoughts on Second Life So interestingly, Christian is asking "What if the tech tools went away, would we have still changed our teaching?" For me, that's one of those questions that I don't quite know how to answer because I've spent my entire career in progressive schools. Beacon was an amazing place to be a tech coordinator because the pedagogy was in place, and it was a question of how to marry the tech to it. In fact, early on in my careerI had the problem of teachers who already grasped many of the things that we, in the ed-blogger world, are talking about now, but they didn't see the need to use the net to do it. (And remember, this was mid-90s when the tools were not what they are today.) And it's interesting in today's context, because I'm ...
More About: Technology , Reform , Curriculum , Infusion

Terminology, What's New and What's Good...
2007-07-27 20:05:00
Over on David Warlick's blog, there's a fascinating conversation on the First Year Teachers post going on about use of the term Web 2.0, the "newness" of these tools and how we talk about the change we see around us. David writes: Back to my question — I think that Web 2.0 is real, we need to be able to label it, and to talk about it, to deconstruct it, lay it out, and apply its parts. It is changing how we use information, and this affects what and how our children learn. It’s OK that these beginning teachers can’t do this — as long as doing it, taking part in this conversation, becomes part of teaching. This has led to a fascinating conversation with folks like David Thornburg, Andy Carvin, Mark Wagner and others (like me) chiming in. I had originally had a bunch of the comments posted in here, but go read the whole conversation because it's worth it... then come back. I'll wait. For those who didn't read the whole thing (and why didn't you?) here are my comments:...
More About: Terminology , Good , Ology , Term

Another SLA Teacher Enters the Blog-World
2007-07-27 19:56:00
SLA History teacher Matt Baird has entered the world of blogging with his first entry: Democracy and the 1:1 Classroom Environment. Matt is a very experienced progressive teacher who came to us with experiences in the Quaker School world both in the US and abroad. He's one of the many SLA folks I love to sit around and talk about education with. As he starts to write about his process and his thoughts, I encourage everyone to read along.
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First Rule of Tech...
2007-07-25 02:32:00
... always have a back-up. I followed my standard summer routine this morning... woke up, flipped open the computer, checked the morning email and then went downstairs to feed Theo, make coffee, etc... I came back upstairs to the office and tried to use the computer when it froze up. O.k. -- not a big deal -- happens... Restart the thing. That's when I first heard the grinding noise. Yes... grinding. That's never good. So... a few disk util attempts later, I take it off to the local Mac hardware specialists. I figured that it'd cost a few hundred dollars for the disk repair... not want I wanted, but o.k. I was kicking myself that I skipped backups lately... there was even a night where I had plugged the laptop into the external before a trip, but I didn't like how the laptop was sitting precariously on the desk (it's messy), so I decided to do it later. O.k. -- that's a several hundred dollar mistake. Ow. So I go run other errands (amazing how much there is to do when you...
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School Reform -- Liverpool Edition
2007-07-13 10:44:00
[The photo is of 12 Crawford Rd., the house where my mother lived the first two years of her life.] I've spent the last few days with folks from Broughton Hall High School in Liver pool . As part of the very ambitious Building Schools for the Future project that is underway in England, they are embarking on a massive building project to update and upgrade their school. Fortunately, their leadership team of teachers and administrators recognize that building a school with a forward looking vision is about much, much more than the bricks and mortar that create the actual physical facility. They are in the process of challenging much of the way teaching has traditionally been done in England, infusing their school with a more project-based approach and looking at the 21st Century tools that can help to get them there. So I was there to help, to talk about some of the ways we built SLA, to talk about some of the things I see as necessary in the coming years, but most importantly, I ...
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Greg Farr on Leadership
2007-07-10 21:33:00
Greg Farr's post today on Lead erTalk is powerful, impassioned, honest and required reading. Effective Principals: Rebels with Causes
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How Do You Measure A Year?
2007-06-16 06:08:00
I'm probably going to be spending some time over the next few weeks trying to find the words to talk about this year. It's difficult to to talk generally about SLA, because it's been such an overwhelming, amazing year. For now, suffice to say that it has been the most humbling, inspiring, gratifying year of my life. It's been a year of incredible personal and professional growth, and although I'm ready for a break, I also can't wait to do it again. I've been lucky enough to be able to share a dream with an incredible group of teachers and students who do humble and inspire me every day. And the great thing is... they say all this better than I ever could. Arielle, one of our 9th graders, has been working on this documentary for quite some time now. I love the way it came out. And remember, Arielle didn't class an "iMovie" class. She had a reason to learn iMovie, she worked with some teachers, and she crafted a project from it. And you had to see its debut today. Amazing st...
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Summer Game Plan
2007-06-15 20:16:00
Stolen directly from Dan Meyer who appropriated it from Friday Night Lights.: Take a knee. Alright y'all, today we're champions. Feels good, right? Enjoy it while it lasts 'cause tomorrow we're targets. Next year, every other team in Texas is gonna be gunnin' for us 'cause we're number one. Now I don't know about y'all but anything less than another state championship is completely unacceptable. So here's what we're gonna do. Everyone think about the off season. The off season is about development. Development of strength, development of speed, development of character. [Teaching] is a twelve month, fifty-two week, 365 day commitment, [ladies and] gentlemen. Have a great day today. Enjoy it while it lasts because tomorrow we go to work. Jason Street, Friday Night Lights S01E22. Sounds good to me.
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EduBloggerCon -- A Message for Change
2007-06-15 04:00:00
So Will Richardson and I are going to run a session together at the EdubloggerCon... it grows out of conversations we've had together, but also out of a lot of the conversations going on around the blogs lately about trying to really define what is and what should be going on in the world of edu-tech these days: Getting Our Blogs in a Row: Crafting a Compelling, Cogent Message for Change Â…okÂ…terrible title, I know. But is there anyone interested in taking an hour to discuss the creation of a short list of talking points regarding the uses of the Read/Write Web in education? What key points should we be making? What key points CAN we be making? To whom should we be making them? What questions do we need to have answers for? How can we best package all of that? I know this sounds like the beginnings of a marketing campaign, but it might be worth a tryÂ…or not. Maybe we can start a wiki to dump ideas in beforehand? Will Richardson and Chris Lehmann. (Incidentally, I think this dove...
More About: Sage , Logger , Blogg

SLA Science Fair in Pictures
2007-06-14 02:16:00
Short written version -- SLA Science Fair today. 110 students all doing open inquiry projects. Amazing. And as amazing -- Glaxo Smith Kline started our endowment with a $500,000 donation. That should earn us about $25,000 / yr in science supplies. So much to write, and I can barely keep my eyes open. Check out the pictures. They tell the story pretty well. I'll write more when I'm awake.
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Pay for Play -- Paying Students For Test Scores
2007-06-12 06:05:00
I don't even know how to respond to this piece in the NY Times today: A Plan to Pay for Top Scores on Some Test s Gains Ground I read this article with only one thought -- "Really? Is this where we are? Really?!?" Sure, there are parents who have given cash for grades for as long as there has been cash and grades, but is this what we want in our schools? There's no question -- no matter how student-centered and engaging our classes are, there will be some classes that kids don't get excited for. And I've yet to meet the student who gets really excited about high-stakes tests. But is this really our answer? Does anyone think that paying kids for their performance is a good idea? Will this do anything other than make these tests more important? Will this somehow make for better learning? Is this how bankrupt NCLB is... and therefore how bankrupt our education system is becoming that anyone would think -- for even a moment -- that creating an apparatus to pay students for th...
More About: Students , Play

Telecommuting...
2007-06-10 20:01:00
The end of the year brings with it a host of tasks that need finishing, from end of year documents to finalizing all sorts of plans for end of year events to making sure that everything that needs to be in place for August is done before people go away for vacation. So this afternoon, the kids are down for a nap, and I'm outside on my deck, sunbathing while I write, answer emails and plan. Sometimes telecommuting is a very, very good thing.
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My Answers to Christian's School Design Intro Questions
2007-06-08 06:56:00
[I'm on Design Share's Design Awards Judging team this year. Christian asked all the panelists to answer four really provocative questions. Here are my answers.] Why does 'school design' matter TO YOU in terms of its impact on learning and communities? I think of 'School Design' as much more than the way we physically build our schools. I think of it in terms of pedagogy and course structure and values. And I admit, that I used to think (and still think, to some degree) that you can bring powerful educational ideas to bear on a little red school house, but it's a whole lot easier to do it when the spaces match the philosophy. So what are the ideas I embrace when it comes to school design? Inquiry-driven, project-based education. Integrated learning that allows students to see beyond traditional courses and ask questions that are bigger than any one discipline. Educating the whole child and teaching kids that caring matters. Several of the folks on this list inspire me when ...
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Tech Support Gone Badly, Badly Wrong.
2007-06-06 05:26:00
Jim Biancolo is an old teammate from my Washington, DC days. These days, he's living up in the Northeast, working doing techie stuff, and he blogs from time to time. (Who am I kidding, he has a half-dozen online projects going on.) Today, he posted the transcript of an online chat he had with Road Runner Tech Support . If this isn't some Beckett-driven version of tech support hell, I don't know what is. Here's my favorite exchange (Chris H is Tech Support ): Chris H: Computer's "magically" work and not work all of the time. It's how they function. Jim: No, they are deterministic. But the whole thing is worth a read as Jim just is dealing with a tech support person who doesn't understand that the customer on the other end knows something. I've had similar moments when I've dealt with some tech support folks who refused to admit that this was a shared problem solving experience, and that maybe the customer could help. (I've had other experiences with amazing tech support... ...
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How Nebraska Leaves No Child Behind
2007-06-05 06:22:00
Those folks who have read this blog for a while know that I am a huge fan of Nebraska Commissioner of Education and the STARS project. Now, Time Magazine has discovered the STARS project as well as part of this week's issue that examines NCLB. It's a thoughtful program with broad-based state standards that can then be assessed on a local level where statewide reading, writing and math tests serve to measure reliability of the local assessments. Schools and teachers and students are judged on the work they do every day, rather than the scores of someone else's test. I had the chance to talk to a lobbyist from Kaplan a while back, and he mentioned that he was representing schools' interests as he worked on the reauthorization of NCLB in Washington. So I asked him if, as part of his work for schools, was he lobbying Congress and the DoE to allow more states to develop programs like Nebraska's. He stammered for a moment and then his answer was that the STARS project was fine for...
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Beware the Educational Testing Complex
2007-06-04 05:12:00
And now, New York City joins the testing madness. The city is going to spend $80 million over the next five years to increase the amount of testing in their schools: Pupils in Grades 3 through 8 will be tested five times a year in both reading and math, instead of three times as they are now. High school students, for the first time, will be tested four times a year in each subject. In the next few years, the tests will expand to include science and social studies. It's just sad. It's more than sad. It's criminal. And I read comments like this, and I just want to bang my head against the wall: “I don’t think it means more pressure,” Mr. Klein said. “I think it means more learning.” He said the present testing regime was “too intermittent” to help teachers judge progress. What about a teacher's professional judgement? What about their ability to judge progress based on the daily work of the class? When I went to school, the teachers who gave too many multiple choice tests...
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Hiring Practices: Latest Post on LeaderTalk
2007-06-03 07:30:00
My latest post on Lead erTalk is about my thoughts on good hiring practices.
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The End of Productivity
2007-06-01 06:22:00
Facebook now has online roshambo. So much for being a productive member of society. (To make this an entry worth reading... it's moves like this that makes Facebook so well run. As opposed to MySpace, Facebook makes major chunks of its API available so that third-party developers can create apps for Facebook. It's not quite open-source, but it's close, and it means that Facebook will continue to add all kinds of functionality. It's a really smart Web 2.0 strategy.)
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Happy Birthday SLA
2007-05-30 05:16:00
Tonight was our second Family Night. We welcomed the Class of 2011 and their families. It was a year ago this week that we got together at the Franklin Institute and welcomed a group of families as they walked a dream with us. Tonight, we invited a group of families into a school that already exists. I think tonight marked the first time we did anything for the second time. It was a great night tonight, as our students -- as always -- talked so passionately about SLA. As the teachers were introducing themselves, the kids were cheering for them. It felt like a rock concert. And our teachers all played an amazing role. Folks stepped up and talked about their roles at SLA with energy and passion and intelligence and pride. It was amazing for me to watch the conversations develop. It's wonderful for me to not have to be "the voice" of SLA... seeing that voice be shared, that vision shared... seeing other people contribute their voice to the mix to where the school really does feel l...
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Things We've Learned: Valuing Time To Talk
2007-05-29 05:44:00
So we're ending up our first year, and we're in this interesting time where we still have a ton to do to finish up the year, but we also are starting to look forward to planning our second year. So one thing we're trying to do when we have staff time together is reflect on the year with an eye toward doing things better next year. I keep finding myself -- and our teachers -- balancing that line between looking back with a ton of pride with what we did and recognizing that we have to be better next year if we want to keep improving. So one of the things that we need to do better is doing more collaborative reflection about our individual planning process. In our last meeting, we talked about how we used Understanding by Design, and we talked about how we could do it better. What we came up with was giving more time to cross-talk, sharing unit plans, and seeing how a group of teachers across multiple subjects all interpret the tool different. Now, that seems easy to say we'l...
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A Must Read: Technology Integration and Understanding by Design
2007-05-26 19:49:00
From Ms. Cofino comes a fantastic blog entry about her experience using Understanding by Design to work with teachers to do technology infusion. It speaks to the heart of what I've always said about technology integration / new literacy... it must go hand in hand with a clearly defined pedagogical practice. The kind of process that Ms. Cofino describes in her writing is exactly the kind of process that allows for deep understanding, both for students and teachers. Full disclosure: UbD is the curriculum tool we use at SLA to do our planning, and one of the things we've identified as something we want to do better next year is using it as a collaboration tool more. This blog entry is a perfect example of how to do it, and it's one we'll be reading together as a faculty. The Perfect Match: Technology Integra tion and Understanding by Design by Ms. Cofino.
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What We Mean When We Talk About Care
2007-03-06 02:19:01
[This started as a comment on Dan Meyer's blog entry: Care er Crisis #2 of 2, but in the end, his post got me writing about something I've been meaning to write about for a while. I'm editing what was a comment into a fuller post, but also may come back to this idea a bunch in the future.] When I was a basketball coach — a part of my job that I had no training for, just an excitement — I used to read books, go to coaches’ clinics, watch video, etc… and another coach asked me, “Why do you do all this?” My answer to them, I think, speaks to something that I feel is incredibly important in education today -- the ethic of care. My answer was that my girls showed up every morning at 6:30 am every morning, and they deserved my best. I knew we’d lose games, and I knew there’d be games when we missed lay-ups and made mistakes. That’s o.k., but I never wanted the girls to lose a game because I wasn’t a good enough, prepared enough coach. It was my job to teach them the game as well and a...
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Who Makes the Rules
2007-03-06 02:19:01
The ever-thoughtful Kim Moritz asks a great question today, whose rules -- the teacher or the principal? She writes: Nothing gets teachers hotter faster than the idea of CONSISTENCY. If we have a school rule, everyone needs to enforce it in the same way for all kids. NEVER HAPPENS in my seventeen years, teachers have different tolerance levels for all kinds of behavior.This is a great question to explore, and it's one that we grapple with at SLA. I really do try to give teachers space to make classroom rules, but there does need to be a balance. Here's the hard part, and Kim talks about it, once we decide on rules, we all have to enforce them, and in a small school, there aren't that many folks. For me, if something affects the school outside the classrooms or the overarching school culture, we need a consistent policy, if it affects the way a teacher runs their classroom, teachers should be allowed the space to create their own classroom.Stuff we've left up to teachers: Homewor...
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Bridging Differences -- A Must Read
2007-03-06 02:19:01
Want to watch two of the true heavyweights of educational thought engaged in passionate, inspiring, informed debate? Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch are engaged in a series of old-fashioned letters on a new EdWeek blog called Bridging Difference s .
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