I could just celebrate the last day of summer classes but it would be more appropriate to talk about our class today. I enjoyed the conversation with Kevin, Lauren and Daver. It was good to see the product of the MAC program. They were impressive as far as dedication and thoughtfulness and I presume effectiveness. It was good and sobering to hear about the various ways of using technology and how effective it can be. I think what I took from that conversation was there is a good deal of room for creativity and initiative. Part of what they said did not surprise me. Many opportunities to apply technology to education are probably missed because of reliance on the local (well meaning and probably over-worked) experts in the schools who can't keep up with everything. The initiative and persistence of the classroom personal is needed to take advantage of technology. In some ways this is comforting and in others disappointing. It is comforting because creativity is released through the vision and persistence at the individual level. Often the management types are a couple of steps behind. (That is not intended as a criticism but it often how large organizations work). I am sure that the place of the most innovative use of technology in classrooms is from individual teachers who catch a vision and have the drive to bring things about. Now, I am not one of those people who innovate. But I am usually pretty good at recognizing, supporting and cribbing from those who do (with their permission of course). Seeing that there is room for that gives me hope. I do think using technology in support of learning is very important.

The lack of imagination is disappointing as well. Institutions often lag behind developments in society. But this pattern is so common that I would think we would catch on by now. Technology is one important tool for engaging the digital generation. (The video we saw about that was over the top but sometimes people stretch a point to make a point). Even though I thought that video was a bit much, I do agree that this is an area to be taken very seriously. We cannot legislate it away. We cannot ignore it. Engaging it openly and honestly is important so that we take advantage of the good things technology is and learn to use it at the service of learning. (That Internet thing is simply not going to run it course and go away).

The side discussion I wanted to have was about the teacher union issue. I would like to know what people think about the need for unions among professionals. If there is a need does it mean that we really haven asserted ourselves as professionals? Or does it mean that reliance on politicians and bureaucrats mean the power has to be organized to balance things out a bit? That would have been an interesting question to raise but I thought it would lead us too far afield from technology. So I figured I would throw it out here. Have a great August MACers.

Today I heard that Michigan 'lost' in the current round of Race to the Top. From what I am seeing about race to the top it is clear that we are losing out on some money but I wonder if we really lost. Maybe it is an opportunity to do some serious thinking about education instead of being fixated on union busting and charter schools. I have some bad feelings about race to the top. In his blog, Learning is Messy, Brian Crosby, has a couple of thoughtful posts about race to the top. I agree with his concern that we are narrowing down our conception of education. In a nation this big and diverse that makes absolutely no sense. There has been and should be greater variety of approaches. Think about it. With all of the hand-wringing about the poor education of today, we did manage to educate students reasonably well with a broad variety of local approaches. (I am sure that some were horrible but many were successful.) Now we are acting like only one thing can work and we virtually have NO evidence for it. It is amazing. It is a waste of money and I fear that somebody is getting really rich off of this thing. (We will know in 20 years or so I guess). I am not into conspiracies generally but this thing has taken on a life of its own and I don't see good coming of it. There is so much creativity in this country but the message is that we will only reward uniformity. I heard the secretary of education speak about it on the radio and I am not convinced or impressed. He sounded like a politician. Anything that enshrines charter schools has got to be suspect. I really am ranting this time. I guess that is enough. Where are the voices of reason?

I offered a comment on The Tempered Radical site: "changing views of privacy" from July 17, 2010.

The conversation about the Gee reading concerning assessment has been on my mind. Although I was good in school and never freaked out on exams, I never liked having teachers check up on my progress in school. I liked the anonymity (or so it felt to me) of figuring it out on my own. I did not like being judged and I did not like being wrong. I wonder if that is the difference in why gamers (or at least some of them) don't mind the immediate assessment. The game does not judge them. They can also plug away at it in private until they become 'experts'. No one knows how many times they 'died' learning the game. I may be wrong about that because don't know how the community of gamers interact about those things. The nearest thing (and I date myself horribly here) that I can relate to was learning to play pinball games. There was incentive to get good quickly because each game cost money. But I think it took like 100 games to learn the basics for a novice. Those skills were transferable. But that was a lot of time and money (to me). I learned a lot from watching others but I learned a lot more when no one was watching and I could plug away and apply what I saw modeled. That is a long way to say that I am not sure how to transfer the positive attitude to instant assessment to the classroom. I think it might be possible to do it but my skepticism is growing. There is something about the game environment that seems different from the classroom and it is not apparent to me how to apply the lessons from the one to the other. Initially I was like -- yeah we have got to try this. Now I am thinking, I don't see how to do it. I am open to suggestions and will gladly imitate successful models. Any thoughts?

Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur. As I read and watched James Gee talk about games I realized that the few games I have done (2 Zelda games), I approached like the baby boomer that I am -- at least initially. I did enjoy them immensely but I was also acutely aware of how much time I used to learn them and develop the skills to manipulate the controls. After completing a game I did not want to go through a new learning curve. I could not justify the time. Now that is not to say that I always use my time effectively but I just couldn't do it. As I listen to gamers talk I realize that a great deal of their time comes out of their sleep and I could not justify that with work obligations and the like. (I still sound like an old guy). All that being said, I really like Gee's observation that the way the contemporary generation approaches games is an important problem solving attitude. They learn, they are diligent, determined and quite clever. (Some of the games are a bit brutal for my taste -- but I digress). I think capturing the energy for figuring out the 'game' of physics is an intriguing idea. I don't really know how to capture it but I look forward to collaborating with people who can capture that. How do we get students to see physics as figuring out the game of the universe? I never would have thought of it exactly that way at that age but then again I grew up with formulas and rules and not games. Intriguing to say the least. Some of you will need to help me out.

I have tweeted. I am glad that I said 'never say never' in the last post. What I found helpful was the possibility of forming discussions and reflections and receiving and passing on information through twitter. I did not understand the environment well enough appreciate it as a tool. Like many, my only exposure to twitter has been through the reign of silliness imposed on us through celebrities. I concede that it can be used in positive and productive ways. It remains to be seen how I will use this technology but I am definitely more open than before the class. I also want to offer a thumbs up on the class discussion we did. Although it had a few glitches, I found it useful and engaging. I do not think we should do that too often but it is a great way to have certain discussions. I also appreciated the 'webinar' although I imagine it could work better technically. But I found hearing and sort of seeing our technology practitioners was more illuminating than reading them. It is not that what they wrote wasn't presented well, but I think I have a 'slight' bias against trendy things and their presentation assured me of their expertise and sincerity. They definitely had their students' learning as their goal.

So much to blog about. This one may resemble a rant though. First of all, I am kind of getting fed up with all of the cute terminology. I understand that every profession has its own standard vocabulary but when you add the technology component those terms go up exponentially (it seems). After dealing with taxonomies, cognition, substantial conversations, HOT and LOT, etc., now we have cloud computing, personal learning networks, authentic assessment, sage on the stage, guide on the side and so forth. In a few months I will probably using these and myriad other terms with ease. For the moment things seem a bit forced.

That being said, I loved the cheating comments and the thoughts of authentic assessment (even though I only know what that means in the crudest sense). It is a reminder to me (again) not to coast as a teacher but to keep striving for the highest practice.

I am still not sure about the Twitter thing. I think I refuse to be called a twit or to use that term in any way that is not insulting. I will never say never of course but one must draw a line somewhere and tweeting, twittering, or the Stephen Colbert term (twat) -yes he said that- is likely on the other side of my line. Blessings to those who tweet. I don't think it entirely useless and I imagine it can be useful but I just can't see it just yet.

I also see another danger point in our profession born of our zeal. Although I am almost certainly projecting here -- I think there was a hint of a judgmental attitude toward those who choose to learn in the 'wrong ways'. Some have the nerve to prefer the 'sage on the stage' to the 'guide on the side'. What's wrong with them? How dare they learn something that was merely told them? Don't they know you can't learn that way!!! I do not really have a problem with the deepening understanding of cognition that indicates we learn best when we are engaged in the process and 'construct our meaning'. But we have to reconcile that with honoring the learning strategies of individuals. Perhaps they are fooling themselves to think they are actually learning by being told and are secretly constructing meaning but are not yet aware. But let them live and learn in their ignorance -- so long as they learn.

the Shy guy and too much Dewey

I had a near nightmare about "The Shy Guy" or whatever it was called. It just jumped into my head and the image of Dick York playing a teenager was horrifying. But even more so is I guess I saw the downside of the Dewey schema. I believe it is important that schools be aware of themselves as society within society. Schools have a social role and probably that is one of their most important functions. But as the Shy Guy shows that good intention can lead us into strange places. I found that clip to be manipulative. Fortunately it was concerning an innocuous subject but the potential for imposing social views on a vulnerable age group is huge. This should send chills down the backs of potential teachers. We will wield a tremendous influence on our "unsuspecting" charges. It is a frightening amount of power to influence the young and the amount of supervision and accountability could be minimal depending on where we are working. That means we have to monitor ourselves. For those of us in the physical sciences there will be little temptation I suppose. We can just stick to the science. But these days everything is political or commercial. The science of climate change, for example, is a mine field of political interference and capitalistic monkey business. This is all to say that while the philosophical choice to see education in its social context is fitting and helps us to discover meaning within a social context it cannot be taken too far. It must be held accountable by the part of society not in the school every day -- parents come to mind. They are after all the first educators of their children. If we are not careful we can become paternalistic or manipulative or tyrants. We have to be in the habit of recalling that we are educating children. We owe them the diligence of not imposing our beliefs, prejudices or even too many brilliant ideas on them. We help them discover and try to stay out of their way as much as possible while at the same time helping them find their way within our society. I know this is a tight rope walk. We are who we are. We live and breath our beliefs and convictions and anyone with an ounce of insight can figure what we think after they have been with us for a while. In addition, we will not always make the right choices because we often don't know how much is too far or how 'out there' our own ideas really are. But the Shy Guy shows us how too much Dewey (or too much misunderstood Dewey) can be really creepy (and cheesy too).