Stephen's Untold Stories

One of my colleagues is conducting a study for his dissertation and I thought that some of you might be interested. It’s a very easy survey to fill out, and the results should be interesting.

• Survey of Educational Technology Use by Teachers in the Classroom

Very nice!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO60rISU3nA

I’m sure many of you created some that were just as amusing.

Here is the entire gallery.

In our service region, we get to see a lot of evidence of this gap. Some of our districts have students with easy access to technology, while others have almost none.

Gordon Stewart, 16, has his own computer in his bedroom in Arlington, Virginia, as do his two sisters. He uses the Internet for homework, but spends hours online long after his studies are completed—if he’s not chatting with his friends or updating his blog he’s busy posting mash-ups to YouTube or playing elaborate, multi-partner video games.

Students like Gordon are so digitally connected it’s as if they were born with their own ringtones and MySpace pages. But not everyone in “Generation Next” has access to this seemingly ubiquitous technology.

Consider Jonathen Williams. He drives almost 40 miles each day, from Wiggins, Mississippi, to Hattiesburg so he can use the Internet at a community center to research colleges and apply for student loans. He doesn’t have a computer at home and doesn’t have the luxury of spending hours online to explore, experiment, or express himself like Gordon.

With such limited access to computers and high-speed Internet, students like Jonathen are falling into the latest version of the digital divide—what’s being called the “participation gap”— where they have fewer opportunities to develop the digital literacy necessary for an increasingly technical world.

Students with round-the-clock, high-speed Internet access have more opportunity not only to be content consumers, but also content creators with a global audience—they have a chance to be “publishers, movie makers, artists, song creators, and story tellers,” says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The more opportunity young people have to play around online, the more their experience and comfort with technology grows. They’re becoming digital innovators who will increasingly integrate technology into their everyday lives and use it to shape the future—a future that will likely look a lot different for the millions of kids without the same level of experience.

According to Pew Research, there are still 30 million American households that do not have a computer, mostly in low-income or rural communities. For the majority, it’s a matter of dollars and cents—a few hundred dollars for a home computer coupled with a 30 or 40 dollar monthly broadband bill isn’t practical when it’s a struggle to keep the lights on.

For kids in low-income households, the only place to get online is at school or at the library. Of Hispanic children, 39 percent rely on schools to use computers. Of Black children, the number swells to 45 percent, compared to just 11 percent of Asian and Pacific Islanders and 15 percent of White children.

Link to article

Outstanding!

The term “21st Century Classroom” gets thrown around a lot, and lately I’ve been hearing more about “21st Century Literacies.” It seems everybody has their own take on the matter, but now the National Council of Teachers of English has weighed in.

Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to:

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

Are we teaching these things now? If not, will we ever?

I got it right away. I think that’s a bit sad.

Interesting article from Time magazine.

We never forget our best teachers—those who imbued us with a deeper understanding or an enduring passion, the ones we come back to visit years after graduating, the educators who opened doors and altered the course of our lives. I was lucky enough to encounter two such teachers my senior year in a public high school in Connecticut. Dr. Cappel told us from the outset that his goal was not to prepare us for the AP biology exam; it was to teach us how to think like scientists, which he proceeded to do with a quiet passion, mainly in the laboratory. Mrs. Hastings, my stern, Radcliffe-trained English teacher, was as devoted to her subject as the gentle Doc Cappel was to his: a tough taskmaster on the art of writing essays and an avid guide to the pleasures of James Joyce. Looking back, I’d have to credit this inspirational pair for carving the path that led me to a career writing about science.

It would be wonderful if we knew more about teachers such as these and how to multiply their number. How do they come by their craft? What qualities and capacities do they possess? Can these abilities be measured? Can they be taught? Perhaps above all: How should excellent teaching be rewarded so that the best teachers—the most competent, caring and compelling—remain in a profession known for low pay, low status and soul-crushing bureaucracy?

Such questions have become critical to the future of public education in the U.S. Even as politicians push to hold schools and their faculty members accountable as never before for student learning, the nation faces a shortage of teaching talent. About 3.2 million people teach in U.S. public schools, but, according to projections by economist William Hussar at the National Center for Education Statistics, the nation will need to recruit an additional 2.8 million over the next eight years owing to baby-boomer retirement, growing student enrollment and staff turnover—which is especially rapid among new teachers. Finding and keeping high-quality teachers are key to America’s competitiveness as a nation. Recent test results show that U.S. 10th-graders ranked just 17th in science among peers from 30 nations, while in math they placed in the bottom five. Research suggests that a good teacher is the single most important factor in boosting achievement, more important than class size, the dollars spent per student or the quality of textbooks and materials.

Link to article

A total of 113 6th & 7th grade students took the survey and are participating in the study.

1. Is writing one of your favorite subjects in school?
A. Yes – 44.25%
B. No – 55.75%

2. Do you like to write things for school assignments?
A. Yes – 11.50%
B. No – 22.12%
C. Sometimes – 66.37%

3. Do you like to write things that are not related to school like letters or notes to family and friends?
A. Yes – 45.13%
B. No – 14.16%
C. Sometimes – 40.71%

4. How many times have you sat down to write something in the last month or so?
A. 0 – 11.50%
B. 1or 2 times – 40.71%
C. 3 or 4 times – 23.01%
D. 5 times or more – 24.78%

5. Do you think that writing is fun?
A. Yes – 23.01%
B. No – 23.89%
C. Sometimes – 53.10%

6. Would you like to write more often?
A. Yes – 46.90%
B. No – 53.10%

7. Do you think that writing is an important skill?
A. Yes – 89.38%
B. No – 10.62%

8. Have you ever written on a blog?
A. Yes – 48.67%
B. No – 51.33%

9. Do you know anyone who has written on a blog before?
A. Yes  - 69.91%
B. No – 30.09%

10. Are you looking forward to writing on a blog?
A. Yes – 63.72%
B. No – 11.50%
C. I’m not sure  – 24.78%

Very funny, and helpful!

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I got the pre-blogging surveys yesterday from the middle school I am working with for my action research project on blogging. I am in the process of compiling the results, but here are the questions from the survey:

(Survey Given to Students Prior to Blogging)

1. Is writing one of your favorite subjects in school?
A. Yes
B. No

2. Do you like to write things for school assignments?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes

3. Do you like to write things that are not related to school like letters or notes to family and friends?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes

4. How many times have you sat down to write something in the last month or so?
A. 0
B. 1or 2 times
C. 3 or 4 times
D. 5 times or more

5. Do you think that writing is fun?
A. Yes
B. No
C. Sometimes

6. Would you like to write more often?
A. Yes
B. No

7. Do you think that writing is an important skill?
A. Yes
B. No

8. Have you ever written on a blog?
A. Yes
B. No

9. Do you know anyone who has written on a blog before?
A. Yes
B. No

10. Are you looking forward to writing on a blog?
A. Yes
B. No
C. I’m not sure

Thanks to Rick for the reminder!

We don’t get to toot our horn in GA as much as some other states regarding test scores, but here is one area that is worth mentioning.

More Georgia students than ever are taking rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) classes and scoring well on the AP exams, according to a national report released today.

“Georgia is a national leader in improving AP access and success,” said State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox. “Our students are showing the state and the country that they want to be challenged and that they are up to the task.”

“Once again, Georgia students continue to shine when compared with the rest of the nation in AP participation and performance on AP exams,” said Governor Sonny Perdue. “Georgia’s global competitiveness depends on setting high expectations for our students. These rankings demonstrate that in Georgia, AP courses are not just for the top two percent of students, but are accessible to the majority.”

The Annual “AP Report to the Nation,” released by the College Board Wednesday, also shows that Georgia has one of the highest rates of participation among minority students.

“Georgia has made a commitment to making sure every student has access to AP classes,” Superintendent Cox said. “Working with the legislature, we are increasing AP teacher training, paying for students to take AP exams and offering more AP classes through our Georgia Virtual School. This is having a big impact.”

Advanced Placement classes and exams are administered by the College Board and offer rigorous college-level learning options to students in high school. Students who receive a 3, 4 or 5 on AP exams may receive college credit. More than 43,000 public school students took at least one AP exam in 2006-2007, a 14.4 percent increase over the previous school year. Since 2003, the number of students taking at least one AP exam has jumped nearly 84 percent.

Georgia students took a total of 67,739 AP exams in 2006-2007, an increase of over 8,000 exams from the previous year. Since 2003, the number of exams taken has almost doubled. Despite the dramatic growth in participation, the percentage of exams receiving a score of 3 or higher has remained fairly steady, between 53 and 57 percent.

For the first time this year, the College Board has released a new statistic for AP: The percentage of seniors that scored a 3 or higher on an AP exam during their high school years. The College Board reports that 15.3 percent of Georgia’s 2007 High School Seniors got a 3, 4 or 5 on at least one AP exam during their high school years. That puts Georgia at 15th in the nation.

Also, the report shows that 9.4 percent of Georgia’s African-American high school seniors scored a 3 or higher on at least one AP exam. This was third highest in the nation. While Georgia continues to see strong growth in participation, there are still many students who are not taking advantage of AP classes. The College Board report shows that thousands of Georgia students that could successfully take AP classes are not doing so.

“What the report shows is that we have many more students who are capable of college-level work while still in high school,” Superintendent Cox said. “We have to help our schools recruit these students into the challenge of an AP program.”

Official Announcement Here

I decided to start putting all the photos I’m taking with my new camera on Zooomr. I still have a Flickr account, but I wanted an easy way to separate out the new photos.

Here are a few samples.

Here is the new gallery

I have recently started using Twitter on a somewhat consistent basis. I tried it a while back, but didn’t have a network. Having a network has made all the difference. I’ve used it to discuss educational Wikis with a fellow educator in Oregon, followed conversations about a wide array of educational topics, and even rated Super Bowl commercials with other people in my network.

Here is a great article which shows how one professor is using it for academic purposes.

I must admit that when I first heard about Twitter I thought it represented the apex of what concerns me about internet technology: solipsism and sound-bite communication. While I obviously spend a great deal of time online and thinking about the potential of these new networked digital communication structures, I also worry about the way that they too easily lead to increasingly short space and time for conversation, cutting off nuance and conversation, and what is often worse how these conversations often reduce to self-centered statements. When I first heard about Twitter I thought, this was the example par excellence of these fears, so for many months I did not investigate it at all. Then I read an article by Clive Thompson at Wired. Clive’s article convinced me that perhaps it was worth giving Twitter a try. At this point I have to say, I am so glad that I did. Although I am still beginning to wrap my head around all of its varied uses—I think for the most part Twitter users themselves are still figuring this out—I have been using it for over six months now and come up with some academic uses.

Classroom Community: Once students started twittering I think they developed a sense of each other as people beyond the classroom space, rather than just students they saw twice a week for an hour and a half. This carried with it a range of benefits, from more productive classroom conversations (people were more willing to talk, and more respectful of others), and also helped me to understand what type of students they were. I learned a great deal about students lives, where they work, that one of them had Thanksgiving dinner with 50+ people. Now this type of supplementary material might not be attractive to all educators, I can definitely say that changed the classroom dynamics for the better. I think this is connected to what Clive Thompson calls the sixth sense of Twitter. Having the Sixth Sense can really help the classroom.

Grammar: Surprisingly Twitter is actually good for teaching grammar. Why? Because of its short form those who tweet often abbreviate and abuse grammar rules, developing their own unique “twitter rules.” This helps to demonstrate, both how all communication needs rules/structure and how important something like a comma or a period can be. (Some Tweets become really ambiguous because of their lack of punctuation.)

Link to complete article

Here is an interesting post that is especially relevant to those of us who are conducting or who are about to be conducting educational research.

Like many teachers, I am finding that I have more questions than answers about my students’ learning.

At first, that realization was unsettling since the term teacher is, for me, synonymous with being the ultimate answer-giver and problem-solver. So it was a relief for me to learn that reflective questioning is actually a sign of a teacher leader. It seems that “teacher leaders” everywhere are purposefully seeking out questions about their teaching practices — and that those questions are becoming the jumping-off point for improvement initiatives and, in some cases, widespread learning reform.

In the past, teachers haven’t made it their business to advertise the things that weren’t working well in their classroom. Today, however, educators are more willing to be vulnerable in a public way. They are willing to openly question their practices and use their research-based findings to initiate positive change in the classroom and in schools. This new agenda has earned a new breed of educators the uncharacteristic title of teacher-researchers.

Read the rest here

Some pretty good ones here.

• I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year. – The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957.
•  There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. – Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment, 1977
• The computer allows you to make mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila. – Mitch Ratcliffe.
• We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true. – Robert Wilensky

Here is the entire list

I’ve been a big fan of Wikis for quite some time, and there are some good ones to choose from. Here is a nice comparison to help you decide which one to use.