Think Like a Teacher

Recently, I have had several conversations with teachers and the TeachersFirst Educator Advisory Board about school Internet filtering. I even dreamed about it one night (ARRRGH!) Today I find that Teachers Teaching Teachers has a terrific (though long) podcast on Locating the Tyranny of Filtering, including interviews of several people who hold the reins on web filtering in  schools of various locations and sizes, even New York City schools. For a teacher who has no idea how sites magically “disappear,” the podcast gives an intermediate level explanation of how the technology works. It also provides a few examples of HOW teachers can request an “unblock” of a web site in some schools. One especially productive discussion occurs about 26-27 minutes into the discussion, addressing teacher perceptions and feelings about finding a resource blocked and the feeling of powerlessness that comes with this “hand slap.” Several bottom lines from the podcast:

1. Teachers balk at any barrier that adds bureaucratic steps to their day (see the principal to request an unblock).

2. Timeliness matters.

3. Teachers do not understand the technologies behind the filtering and may assume that sites that only work partially do so because they (the teachers) are doing something “wrong.” Voicethread, for example, may SHOW on the screen but not actually play the sound, all because of filtering settings.

4. More enlightened filtering models favor the judgment of actual educators over technology experts.

5. The philosophical issues behind filtering run long and deep (Do we limit students’ vision with blindfolds or teach them how to look critically and decide? Is filtering merely a substitute for classroom management?).

6. There has to be a PROCESS in place (thank you to this voice on the podcast–Lee Baber?).

7. Teachers leave workshops (or web sites, or new articles) having learned about web2.0 tools, only to find that these very tools are blocked.

8. The power to make decisions locally is quite legal and practicable. Teachers need to ask questions and ask for transparency in the processes. As the speakers put it, teachers need to “be brave.” That includes less tech-savvy teachers who are not entirely comfortable with computers as well as those who traditionally speak first and loudest.

TeachersFirst plans to follow up with this discussion, trying to help teachers:

• understand what is magically happening in the filter (in a 30 second explanation)
• be aware of the legal requirements and how far they do/do not go
• be able to share examples of filtering models that work for instruction
• know how to advocate positively for flexible, responsive filtering
• remove emotional reactions from the barrier-lowering process
• be able to access the terrific tools reviewed in the TeachersFirst Edge!

As always, we’ll try to make it quick, understandable, and practical. Watch for this discussion, coming SOON.

The last 24 hours in my email/RSS/real people world has brought reminders of difficult realities:

1. Web 2.0 tools die (or are left to suffer a slow death by weeds) as rapidly as the seasonal harvests of farmers.

2. Teachers are in a hot kitchen with far to many required recipes these days.

Compounding  this situation:

3. The most imaginative minds are generating exciting scenarios and fabulous examples of an entirely new way to cook up learning. Call it School 2.0: Nouvelle Cuisine for the Minds.

So how is the teacher (in #2) supposed to reconcile all this? Let me elaborate…

1. TeachersFirst Edge reviews web2.0 tools and suggests ways to use them safely and effectively in the classroom. We are, essentially, offering  the 20-minute recipes for the Nouvelle Cuisine for the Minds.  We visit the Farmer’s Market of web2.0, select the current cheap (free) ingredients available, and give teachers ideas for a quick family meal that brings new taste to their classroom and lets the kids get involved in the actual cooking.  The ongoing problem is that a farmer simply won’t appear one week. No one knows what happened to his produce. It simply went out of season or was left to die on the vine. Free web2.0 tools die. Fact of life. And the teachers and kids have no clue where to look for a substitute ingredient. Can you make a timeline out of another kind of fruit?

2. Meanwhile, the same teachers, and their 10,000 other colleagues who never even VISIT the Framers Market, are being told what to cook, how many minutes it should take, how to measure it (at least 3 times), conduct a scientific taste-test, and still turn out at least three dozen new dishes a day. The directions are explicit and the consequences of one dropped cupcake are dire.

3. The same teachers that were involved in #1 (and #2, since ALL must do the required recipes) read about those in #3 and simply want to cry. They long to approach Nouvelle Cuisine, but they do not have the time to look for replacement ingredients or even learn to read French.  They don’t Twitter, might blog, and have not found the store where they can buy the TechCrunch they have read about. Their market is local, so they must shop accordingly.

 What is a teacher to do? Some say, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” If all who are frustrated (all those in #2) do so, our kids may starve. Certainly, there are some cooks in #2 who won’t even read about Nouvelle Cuisine, but how can we reconcile the desire of the better ones to reach #3 with the requirements of #2 (and the transience of the ingredients in #1?).

What we need to do is throw out the recipes. We need to be sharing loads of ingredients, maintaining awareness of what is available at the web2.0 Farmers Market (and perhaps asking some farmers to grow a little more of this or that), sharing what we know about tasty substitutions for missing ingredients,  granting permission to generate unique concoctions, and encouraging  kitchen-sharing with anyone who walks in. The Nouvelle Cuisine folks would welcome the collaboration and gladly relinquish the haute in favor of rich potluck. The Cookbook Writers in #2 MIGHT be convinced to permit change, as long as, ultimately, there is a taste test to assure that what we cook up is “good food” (most likely a regional or even personal taste).  Ultimately, what we want is food that satisfies: “cognitive nutrition” (term adapted from Tom O’Brien and Christine Wallach. And perhaps a new ventilation system for that kitchen heat would be a good idea.

Am I lucky, or did I earn this? I work from a rural setting, enjoying a bald eagle who lands outside my window, on the tree where my hammock hangs (really!). During the day I “visit” and talk with people all over the world. I pry into their brains through their blogs and watch over their students’ shoulders through their online projects. I wonder sometimes how this happened. Scott McLeod writes of Dr. Richard Florida’s view of the world as “spiky,” not flat. The spikes are the few global, creative centers that suck in great minds of innovation and productivity. If that is the case (and I’ll have to read Florida’s book to decide what I think), I am not sure how I ended up being networked into a spike from my rural location, but I am. I hope I qualify as one of the creative ones, anyway.

Florida reportedly maintains that choosing one’s location is key to success. Scott wonders aloud about the role of rural schools in this scenario.  I guess I may have been lucky, or perhaps somewhat deliberate and definitely timely, in landing where I have. I am living proof that

Anyone, anywhere can be a “resident” of such a creative megalopolis[a spike], though making the initial contact may be the biggest challenge. If the rural schools can share the vision of an extended “reach” of these “centers,” the local economy can still survive. (from my comment to Scott)

I do believe that any school can help students build a vision and a sensitivity to opportunity so he/she may be able to live in a vast “valley” but have connection to and gain benefits from physically-distant “spikes.” I don’t think we need to live in the spikes to be able to draw the economic benefits of them back into our geographic communities.

I still don’t know exactly how I came to be so fortunate. Mostly it was a confluence of circumstance. But whatever the cause of my situation, I think it is a scenario that is more and more possible for rural kids, assuming someone shares the vision.

Will Richardson’s post (rant) on 21st century skills and getting educators onboard has drawn copious comments. He is so right in describing the conference venue as  frighteningly dull and disconnected. The sheer commercial nature of how conferences happen is study in slime. Exhibit halls are filled with the latest buzz-word wrappers on the same old products, and EVERYONE is “for sale.” The conference organizers, logistics companies, and convention center management each take a cut of the commercial pie, and Internet access is just another costly “add-on” in Edu-make-a-buck Land.  Been there, done that. As an exhibitor from a non-profit, I have enjoyed marvelous reactions (“Wow, you’re like Robin Hood!”)…but that is another post.

I disagree with Will, however, on the “network.” While he is fortunate to have the network (and respect) of reform-minded and creative people, many teachers do not have that network. Many teachers do not even have the facilitators or coaches or general support that is being offered by the “in network” commenters on his post. Yes, the process of changing teachers and administrators is glacial, but without some very basic barrier-removal, they have too many good reasons for not being a part of the “network.” Blogs are blocked. Anything that requires a log-in or “sucks bandwidth” is suspect or prohibited. How would you expect them to know a world that is truly invisible from inside those walls?  Yes, they should at least have enough GUILT to ask about these “new-fangled things” and to ask the non-educator people who control the filtering/network to at least explain why Google Earth  and blogs are “bad.”

The best thing our “network” (and I don’t know if I’d be considered “in network” or not) can do is to simultaneously support those teachers by shoveling the paths they CAN take, applauding them for building learning networks in their classrooms, and realizing that they do not have time to toot their own horns. We may not even know about some of the finest teachers who have engaged in connections outside their classrooms with little fanfare and even less awareness by higher-ups so busy with test scores.

I knew a teacher who facilitated a virtual classroom created by HS kids for over 3000 kids from gr 3-12  over 5 years ago — when wikis and most web2.0 tools were not even in existence. They interviewed, shot pictures, answered and asked questions, connected to concepts from gr 12 calculus to gr 3 reading. A HS sophomore wrote all the code (Cold Fusion), and the team uploaded images and video until 2 a.m. from a “borrowed” hotel connection in Alaska. No acclaim, no network, just great stuff. I truly believe there are others out there doing terrific, Constructivist projects. It is not their job to announce themselves. Let’s continue to support and highlight those who ARE doing it, and realize that their peers will learn from being nearby, as well.

At the same time, we need to continue to share visions of what it “looks like” to do education in other ways. That is what the network is for, not establishing “cred.” (end  of my rant)

I love RSS feeds, even though I rant about not having time to read them. Today I ran across Clay Burell’s discussion of schooliness. I smile as I muse.

Is it like girliness? — a term meant to demean , but occasionally value at the same time?

I can sense schooliness, even in myself. Like girliness, I try to avoid it yet do not want to push it away entirely. It has its place. On certain days for certain occasions, in certain moods, girliness is OK. Never my goal, just OK.

Now, schooliness…?

Schooliness actually cares whether the line is quiet in the hallway. Schooliness is made of  the film and chicken wire they put inside the safety glass insert in my classroom door to prevent shattering (of ideas, customs, or quiet). It blocks the view of what is REALLY going on inside (inside heads, especially those who can entertain themselves while “education” goes on around them). Schooliness is the translator we apply to technology tools so they are “safe” and comply with AUPs. Schooliness  is the substitute we LOVED to see as students because she was so much fun to fool. Schooliness  is why they invented NCR paper, then changed it to Acrobat files you have to TYPE into. Schooliness  is what prevented me from turning in what I really thought in most essays…until I trusted the anti-schooliness  of the teacher. Schooliness  is what my liberal arts degree ridiculed. Schooliness  is what Congress would use to define Highly Qualified Teachers. Schooliness  is the make-up that thinking human beings “touch up” as they leave the faculty room. Schooliness  is what makes us wear a watch. Schooliness  is what my brightest gifted students so aptly parodied as I chuckled and pretended not to hear. Schooliness  is “May I have your attention please,” which should warn, “Turn the speaker off NOW!”

I will enjoy thinking about schooliness for days …especially as I look out a non-school window, across my unfiltered computer, watching a lake with no buses or concrete in sight.

There is a definite exhilaration to leaving schooliness  behind.

How do we find the teachers and students who just “don’t know” about using technology in a classroom? If they never have it available and never see a workshop and never have access to read blogs (or know what they are), will we even know they are “out there”? Don’t tell me they don’t exist. We all know they do.

I need some help from the statmasters and storytellers among you. If you can steer me to some numbers, I will be very grateful, and you may be helping students you will never know.

I know that there are teachers and classrooms where there is no Internet access, where the only connected computers are in the school library or office. The official report they submit to a government survey may say otherwise — out of pride or embarrassment, but the students know it isn’t true. Perhaps the school network (or dial up) is so unreliable that teachers never even consider sharing the Web with students in class. Perhaps there is a connected computer but no projector of any kind to allow more than a huddle of students to see the screen. Perhaps the teacher has no Internet access at home, either. Or if he/she does, it is an exercise in frustration to find terrific visuals and interactives and opportunities for world collaboration when none is accessible from the actual place where the students are. Perhaps the setting is rural. Perhaps the infrastructure is poorly maintained. Perhaps the budget funds machine-scorable answer sheets  and review workbooks instead of improving Internet access. Perhaps he/she teaches in a portable classroom placed “temporarily” ten years ago and “not worth connecting” to the network.

If you were teaching in that classroom, how would you feel? A student asks what a “mesa” is as you read a story. Can you show him/her? You have amazing digital pictures from your cousin’s science lab…but can you share them? You find a site where students can see visual representations of body systems or interactive maps of natural resources. Can you involve your class?

I might have a way to bring this issue to the attention of someone who MIGHT have a way to help. But I need some statistics and stories– FAST. If you have a source for information on how many classrooms and teachers do NOT have a way to share the Internet IN the room where they teach, please comment back to me. If you know someone who might have some stats, please send them my way.  Some teachers in these situations write to TeachersFirst. But how many more don’t even use teacher resource sites? But I need stats and stories….as much as I can get. We who read this and write to blogs are fortunate to have the connections that we have. Rewind your world to the early 1990s. Don’t you think we should help the teachers stuck  back in classroom .75?