You are About to Witness an Education Revolution: Part 1

Yes indeed, the time as come.  Experts, marketers, bloggers and administrators are all marching to the same beat: We are on the brink of a massive education revolution.  It is becoming more and more common to find multiple articles daily from credible news sources that stress the important of "e-learning" or "m-learning" for the "i-generation."  I'd like to share a few of them in this post and the next as a follow up to our Ten Things a Teacher Should Know In the 20-Teens article to point #3: Explore How  to Teach, Not Just What to Teach.

As our digital natives enter the education world, some are light years ahead of their instructor in networking, online etiquette, accessibility to information and adaptability to newer technologies.  Since we cannot change the way the students are learning, it only makes sense that we must change the way our teachers are teaching.  Such a call to action would have to be answered by not only the universities and colleges that train our next generation of teachers but also the education supply companies, the parents, but most of all, the teachers themselves.


But what exactly needs to be changed?  
-The content?  Not necessarily.  Although certain standards may have been tweaked to accompany some of the growing technologies, they have mostly remained the same and students still need to learn to read a map.

-The time of day that school takes place?  Although there have been about 120 schools across the country that have shifted to a 4-day schoolweek and have claimed improvements in student test scores, there isn't sufficient evidence to support this wholeheartedly.  This could be a maybe.
-The delivery of the content?  Now we're on to something.  So says former President of both the California Charter Schools Association and the Los Angeles Unified School District, “data shows that more than half of the students say that the easiest way for students to learn something new is by practicing and watching, which is one of several critical reasons why we need to re-wire our educational approach.”

In other words?  Teachers must become students again... sometimes to their own students.  In an Associated Press article that asks how we should teach future teachers, "Hemant Mehta's formal training was useless when it came to keeping order in the classroom and getting students to pay attention." The article continues, explaining "the 27-year-old needed help from Twitter, math blogs on the Internet, TV sitcoms and experienced teachers down the hall."


Suzanne Wilson, chair of teacher education at Michigan State University from the same article adds to the mix by bringing up a daunting point. "It's complicated in the United States because we don't as a country agree that teachers need much preparation.  We're deeply divided on this as a country."


But what are the challenges to changing the attitude of educators towards such a momentous shift?  In a survey reported here, teachers cited the following factors as barriers to using information and communication technology in their classrooms:


    * Extent of the curriculum that needs to be covered during the year (81.4%)
    * Time constraints (71.7%)
    * Time required for preparing information and communication technology-based activities (60.4%)
    * Availability of infrastructure (53.5%)
    * Amount of quality content (50.7 %)
    * Lack of in-classroom teacher support (50.2%)
    * Lack of participation of teachers in decision making (43.4%)
    * Need for professional development (37%).

At first glance, it appears that we just revealed a project that's a bit bigger than anticipated.  Considering the leading challenge, not only do teachers have a large amount of content to cover, they also have No Child Left Behind Axe looming over their sweating brows.  This, in fact could arguably be a direct or indirect cause to many of the remaining factors.  Such a rationale is a fair explanation used from the critics to this movement.  From a new-age perspective however, there exists an argument that is just as powerful: the use of information and communication technology will assist students in learning quicker, thus moving through the extent of content quicker and allowing the rest to fall into place.

Platforms are beginning to crop up like ConnectYard that would allow instructors to communicate with their students through social media.  They may also start a second Facebook Profile that is only for school-purposes, an online blog, a wiki and much more.  Possibilities are growing every day for teachers to reach their students in a method that will maximize the learning potential.  Some teachers have even allowed students to text them.  We are about to witness an education revolution.  Will you be a part of it?

Ten Things a Teacher Should Know In the 20-Teens

With the recent explosion of technology, the field of education has already changed and will be even more drastically altered with the completion of the next ten years.  Although technology may affect the impact of education, its effects ripple out into other avenues.  Consider the following ten topics, listed in no specific order, if you are teaching or intend to be teaching during the next decade:

1. When you talk to students, you talk to their parents as well

Call them what you may: concerned, helicopter, or even Kyōiku Mama, parents today are more involved with their students' academic lives.  From a college standpoint, 90% of the phone calls I answered when working at a major University's Admissions Office were parents checking in on their student's status and orientation. Today if a high school student does poorly on a test, it's becoming more common to hear from the parent than the student, asking what happened and asking what challenges to overcome. Whether it may be to appease or to support such parental involvement, schools are now implementing an online system that allows parents to check their students' attendance, grades, and teachers' websites at their leisure.  Parents seem to love this, as one district claims a 50-70% usage, boasting that "the communication between the school and home has increased dramatically, and the parents absolutely love it."  Pardon me, but what ever happened to the communication between students and their parents?

2.  Students Live and Breathe Technology

Branded as "Digital Natives," today's youth are one step ahead of the sharpest of sharp company executives when it comes down to finding information, communicating or adapting to new and emerging technology trends.  After all, how hard is it really to grasp technology when your new Christmas gift as a toddler is Fisher Price's version of the iPhone?  After students leave your class, they check their email, DVR their favorite show while they video chat with their aunts, and text their friends all the while playing Farmville in the background on Facebook.  Can we honesty expect students in today's world to learn without technology in the classroom?  (See last week's post for a great example of this.)

3. Explore How to Teach, Not Just What to Teach

With technology and resources changing so quickly, a teacher might need to learn how to teach all over again.  What with wikis, forums or even Youtube, students have realized their ability to impact their world, and their input might even be crucial for a teacher's retention rate.  After all, the students in this year's class may not learn the same way as students two years previous.  When Jane goes and watches the History Channel about a Civil War special before going to see a flick about Johnny Depp robbing banks--only to then catch the latest webinar about her favorite rock group to finally follow it up with a Youtube video about how a Science Olympiad project was completed, chances are she didn't read too much that day.  Textbooks are still required and completely relevant, but this might mean scrapping the 10-year-old lesson plans from when Netscape was the most-used browser of the day and one-button-square mice were in.  To a group of students that may not get the recommended daily dose of human contact, some simple Dale Carnegie tips might completely alter the atmosphere and success of your classroom.

4. Your Personal Life May No Longer be Personal
For the young professionals just leaving college and entering the education realm, it would be very wise to alter your privacy settings on Facebook and go through those pictures you were tagged in your freshman year of college because, if not, one of the above mentioned parents will be sure to find it and let all of your supervisors know.  Social networks are a part of our lives, and it's becoming tricky to draw and keep to the line that separates them from our work lives.  (See a previous post about Twiducate, an alternative that could be very effective for you and your students.)


5. Generation Z has Ended.  Generation Alpha has Begun.

Articles on the Generation Z'ers have circulated enough for this blog to save its breath, but when families begin to relocate due to new careers and students' schedules becomes just as busy as their parents', a teacher's ability to teach a student may be indirectly affected.  After National Honors Society, church, sports practice, transportation challenges (i.e. walking home), and study groups for major projects, the daily lesson might not receive the attention that it needs.  Just as Generation Z was granted with a list of attributes and needs, teachers must now get used to a whole new list.  Since they will be receiving them before the decade's end, Elementary school teachers will need to keep up with the articles on Generation Alpha, the newest generation that just began their reign this year in January.

6. No More Assuming What Your Students Know

There's an interesting, recent story from a local Social Studies 9th Grade Teacher in Macomb, Michigan: "After displaying a world wall map for the class, I invited a few students up to the map and began asking them where a few countries were.  After discovering some difficulties with a few less-known countries, I started to ask a few major countries.  To my surprise, Brazil became a challenge to point out, as was other well-known countries like Egypt.  One thing that I've learned from coming into the 9th grade is that I've stopped assuming anything about what the students know from their previous schools."  And this can be for any subject, not just Social Studies.  Is it normal for a junior to not know how to FOIL or a senior to not know how to balance a chemical equation?  But who is to blame?  The teachers?  No Child Left Behind?  Changing Schools?  Technology (i.e. calculators)?  Parents?  All of the busy schedules?  Quite possibly a combination of all of the above.

7. A New Subject to Teach in the Classroom: Integrity
Technology has begun to play a concerning role with the ease of acquiring information on the internet.  Even one freelance writer mentions here in a blog post the frustrating increase in students cheating on papers with sites like ifreelance.com, which is virtually impossible to track.  Colleges and Universities especially notice the increase in plagiarism the past 5 years, as noted by Yale just a few months ago.  With thousands of dollars and a degree at stake, it's a bit easier than high school to establish the risks involved with cheating at the college level.  With that being said, plagiarism might be one of the hardest non-required topics to teach for high school teachers today.  Ironically, we can also use the internet to combat plagiarism, as seen with resources such as www.plagiarism.org or this university website that includes www.TurnItIn.com.

*Edit 4/20/10:  Just came across this March article on technology being used to cheat and what can be done about it.


8. Pressure from the Top Down - NCLB

Also known as the hovering axe over a non-tenured faculty's head, No Child Left Behind is a looming reminder of the need to optimize grades and student retention.  But at what cost?  If the lesson has corners cut from it, then not only are the students who wish to excel being restrained, but the disfigured lesson ends up forcing more catch-up work onto the next teacher's workload.  Instead of doing that, teachers are now exploring books on tape, podcasts, and other various supplemental materials that can reach different learning styles that allow their students to stay on the same learning plane.

9. Teenage Angst: More than Just a Cry for Help

Not to dwell on an ominous topic for too long, school violence is still becoming a growing concern.  CDC's report on youth violence from last year brings forth some thoughts to address.  More than 1 in 3 students had been in a fight the previous year and an estimated 30% of 6th to 10th graders in the United States were either a bully, a target of bullying or both.  A sign of the times, one may suppose.  With the surging popularity of UFC and other television or music influences, an extra task for the 20-teen teacher might be that of which to convince an influential teen that conflicts can be resolved outside of fisticuffs.

10. Hire a Financial Planner

Everybody acknowledges that being a teacher comes with its financial challenges, but recently it appears that a few more issues have arisen.  The leash on education's funding has, without a doubt, gotten awfully tighter across the board.  School districts are pushing back textbook adoptions, extra paper cannot be purchased, and state budgets are getting slashed.  Not only would it be difficult to have upgraded materials for your classroom, it might even become difficult to upgrade the teacher's salary.  Countless examples of wage freezes are occurring to help school districts cut costs.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides insight to the teacher's salary, explaining "Median annual wages of kindergarten, elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers ranged from $47,100 to $51,180 in May 2008; the lowest 10 percent earned $30,970 to $34,280; the top 10 percent earned $75,190 to $80,970."  So what can a teacher do to improve her pay?  Student organization involvement can add a few hundred to the pocket, or coaching sports might give a 10% raise in states like Michigan.  Not all states allow this, however, as coaching is becoming a full-time position with impressive salaries like those in Texas, where one head coach is paid more than the school's principle.  Toying around with an inflation calculator, there's been about a 25% increase in cost of living since the year 2000.  The last time education cuts were this bad, the teachers in the early 70's were experiencing very similar inflation rates and challenges.  But now, tack on a global economy with an incredible state of consumer debt, this is an experience that will challenge the financial fortitude of many.  If venturing into the education realm as a new teacher with a $30k salary (which was the equivalent of $37k in 2000), developing multiple streams of income might be a safe bet.

Reach out and iTouch their education

Who would have ever thought to hear this in his lifetime?  "Sometimes barred from the classroom owing to perceptions of security risks and student 'distractions,' smart phones and iPods are now making their way into the K-12 space, and with teachers' and administrators' blessings."  Would you allow an iPod Touch (also called iTouch) in your classroom?  ...A resounding "no!" is heard from those who shook their fists at the dawn of the cellphone, while the reluctant "yes" comes from the progressive individuals who understand that fighting technology is futile.  I recall the years when even if a cell phone accidentally fell out of your pocket, a hall monitor would be sure to enforce severe consequences.  Now it seems that you'd be hard pressed to talk to a 5th grader that doesn't have one.

But how do you regulate something with such incredible freedom?  "The games, the games, the games.  What an incredible distraction an iTouch would be in the classroom!" says the teacher that disagrees wholeheartedly.  Something tells me these are the same teachers who would be shocked to hear that their students are already playing Tetris on their TI-86s.  If students are interested in class, they will pay attention.  If students are bored in class, they'll find anything to occupy their attention.  It seems hard to justify that if there's a color screen involved that the situation would be any different.

As a matter of fact, not much really is all that different when looking at our first referenced article again: "after the stimulus money runs out, we're going to be in trouble in terms of federal money for technology.  The next logical step is for the devices to come into school."  Is this not what happened with TI calculators already?  Parents and students don't think twice to drop $100 retail for a calculator.  So let's compare prices.  An ebay search will show that many 8 gig'ers are $100 and possibly even less.  A refurbished or returned iPod Touch could run just as low, while a brand new 8 gig is only $200.

But why compare this to a TI if an iTouch can't replace a TI.  Or can it?  Not only is there a fully featured calculator app available, but there's also a graphing calculator app.  Texas Instruments has just started to perspire.  Because then what?  Now we can put the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution on the iTouch for students to search and discover that the word "democracy" isn't in any of the founding documents.  Next we put maps and atlases on the iTouch so a student who is talking to her friends about a different country can become their resource to show how densely populated India really is.  And then to add a frosting to the cake, we can throw in a fact of the day, word games, math games, and a combo dictionary/thesaurus to wrap it up.  Education publishers are just getting started.

Schools have already begun to purchase classroom sets of iTouches and have developed lesson plans around them.  Even at $200 a pop, a set of these technological marvels is a drop in the bucket compared to the money a school is used to spending on a computer lab or portable laptop station.  Get those lesson plan thinking caps on; it's time to start learning to teach all over again.

*UPDATE* 8/12/10 Although this article was written before the launch of the iPad, we had no idea this shift into the realm of education would happen so quickly.  Here is an article of Apple moving forward, striking deals with schools who adopt iPad sets.

Kid-Tested, Administration-Approved Twitter for your Class

High School teachers and even elementary teachers, it's time to get hip and join the social media networking frenzy.  It has become an increasing debate on if teachers should cross that line from privacy to public domain with their social networking profiles on Twitter, Facebook, etc., especially those who are fresh out of college within the past 5 years and witnessed the beginnings of "TheFacebook" (Facebook's original website title).  So how can educators still have a private life, write on friends walls about the upcoming gathering on the weekend, yet still be professional with students that live and breathe social media?  Introducing sites like Twiducate, "an opportunity for students to explore web 2.0 without the barriers and blocks of existing social networking websites."

School networks are keen to block trance-inducing sites like Facebook and Myspace, so incorporating social media into the classroom with the thumbs up from administration may be a bit tricky.  With Twiducate, it's a website solely designed for the classroom, controlled by the teachers, and just for the purpose to help connect the classroom... well, outside of the classroom.  A teacher is able to create her own profile and a unique classroom that she manages.  From there, the teachers actually create the students' profiles so as to disallow just any student, or any person for that matter to join the online class profile.  Creating a student under the controlled classroom profile churns out a unique passcode that a student can use once provided by the instructor to login to the specific classroom.

Once the classroom profile is set up and the students have their codes, the class can tweet away to one another, have discussions, comment on other topics, and even have quirky avatars to keep it light.  It's a safe website, safe in the sense that it's darn near impossible to do anything wrong on it.  Images or files can't be posted, and posts can be deleted by the teacher if need be.  Students can't wander into another "classroom," and they can't post official bookmarks to the group's page (only the teacher can).  It allows for a teacher to communicate with students over the weekend without the worry of providing phone numbers or facebook messages, yet its personal enough to be answered quicker than an email since it's within the community setting.

With Twiducate being so basic, there's hardly any options or profile changes anyone can alter or change.  After playing around with it for a few moments, one can even see a value in adding this into the elementary school classroom for 4th or 5th graders that may want to become wet behind the ears with social media (aka web 2.0).  As a matter of fact, Twidicate itself says on its website: "It is a fact that students will need social networking, blogging and basic internet skills to compete in today's business world."  I'd be very interested to see if school administration catches onto the need of students using and breathing social media.  Whether Twiducate or another website that offers such a web 2.0 service in an approved academic setting, it may be their only shot to keep up with these tech-savvy students.

No more sick days?

Unless being bedridden with a dreadful case of the flu, most sick days involve a student simply moseying around the house, snacking on chips and watching a movie or playing video games to pass the time as he or she gets well.  Upon their return to school two days later, they may discovery mounds of homework from their 3 AP classes, as well as the workload from the current day.  It's enough to overwhelm anybody.

These poor students can be helped.  We have rather simple technology these days that teachers can tap into and assist a student's recovery from sickness back into the classroom with unnoticeable ease.  Introducing streaming audio, podcasts, or, even easier: Skype video chat.  "Skype is software that enables the world's conversations. Millions of individuals and businesses use Skype to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. Everyday, people also use Skype to make low-cost calls to landlines and mobiles."

Is the student really playing hooky?  Have him log in to find out. Poor sick Johnny can now pop up on the classroom's TV screen to interact, raise his hand to ask a question, and even speak into a microphone to converse with the other students.  To prevent a student from abusing the system, maybe only a handful of those would be considered excused absences from class.  Don't have a video camera or want to activate one?  Might have to have some stricter attendance rules.  Just listening to the teacher over the speaker isn't too different from sitting in the corner of the class, blindfolded and turned around... which isn't necessarily interactive.

But should we force students and parents to buy such expensive technology like video cameras and broadband internet?  Let's get up to speed with the facts (pun intended).  High-speed internet is becoming more and more necessary and accessible, even in lower income households. The Pew Research Center just reported in June that homes with annual household incomes below $30,000 experienced a 34% growth in home broadband adoption from 2008 to 2009.  Also, what with school supplies, new clothing, and a new iPod and cell phone the student isn't supposed to take to school in the first place, a decent video chat camera these days is hardly a drop in the bucket when only about $25.

Not only could it help students on sick days, it could shift support to the other side of the spectrum for the teachers as well.  Is it virtually impossible for a California history teacher to have a National Museum scholar from D.C. speak to her class?  It used to be.  With Skype, there are many examples cropping up of teachers hosting authoritative and credible guest speakers in their classrooms with this free and easy-to-use software.  Heck, there's even a possibility that the teacher/professor herself can teach from home for a lesson if on a sick day.

All of a sudden, a whole new world is available.  A teacher isn't on the educational battlefield alone anymore; he or she has an arsenal of an endless list of government officials, professionals, research experts, or even motivational guest speakers to augment the day's lesson plans, keeping a class excited and guessing on where they are going and having a say on how they want to learn (almost Montessori-like).  Such exciting technology could make anyone envious of the resources today's youth have in the classroom.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind living high school history class all over again.