Impact of Economic Crisis on Future of Education, Your Move

Higher student:teacher ratios and no part-time staff support were this week’s headlines. Our Superintendent made it clear: 86% of the county budget is in personnel so this will be the area hardest hit by budget cuts, or will it? At present we have a 21:1 student teacher ratio in 3rd grade. This number promises to increase 30% to 1:27 by next fall. When teachers are already struggling to cover the curriculum efficiently enabling students to pass required state tests, how much harder will this be to accomplish when one teacher is serving 27 students? Who is hardest hit? I think it will be the students. Hearken back to 50′s when some teachers were responsible for 40+ students. How did those teachers make it work? Did they have to individualize, differentiate, accommodate students at the same time appeasing parents? Hardly. They didn’t have nearly the accountability teachers face today.

How many of you have viewed the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail? If you have then the image of the Black Knight should easily come into focus.

Crisis Crippling Education

There may even be a smiling forming on your lips at this very moment. What does he have to do with me/us and the current state of affairs in education? It’s simple. Every time we, as teachers are asked to perform the task of teaching under increasingly difficult circumstances, we are confronted by impossible odds for success. The increasing layers of orders for compliance, demands for data, burgeoning class size and the lack of viable means to accomplish these goals, leaves us as helpless as the black knight. He/we are valiantly shaking our heads and defending our students rights to learn but we haven’t a leg to stand on.

So what does all this mean for the future of education? Something’s gotta give and when it does change will have to follow.

Crisis v Ingenuity

The change will be painful but necessary. All the lip service about 21st century teaching and learning will never amount to anything unless we as educators and community members are forced to make major changes in instructional delivery. A paradigm shift will have to occur in order to save money and delivery quality education. I see the necessity for blended learning programs taking off. Alternatives to the traditional 5 day school week will collapse under the pressure to save fuel, electricity and to address individual student needs. Clusters of learning coops will spring up in homes to receive instruction in a facilitated study-group setting with access to a classroom entered synchronously online complete with two-way video streams. Students may only attend the physical plant location 2-3 times a week.

The reality is, we have been heading in this directions for years by creating a demand for outside forms of educational support. Look at any strip mall and you will find small businesses poised to deliver educational support and enrichment. You will also find families paying up to $60 an hour for elementary school tutors to ensure students pass the gateway tests and are promoted to the next grade. Homeschooling too has been on the rise. What is wrong with this picture? Clearly schools are not able to meet the needs of all students and parents find themselves spending above and beyond the school tax allotment to address their child’s educational needs. Something has to change, and it won’t be easy.

With less disposable income and more at stake in the classroom than ever before, parents are going to reach a breaking point. When they look around and see more money going into Special Education programs and less and less going into the regular ed sector there is bound to be some kind of backlash and an outcry for equity. Change is painful but in if we can hang on through the storm we should actually come out better and stronger on the other end. Ingenuity will triumph over crisis.

Podcamp NYC

I have a number of posts in the cue. They reside in the draft folder. This is true for my post on Podcamp NYC08. I attended and facilitated one session at Podcamp NYC last weekend. Chris Penn, the Podcamp Boston originator opened the unconference and a number of volunteer coordinators managed the event including Whitney Hoffman and John C. Havens. In sum I think I made some inspirational connections and I think a few people feel they picked up useful tips from my session. I will update this post to include a list of my new contacts, their podcast/blog URLs and some helpful tips to would be podcasters from my new friend Brad P. so don’t be too surprised when the long awaited RSS feed drops into your aggregator. I plan to make some headway this weekend.

If you are a teacher then you know how time accelerates in the last few weeks of school. You begin to wonder how you can possibly get everything done in such a short window of time. Ughh, exhausting isn’t it?

Person John C. Havens

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new small voices vodcast on podomatic

I just completed editing and posting episode 31 of small voices.  This is my third annual play based on a piece of childrens’ literature.  A friend and coworker of mine, Heidi Holcomb, soon to be EdS in EdTech loaned me a containing examples of literature illustrating the butterfly effect.  I wondered how readily my students would make the connection between the cats in our story and the safety of the island. They listened intently to the tale.  I told the initially to listen carefully to see if they could solve the problem on the island. They each wanted to be the one to find the answer! Stories can be excellent teachers when students assume a role/purpose within the context of the a book.

My role was to ask questions and to help the students take ownership of the play. I call it a play but in reality it would take months to be able to produce this kind of thing sequentially and before an audience. Videotaping is the answer.  It enables the teacher to reduce each the play to scenes or even parts when filming. With 18 enthusiastic kindergarteners, the rule is divide and conquer!  Parental help is key as is a mind reading assistant.  I had both!  See for yourself. The editing is so so but I think you’ll agree, the movie is a living lesson for these children.

I found this lesson plan today based on the book I used.  Some of you may find this helpful in creating your own plans.

Wonderful Project HP & Brian C Smith Support Teacher Innovation

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/mst-portal

This is a wonderful example of what children can be motivated to produce with guidance from motivated teachers! This is by far the best example I have see thus far of teacher,

student and technology integration/collaboration at the elementary level. I am very encouraged by Brian’s work on this project and plan to get more details from him, show parts of the recorded video to my staff and hopefully inspire this kind of innovation at my own school.

Brian’s project also has a wiki: http://pondpartners.wikispaces.com/

This incredible collaboration shows teachers how they can develop a strong interest in science investigation among students, compassion for the environment, the use tech tools such as probes to collect data, ELA skills of documentation, the excitement of project based learning and collaboration across grade levels.

This is possible. This is what we should be striving for. Please, can we move beyond dioramas and posters. Think big! Use Multi-media and empower students to educate the world!

Small Voices Has Small Simeon Friend

Yesterday I received a brief missive from my small Simeon friend HiMonkey to my podcast site small voices. The little terry cloth critter commented on one of the cooking podcasts I helped my students produce in the Fall. One my student-groups used his Panda Cupcake recipe.  Since then HiMonkey has sent a stream of his fans to savour the fruits of his influence. My students were delighted with his recipes and the humor found on his site. Thanks HiMonkey for alerting me to several new unsavory comments that were spammed to my podcasts. I have removed commenting but people may still email me via podomatic. It’s nice to know that small voices has a small friend looking out for them!

clipped from himonkey.org 5. i believe that sharing snacks and laughter is the key to world peace. clipped from himonkey.org

What if Lincoln had used Power Point…

Last night on Women of Web 2, Joyce Valenza, Media Specialist extraordinare shared why she poses this question to her students,”What if Lincoln had used Power Point to deliver the Gettysburg Address.” This hypothetical question may be applied to any historic speech and what a great way to get students using their higher order thinking skills. Joyce calls the Media Center a Libratory, a place for practice, presenting, creating and sharing a center for communication/information sharing. She has over 30 years of experience in education and a Phd. but there is nothing stale about her approach. Here is her Virtual Library providing you with access to some excellent resources.

Horton Hears a Who?

Monday, March 3 is a tribute to Theodore Geisel and considered by elementary school children to be Dr. Seuss Day. As an author Geisel explored topics involving social responsibility. In Horton Hears a Who, Horton the elephant is able to hear the Who’s plea for help from a spec of dust. No one believes him because they cannot see it with their own eyes. For me, Martin Sebuliba is my Who. Have you heard him? In this day of modernity where the impossible is possible and previously unheard voices are beginning to speak over the internet, Martin is leading the chorus, “We are here! We are here! We are here! Can you hear him? He a pleads to help the children survive. He has a vision and the persistence of a man on a mission.

On December 3 I posted an overview of the Springs Alive community in Uganda and their pressing needs. As a result of the post I received an inquiry from a reporter:

Moira Sharkey Says:
January 23, 2008 at 1:39 am edit

I am a reporter with the South Wales Echo in Cardiff, UK and was wondering if the photo on the website is of children from Spring Alive School. The reason I ask is that I am hoping to do a story on a appeal fund launched by local Welsh children to buy equipment and supplies for the school in Uganda but I don’t have a photo of Spring Alive. If this is the school can we use the photo?

Martin reported that the school in Wales planned to send to adult delegates with some much needed school supplies. They acted very quickly perhaps because they had a fund for this type of venture. Here is the update from Martin about their visit.

I also have an update on the visitors from Wales that visited our school ie.Simon and Julian, in one of the successful encounters we have had as regards Global links. These visitors told us that the children in their school have contributed money toward renovating our old structure and they said that with time if this collaboration could be sustained, they would think of other ways on which to make the collaboration with their school beneficial, this needs to appear in the website, I don’t know how yet! Could you advise please? We also will write an update article which we will email Moira, Roath Park School and you.

In one of the most unfortunate encounters with them was when they said that they could not give us the video conferencing kit because we did not have electricity at our school, but they promised that if we got the electricity, they would give it to us. I have to tell you this Kathy in order for you to know that down here in our country, we really are having a struggle to make ends meet, and you being very close indeed you could be supportive in one way or another.

 

I have promised to create a website for SpringsAlive and if Martin can make some banking arrangements I will be able to post a Chipin.

My friends ask me if this is legitimate. I have been convinced from the outset that Martin is what he claims to be, the Director of Springs Alive and that he is in fact in Uganda. I will be contacting the school in Cardiff Wales for further confirmation and to ask them for advice as to ways of providing assistance effectively. I will admit that I want very much to help but I do not want any donations to fall into the wrong hands. I think this can only be arranged by partnering with a local Ugandan banking institution or perhaps through a University as a possible funding for a grant specifically designed to assist Springs Alive.

 

If you have any experience with this kind of partnership I would appreciate your advice.

 

Podcamp NYC

I’ll be there, will you?

The Problem with Overexposure

The problem with exposure is overexposure. How can teachers create safe spaces for children? For that matter how can parents? The internet is a Pandora’s Box, alluring, mysterious and enlightening. Is the incidence of occasionally unfiltered audio of video a threat to internet use in elementary schools? Do the benefits of internet use outweigh the pitfalls? Several posts ago I commented on the surprising use of youtube by young students. I didn’t teach them about it nor have I even even mentioned it because I don’t feel it is a safe place for unaccompanied minors. Our county has excellent filters and they certainly seems to be 99% effective in eliminating unwanted material but the filters can fail and students can run the risk of overexposure. Take Google images, regardless of the setting an search on any term may result in image overexposure! It happened to me one time when I was searching for computers. Mixed among the computers was a random photo labeled computer but without any computer in view.

Media Specialists have grappled with questionable content since the dawn of libraries. Parents dissaporve of some books for religious, political or content about the human anatomy. Some illustrations or photographs may depict strong sequences of violence. I have been on the critical end of this debate when my own children were in elementary school. In fact a middle school teacher showed the class an R-rated movie without parent consent. It was Schindler’s List. My daughter loved her teacher. I felt the woman had exercised poor judgment. I emailed the principal and let her know that perhaps the teacher was not aware of the rules concerning movies. She thanked me and handled it discreetly. No one lost their job. In fact it was a teachable moment for me and my daughter.

I recently encountered some unanticipated pitfalls using audio on the web. Think about still images, screening them is relatively simple procedure. You can see with your own eyes in short order and assess the content. With video alone, you could fast forward and scan the scenes. A different kind of problem arises when using audio. How can you and I be sure the audio content is safe without listening to every word, every second? What kind of warning do you have before it’s too late to stop the sound? What if the unexpected happens? How do you recover? What do you tell the students? I have been asking these questions of my peers and the most frequent answer is to fudge the offending word or phrase and change the meaning, if possible to placate any innocent listeners, but what if that isn’t possible? How can we trust the content even when it comes from a reputable source? Is what we hear online as damaging as what we hear in person? These are the questions creating cob webs in my head. Teachers have to protect their students. I think we have to consider these questions seriously. The advent of phone comments on blogs and VoiceThreads and even audio comments on websites or podcasts raise the chances that some unfiltered audio will reach the ears of innocents. Are there any guarantees save removing internet access? Let me know if you have any answers. I’m all ears!

Tech Fair or UnFair?

I spent this morning judging elementary school projects at the county tech fair competition. Students from grades 3-6 present their projects as teams or as individuals to a team of judges. This is my 4th year as a judge and I have observed many changes in the process and in the content presented by these children. The committee has become a well oiled machine. This year they added bar coded identification for participants and an access database to post rubric results. There was no waiting for tallys, the computer produced a wonderful report of the winners in each category.The only trouble I could see was in the categories themselves. Technology has improved so much and programs have gained so much functionality that digital video can be found in FLASH animation, stills can be found in windows Movie Maker and all of the above can be found in Internet projects. The lines have blurred and the rubrics don’t fit the product.

When projects don’t fit neatly into distinctive categories how can they be judged appropriately?I was most impressed by the technical expertise displayed by the students. The technical terminology, the understanding of the steps and the process was remarkable. Some had macs, others had PC’s and the variety of software packages blurred the distinctions further. It got me thinking about the real purpose for having a tech competition in the first place. Judges ranged from tech specialists, to teachers to student teachers. Background experience varied widely. One tech specialist said that the content was not as important as the technology and the skill used to apply the technology. I wonder, is that really the purpose? Shouldn’t the real purpose be to use technology to enhance learning and to extend the learning experience via integrating technology into the curriculum?

There was no place on the rubric for standards neither ISTE nor GPS (Georgia’s). There was no way to judge the whether or not a student had an established goal or purpose. There was no way to judge the academic value of the project. Today I viewed Digital Video projects only to discover that Windows Movie Maker and Photostory 3 with all stills somehow made this category. I would have put them into Multi-Media. Next year the lines will blur further. Think about it, you can even export a Power Point as a movie! I may need to get involved in changing the rubrics to reflect real 21st learning and technology integration. The students are doing wonderful work but they need to be judged more fully and more equitably.

PS. The little on-line program below falls into which category? Would it be Non animated graphic design? Most of the 3-5 graders used Paint for that category. How would this cartoon be compared?

clipped from www.toondoo.com Categories have many blurred lines between them. By sendkathy on 2008-02-02 17:03 | 0 Views tags : edtech