Stephen's Untold Stories

A very strong effort!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6CeGLPuOY

How are you celebrating?

NPD is celebrated in schools and businesses throughout the world with activities, games, programs, and contests. It has inspired people to pay attention not only to their p’s and q’s, but also their commas, semicolons, and ellipses. NPD reminds us of the importance of proper punctuation for communicating clearly at home, school, or at work.

NPD has received worldwide media attention since former newspaperman Jeff Rubin founded the holiday in 2004, with newspaper coverage from Manila to London and from Seoul to Seattle, in addition to broad radio and TV coverage in the United States—including a short segment on Regis and Kelly in 2008.

Read more here.

Wes Fryer hits the nail on the head.

I had an interaction with a parent today which was simultaneously sad, eye opening, and challenging.

Essentially, the parent said they wanted an interactive white board (IWB) and an audience response / electronic response system in their child’s classroom, so their child and peers would be more engaged in learning and enjoy their time in the classroom more. The parent explained, “Kids are into technology.”

While it certainly is true “kids are into technology” today, it is a fallacy that providing these technologies to teachers in the classroom will automatically result in better learning experiences for students. This is well supported by educational research, and is something I likely say frequently in presentations, but it still seems to be a common perception among parents. I suppose this perception accounts for the high levels of spending we see in our schools today for IWBs and clicker systems.

I would much rather be in a classroom or have my own children in a classroom in which the teacher knows how to facilitate lessons where students are ACTIVE rather than PASSIVE, being challenged to think DEEPLY and CRITICALLY about ideas and issues rather than being simply expected to consume information– even if it is in multimedia formats.

Read the rest here.

Good things happen!

http://blip.tv/file/2614336

Late last night I took a break from studying and I saw on Twitter that a fellow educator who has been working in Hong Kong was asking for someone to Skype in and discuss his or her experience with the K12 Online Conference. I thought I’d take a chance and see if I might participate, and within ten minutes I was speaking with him and his participants live in his classroom in Hong Kong. I was online with them for maybe six or seven minutes, and I must say it was a very rewarding experience.

He was able to get someone from the other side of the world to participate in his class with no notice within minutes using tools that are completely free. It’s a little overwhelming to think how far we’ve come with using technology in education. Of course we still have many miles to go, but I was very glad to take part in a truly global learning experience.

Very interesting list.

• 26% store info on their phone and look at it while taking a test
• 25% send text messages to friends, asking for answers
• 17% take pictures of a test – and then send it to their friends
• 20% use their phones to search for answers on the Internet
• 48% warn friends about a pop quiz with a phone call or text message

There has been some serious discussion in the edtech blogosphere about these. Is letting your friends know that you had a pop quiz really cheating? When I was a teacher I wouldn’t always give pop quizzes to each class on the same day. I might have given one early in the day, and by the afternoon classes all the students were expecting one. They were so miffed when I didn’t give them one. I even had some of them complain about it. “Why didn’t you give us a pop quiz like you gave 1st period?” I would explain to them that since they knew about it that it really wouldn’t be a “pop quiz” for them, and that they would get theirs on a different day and they wouldn’t know when it was coming. I rarely gave pop quizzes anyway, but the possibility was always there.

Anyway, here is a link to the complete article.

Larry Cuban does an excellent job explaining why this isn’t a good idea.

For those investing in the stock market, a company’s report invariably includes the warning: Past performance does not predict future returns—or something like that. It is how mutual funds and brokers let you know that they cannot promise high returns similar to the fund’s performance in previous years. In a bull market when stocks are on the rise, the words are often ignored. In a bear market when stocks fall in value, the words carry a punch.

Since the 1950s, school policymakers have bought and sold reform creating a bull market while ignoring warning words about past performance of those reforms. In touting pay-for-performance plans, federal and state decision-makers fail to point out (or ignore) past efforts to link teacher performance to money that have been a series of disasters plainly seen by those who know their history. In fact, an honest reformer’s advice to would-be buyers of these schemes would be: The lousy record of pay-for-performance plans does, indeed, predict the future.

Read the rest here.

Guaranteed to provoke some serious conversation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

I have seen far too many teachers either refuse to share their expertise or refuse to see the expertise of others. Hopefully this kind of research will encourage more to seek and share.

As policymakers focus on identifying and rewarding effective teaching, they should pay close attention to an important new study demonstrating the powerful effect of teacher collaboration in producing greater student achievement gains.

Using 11 years of student data in North Carolina, researchers have found that most value-added achievement gains are attributed to the make-up of teacher teams, not the traits and characteristics of individual teachers. Drawing on sophisticated analyses of this large database, they reported in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that peer learning among small groups of teachers seems to be the most powerful predictor of student achievement over time.

Researchers C. Kirabo Jackson and Elias Bruegmann found that “students have larger test score gains when their teachers experience improvements in the observable characteristics of their colleagues.” Less experienced teachers who are still acquiring “on-the-job” skills are most sensitive to changes in peer quality; teachers with greater labor-market attachment are more sensitive to peer quality; and both current and historical peer quality changes affect current student achievement.

Read the rest here.

Outstanding song and video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxHb5QVD7fo

• To “facilitate” learning is to make it easier. Great teachers stimulate students “by making problems more complex & involving” -Carolyn Edwards

I am so glad this came out. I’ve done training for years, and I’ve never been a fan of the icebreaker. It’s nice to see some validation of this.

This article makes the case that ice breakers — activities used to begin the learning event — are harmful to the learning process.

The very term ice breaker creates the wrong metaphor. The goal of the first learning segment should be to defrost the ice, not break it. Learning can intimidate adults. Attending learning means admitting a lack of knowledge, and by inference, an admission of incomplete adultness. The learners are then forced to admit their perceived incompleteness in a strange, uncomfortable room, in front of strangers, and to an instructor they likely do not know who controls their fate.

In addition, many people have negative memories of school and training is all too reminiscent of those memories. Adults may also, based on those school experiences have a negative image of their ability to learn. Still others, especially those required to attend, have negative suspicions about management motives.

Read the rest here.

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.   That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

Interesting story about a school near Boston that has done something rather revolutionary.

Deven Black just made a very timely blog post that I wish more people would read.

My favorite part:

We need newspaper editors, reporters and columnists, television commentators, political pundits, radio phone-in hosts and their readers, viewers or listeners to do something.

STOP!

Stop exaggerating.

Stop misleading.

Stop blaming.

Stop making doomsday projections.

Stop name-calling.

Stop seeing a socialist around every corner while still planning to benefit from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Stop seeing a McCarthyite reactionary or Marxist revolutionary every time someone opposes something you support.

Stop treating Americans like morons, especially when they seem to want to be treated that way.

Stop treating Americans like morons, especially when they, in your humble opinion, act like morons.

Stop dumbing down your nation.

Read the rest here.

Many will be surprised by this. I am not one of them.

As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can’t write—and technology is to blame. Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, sad shorthand” (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland has moaned). An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?

Andrea Lunsford isn’t so sure. Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students’ prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring.

“I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,” she says. For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

Read the rest here.

October 7, 1921. “School in Session. Sunset School, Marey, West Virginia.

Click the image for a larger version.

That boy on the far left looks like he’s up to no good.

Click here for the original.

Thanks to Scott McLeod for this one!

dear parent

teacher

administrator

board member

don’t teach your kids to read

for the Web

to scan

RSS

aggregate

synthesize

don’t teach your kids to write

online
pen and paper aren’t going anywhere

since when do kids need an audience?
no need to hyperlink

make videos

audio

Flash

no connecting, now
no social networking

or online chat

or comments

or PLNs

blogs and twitter?

how self-absorbed

what a bunch of crap
and definitely, absolutely, resolutely, no cell phones
block it all

lock it down

keep it out
it’s evil, you know

there’s bad stuff out there

gotta keep your children safe

don’t you know collaboration is just another word for cheating?

don’t you know how much junk is out there?

haven’t you ever heard of sexting?

of cyberbullying?
a computer 24-7? no thanks

I don’t want them

creating

sharing

thinking

learning

you know they’re just going to look at porn

and hook up with predators

we can’t trust them

don’t do any of it, please

really

’cause I’m doing all of it with my kids
can’t wait to see who has a leg up in a decade or two

can you?

Nice work by our state school superintendent.