Ehsynchronous has moved

I have made some changes in my blog location and software. I am now using Dreamhost for my web service rather than .mac and blogger. Now you will find my entries at http://www.ehsynchro.com/blog.

Hope to see you there.

Wind on Minister's Pond

Snug in a cabin a gale swirls 'round.
Unseen yet fierce,
apparitions in the daylight.

Invisible forces
chase through the trees
break a limb, topple man's toys.
The breath of the planet,
in and out in random intervals.

Without contrast - they have no form
Defined only by the alter-elements
water, wind, light and shadow
across the pond.
The dance of the wind,
push and recede, push recede.
Waves appear, flatten, then reappear
Water revealed by wind and light

Alone

Standing in the dark
Alone... just me
I wait and look again
Dark but spacious with a breath.

The full Moon rises tonight
I place my attention there
why not write it down.

These ordinary moments are exceptional
full of life
with eyes looking and relaxed.
I could desire something more - naah!

Does you wiki?

I have been thinking about wiki and it's application for our classrooms at RFSD. I expect some teacher has done something like this. I imagine:

sharing technology with students in the flow of their instruction. The class is organized to work together and help document their own instruction within a wiki. Doing a unit on a subject, they add details to the reading, lecture and discussions they are having in class. Studying US Government, they take and post notes from class lectures and discussions. They contribute their own ideas and answer quetions in the content the wiki. Their contributions could include written, audio, still and video content. The wiki becomes a reference for the teacher as they expand on the lesson, make assignments, and assessments, and when they repeat the lesson next year. As an added benefit the wiki becomes a class portfolio, a measure of what they know.

I'm not sure if you can do all this on a wiki but I expect you can do most of it. Perhaps the assessment piece isn't in there. You could do some of your assessments using Google forms, like you would a poll.

In this way the class plays an important role in their own learning. They work with the teacher to build a learning community, learn the content, and produce evidence of their learning. The cool thing about the wiki is that it tracks who contributes, making work easy to find and evaluate.

Technology for Instruction or Learning

As we create a vision for student learning, we should delve into our philosophy of technology. Does it follow from our philosophy of learning and teaching? How do we want students to engage with technology? Do we want to put them in pull out classes for typing and other basic proficiencies? Or do we want them to learn by doing, applying technology to their learning, picking up a computer when they need to do a task. As important as this target is, it is equally important to know when to hand students a pencil, or a blackboard, or face to face with each other; using all sorts of tools and arrangements to read, write and engage in projects. The plan to use technology should begin with a question of purpose:

1. What learning outcome are we aiming at?
2. What does the student need to know, perform.
   
3. What vocabulary do they need, what processes do they need to understand?

After all, we have been using tools in learning and teaching forever. Technology is a revolutionary tool for sure but it should serve our learning objectives. As we create learning experiences for students we need to explore ways to put technology into student's hands to create, communicate and collaborate.

On another note...
If we're going to put more tech in the hands of students, we need to orient them (and ourselves) to the social norms of that environment. What are our expectations for them? What are the rules for engaging each other (and anonymous people) online? Some useful topics:

• Internet Safety
• Fair use of digital resources
• Creative Commons
• conventions for collaboration - what are the rules of the playground?
• Information Literacy

Students will benefit from 21st Century tools for learning as we balance our concerns with the advantages that the tools afford. As we understand the tools we will do a better job of integrating them into the flow of instruction. Students could begin to tell us when they need a particular tool.

Dream and Prayer

We're all living the same, different, existence,
reaching for a connection and fearing it's loss.
My jealousy is a reminder, a signpost to a new state of being
Where I pause, release and reframe my boundaries,

I accept that I have longing and pain,
and see it melt, see others equal and greater to mine.

Breath with this moment - let us be.

Shallow or Deep - Where are we headed?

Recently I commented on a story on "The Future of Education" site, titled "Is Google Keeping us Single". I just happened to have heard the story on NPR that was referenced in the story, describing the popularity of "hooking up".

This story made me think about examples of quick fixes and obsessions in our culture and it's opposite; the search for meaning that I also experience and observe. It is true that there are a growing number of examples of our tendency toward instant gratification. We are a fast moving culture and this "fast culture" is spreading over the face of the earth. But what is interesting is that alongside this is a growth in connections, in finding out who we are, settling down and settling in.

There is great potential for shallow "one night stands" in our culture. Maybe fast food is the culprit. No, seriously we have been moving horizontally for quite some time in our culture. This fast movement has it's costs and benefits. It does take practice and effort to stay on a thought, develop one's philosophy, raise a family or what have you. It is interesting that while people are moving fast and skimming the top of life, others are taking time to develop a sense of wonder and contemplation. The popularity of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh are examples. While for some these personalities are just another quick brush with an idea, for others they represent a desire for connection and contemplation of the here and now. Interesting that the West discovered Eastern religion en masse during the 60s at the same time they discovered "free love".

Do we have the will and the stamina to rest in the peace of this moment, enjoy a novel, learn to play a musical instrument. I don't know what the research says, but my observations in my corner of the planet says that people are still doing these things. There is a desire to slow down - at times, and to escape our escapes.

I recently joined Facebook, much to the horror of my youngest daughter who does NOT want to be my "friend". Is Facebook a distraction, a way to skim the surface of my life and others? or is it a way to connect, to feel a deeper bond to the mass of humanity. I have found old friends and new. I have begun to get connected, albeit with quick waves and text, with people I have known for 20 and 30 years.

Granted Facebook could be another distraction. But it can be a place for people to begin to write their life story, to develop a deeper, not a shallow sense of themselves. Who know what all this will bring. But it seems to me that the phenomena of "social networking" is a natural outgrowth of our desire to be connected deeply not a desire to remain anonymous or have a quick "intercourse".

But twitter, that's a different story :-)

Motivation and Learning

I wrote this entry as I worked on my application for the Google Teacher Academy. An important part of the application was a one minute video on the subject of "Motivation and Learning. 50 people were chosen for the academy. I wasn't one of them. While I am bummed that I wasn't selected, this project gave me a purpose for exploring YouTube as a medium, the tools that I needed to accomplish it, and the concept of motivation and learning - something I have thought about for many, many years.
-------------------------

I'm working on my application for admission to the Google Academy. They require a one minute video on "Classroom Innovation" or the topic "Motivation and Learning". To get my head around the relationship of Motivation and Learning I've been brainstorming and visualizing my message. It is quite fun to picture the message with the tools that I have at my computer. Photos, movies, audio. I am using Keynote, iPhoto, iMovie and Garage Band. I would love to attend the Academy because of the tools the Google is offering our students and the innovations they are offering in cloud computing. I expect that the people who attend the Academy will be similarly motivated and inspired to do interesting things with the tools that Google provides.

One of my methods for gathering ideas has been to brainstorm or free associate on the subject of motivation and learning. Here are some of the ideas that have sprung from this;

Motivation is the fire of learning, the wind under our wings so to speak. Motivation is exemplified in our enthusiasm for learning, for exploring, creating, and building community. Without motivation, there is no energy for learning (or any activity for that matter). As I have pondered what drives learning, the fire for motivation, I have been led to wonder what the roots of motivation are. This takes me back to consider not only motivation for a particular result but the root of our motivation for learning in general. What are the ingredients for a healthy human being to have the capacity, the fire, for learning? What does a child need to develop her curiosity, desire and ability to solve problems? If we want to nurture learning, we should consider the basic building blocks - the first 5 years of life especially.

Many images come to mind as I consider these questions. A newborn in his mothers arms, being talked to, gazing into her eyes, fed and embraced. A toddler banging around the room, knocking things off shelves, making noise with unusual devices, talking and asking for things. The early stages of language and other forms of communication, receptive and expressive, without which learning is delayed. I can picture a 2 year old testing his limits, challenging the word no, boldly going where he has never gone before. A kindergartner asking questions, telling her story, finding her place in the classroom circle. A elementary school child who loves school and learning, her teacher, her friends, and who follows the rules with religious devotion, expecting justice triumph. A middle school child who experiments with limits, stepping over, stepping back, watching adults to understand their reaction. A high school child who values independence and friends over all and who, with abstract thinking extends her experiments from the probable to the possible.

Our development never ends, unless we tragically lose our motivation. Many of us find motivation in the act of learning. Perhaps this is a key. If we have been given the care and attention we deserve, the guidance, encouragement, consequences of our choices, we will develop a sense of purpose and be motivated to extend our learning. If we have not, we will likely have difficulty finding constructive purpose. We will be motivated, but our motivation will be stuck in a infants rage or and abused reaction to our past. We may forget that we are the masters of our learning process.

Perhaps this is the hallmark for measuring motivation; the degree to which we feel in control of our learning. The baby wants to know if her cry will bring attention to her need for food, warmth, movement, etc. This dance of requests and bonding with her mother, gives her an initial and essential sense of control. As a social worker and behavior consultant, I met children who lacked this confidence and who suffered various degrees of isolation. While most children do not suffer to the degree that my clients did, too many people do suffer from some sort of neglect or ignorance in their upbringing. It is fortunate that the human spirit is as resilient as it is and as optimistic as it seems to be for learning, cooperation and being social.

If you are interested you can find my one minute presentation on YouTube:
http://tinyurl.com/nkke98

The 3 C's

Thought I'd summarize some of the guiding principals of educational technology - heard from the latest interviews by Steve Hargadon.

Three of the prime components of the "read/write web" are communication, collaboration and creation. Understanding these processes deeply helps me chart a path::

Communicate
This is the most basic function allowed by Web2.0 (W2) tools - the ability to exchange a thought. That said, it would be easy to overlook how complex this act is, even when it is face-face. People spend a lifetime studying how a message is formulated, shared, heard, interpreted, etc. Given how foundational this skill is, it deserves great time and attention (with or without technology). We can take this concept back to the playground or the play circle in pre-school. Children need practice in communicating face to face, sharing the "stage", resolving conflict, managing themselves.

I was impressed and surprised while listening to Michael Wesch's comments on W2. When asked how someone can get started in learning about W2 he referred them to 2 books; "The Art of Loving" by Eric Fromm and "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" by Neil Postman. These are books about communication and teaching, not technology. It would be easy for us to move away from our humanity as we get enamored with technology. It's great to have people who speak for the caring aspect of it all.

Look for a way to teach technology - without the gadgets. Help your students to understand one another, understand themselves and find their voice. If we are changing the locus of control for learners (moving control closer to the learner) it makes sense to teach them to manage themselves. This concept is is fact one of the leading principals for the New Zealand initiative described by Mark Treadwell. He mentions 5 competencies for learners. The abilities to: manage self, think, communicate, collaborate and participate.

Collaborate
So let's say that we have taught students to manage themselves. A good next step is to teach them to collaborate with one others. Again, this skill is not the private domain of technology. We've been collaborating since the beginning of civilization. That's why they call it civilized right?

Once we get the concept of collaboration, then we can begin to use W2 tools to extend it to a larger, non-local, hopefully deeper context. Clearly there are too many tools to name to accomplish this and they are changing every day. The coolest thing I've seen lately is Diigo, a social bookmarking tool that allows a person to write notes on a web page, create a slide show of a website, and more.

Technology can make collaboration new and exciting for kids. It can take some of the interpersonal tension out of the equation by moving the collaborators a distance away from one another. I say this knowing that the degree to which any of the students are prepared and comfortable with the collaborators will be guided by the teacher. The tone, in today's classrooms anyway, is generally set by the teacher.

Create
Remix is another word. When I went to college I learned how to write a research paper that gathered ideas from a variety of sources to create my own work. The perennial question has been when and how and to what degree one should give credit to ideas. The tools that are emerging from this hyper-connected world make it super easy to mix and remix ideas - limited only by your ability to conceive and mash them. Once again, fair use is an important basic skill that is the primary responsibility of the adults (until we achieve truely student directed learning).

Of course there is the issue of quality. So what if we can create if the "stuff" we create is hogwash. Again, this is where a good leader/teacher/guide/moderator comes in. Someone needs to guide students (of all ages) to create quality work. "Quality" is in the eyes of the beholder for sure. The idea is that there are people who have more experience and who can structure learning and provide feedback.

Helping student to communicate, collaborate, and create can be a challenging responsibility. In last night's Elluminate session, http://www.classroom20.com/, I heard students talking about student led learning. This should be the goal of every classroom teacher; to help a class become responsible, autonomous, learners. That said, children don't come out of the box ready to get along and structure their own learning experience. I am listening to find out how teachers are structuring for autonomy. What tone, what skills, what direction can we give students that help them to communicate with one another? How are we helping them to come together, get along, and collaborate? What tools are we giving them for remixing and creating original work? I realize this is an give and take process; sometimes structured, sometimes unstructured. Sometimes in the control of the teacher and sometimes in the control of the student. I'm excited to see how more teachers accomplish this. I'm excited about doing it myself.

Notes from the Firehose

More podcasts, more conversations with building technology teams. I feel as though I have been drinking from the firehose. I first heard that expression from my staff and consultants as they learned a new technology. They were overwhelmed with the new ideas and paths to creation.

This is my first exposure to Michael Wesch of Kansas State University. He emphasizes creation as the highest goal of learning. In his Digital Ethnography classes he works with students to understand digital interaction, communication and technology. His students learn the technology almost as a by product of their inquiry it appears. It sounds as though his way of introducing technology to students is rapid fire - firehose training. The creation process is structured with a focus on the message rather than slick presentation. It includes exploration, video production, writing, summarizing, and assessment within the group. Students create a focused purpose through a sequence of exercises; research, sharing and collaboration, and creation with one another. I loved his term "knowledge-able", to help students develop understanding while they develop skills to create knowledge. This podcast is a inspiring piece of work and gives details on the learning process. If you're interested in integrating technology into learning you have to check it out.

http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/649749:Topic:59343

I've had some great conversations with building technology teams over the past 3 weeks. My team (district tech support) met with the building teams to discuss their vision for technology in their schools, how they are supporting their focus and what they are purchasing. The conversations were lively, sometimes heated. I don't mind the heat as long as we are aiming for understanding. Points of view are sometimes difficult to reconcile but if we listen we learn a lot in these dialogues.

Some themes have come up. Overall people are more concerned about learning-technology than just technology "stuff". We spent more time talking about philosophy, vision, and tangible action than we have in the past. People want to find a WORKING model, not just some high minded idea. I don't care for action plans that are grandiose. In fact I agree with some tech leaders, that simple and practical are the most important ingredients.

Here are some themes that came up:
Bandwidth - The need for more echoed through our discussion. Now that we have fairly open access to the Internet by teachers, we are feeling the limits of our access. Some feel there should not be a limit. We discussed a multi-layered approach to managing demand and supply.

1. Continue to increase the supply of bandwidth. This increase will be incremental until we find ways to connect sites via fiber and work with a provider who can offer Internet speeds over 25Mbps.
2. Establish caching servers at all schools so that content can be stored locally.
   
3. Educate students and staff to the wise use of tools. Clearly this is a "tragedy of the commons" where no one wins when everyone grabs as much as they can get.
4. Find ways to dilineate and measure Internet use so that we can make wise choices.
5. Cooperate with one another to maximize this resource. Make and keep agreements district wide.

Training and support
Some schools shared their success with simple and short training sessions. They have targeted some technology that is relevant to teachers needs. They have provided a combination of short "info-mercials", handouts, web resources and face-face support. While these are simple, they have provided some direction for teachers and met their immediate needs. Barriers continue to exist for training.

1. Why teach them? (Question asked by Michael Wesch)
   
2. What is important?
3. When can we train them?
4. How do we support them?

On-line Collaboration
Many schools have been using or want to adopt web tools for collaboration. Many have teachers who have tried Google Docs though they haven't adopted or promoted it school wide. One school has been using a wiki to communicate. All of the schools would like to have ideas and support for moving this forward. Some plan to promote these tools in their "info-mercials".

I will be looking more closely at my notes from the tech planning meetings over the next few weeks and summarizing what I heard. I intend to add those notes here also. Stay tuned.

Needles District - Canyonlands National Park

Finally made it back to Canyonlands National Park. It has been 27 years since Joni and I have been to the Needles District. It was as magical as ever.








Thunderstorms sat in the south most of the day. The clouds were much appreciated. When they cleared it was pretty hot.




It was definitely springtime on the slickrock. There were beautiful flowers along the way.

Latest "Reading" - Treadwell, Freyer, Hargadon

The latest podcasts I have listened to have opened up some new ways of thinking about technology and education. Steve Hargadon has hosted some wonderful guests. His conversations with the guests and the audience are full of new ways to define the art of EDtech with a capital ED. He interviewed Mark Treadwell. They discussed the importance of creativity in education, creativity that includes depth of knowledge on the part of the learner. I appreciate the nod to basic knowledge. It is tough to be creative without basic skills. Literacy, numerancy, oral language, learning how to learn; these are important targets according to Treadwell.

He proposed a different set of competencies for students. The ability to:

• Manage themselves
• Think
• Communicate
• Collaborate
• Participate

He didn't go into these in depth. While they appear to be generic skills, these traits would be easy to incorporate into whatever we are doing. With an emphasis on them, we would certainly be more successful in developing good citizens. What a concept!

Wesley Freyer has offered a variety of peeks into schools and the way in which they are creating knowledge through digital storytelling. His Top 10 Reasons to be a Story Chaser providea good list of reasons to practice digital storytelling with students;

1. Touch hearts and win over parents,
2. Develop literacy skills,
3. Develop critical thinking skills,
4. Provide a window into learning,
5. Preserve family and local history,
6. Model constructive uses of digital and social media,
7. Develop digital citizenship,
8. Develop digital literacy and 21st century skills,
9. Inspire creativity,
10. Catalyze the learning revolution locally.

Given the early stage of our school district for technology adoption, I'd say we should make sure that our students understand digital citizenship and that we model constructive uses of digital and social media. Said a different way, we need to inform ourselves and our students about the rights and responsibilities of Internet use. This doesn't have to be the only focus and it doesn't have to be heavy handed. It means that as we introduce media tools for communication, we take time to understand the citizenship of it all.

Wesley does a great job of describing literacy. Fluency requires practice, reading should be a regular activity. He adds creation as a regular activity. Once teachers and students have skills in multimedia and collaboration, creation can be a more regular activity.

He doesn't just talk about communication. He models digital literacy with a steady stream of podcasts. He knows his gadgets too but doesn't let that dominate his message.

What is the significance of these ideas to our enterprise? I'd like to know:

1. Are students given the opportunity to engage with technology - technology that isn't about the "stuff" but the process?
2. Are students allowed to synthesize concepts and knowledge (higher Blooms)? This applies to all subjects not just technology.
3. Are students ethical users of technology? How well grounded are students in scholarship and the ethics of information use.
4. Are students safe and secure on the Internet? Do they know how to keep their identity private?

Many of these questions are not within my control. Some would say they are none of my business :-) as I am just the Technology Director. Nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that preparing students to employ technology isn't only about technology. Learning to learn with technology (another emphasis of Treadwell's) is about learning to learn period. It just so happens that technology affords great resources learn.

Where to begin - Integrating Technology

While we have come a long way from no technology to networked computers accessing the Internet, we have a long way to go before technology is integrated into our curriculum. I have been listening to podcasts that describe the possibilities and the barriers for integration. Wes Fryer posted a presentation by Bob Martin - a technical trainer with the University of Missouri. This podcast is the result of roundtable conversations with teachers, tech directors and higher education folks.

I could related to each and every one of the challenges listed by the participants. Our teachers and administrators have mentioned most of these as well. As I look to improve our adoption - a true integration of technology - I wonder if the order in which we address these challenges would affect the speed at which we can move past them.

The Barriers; K-12 teachers said they have (my comments in italics):

• lack of knowledge about web 2.0. Most don't know what it is exactly.
• no time to research. Teachers too busy with the day-day work of teaching. Tech directors too busy with maintaining what they have.
• security concerns. Tech directors want people to use tools that are proven to be safe. Teachers want to keep students safe from cyber-stalkers.
• filtering concerns. All want to make sure that students aren't exposed to inappropriate content.
• perceptions was from parents that these were not tools, they were toys (Facebook).
• kids know more than we do. Teachers are intimidated by what kids know despite the fact that kids only know a specific slice of tech.
• lack of supporting research. Administrators don't want teachers wasting time on activities with little payoff. They wonder why we should spend time with technology.

Some of the remedies that were presented were:

• Bridge the disconnect between what the teachers need and what the tech directors provide. We need to have more conversations to bring theory to reality.
  
• Agree on some standardized tools for Web 2.0 so that everyone can be supported and trained. Like:
• • blogs: edublogs
  • wikis: wikispaces for educators
  • social bookmarking: diigo for educators
  • social networking: Ning
  • RSS: Google Reader
  • Microblogging: Edmodo
• Start small. Use the tools in small ways at first. Grow into your use of the tools.
• Teach students how to keep themselves safe. Keep their identity private.
  
• Teach teachers to set up controls for privacy and safety. Teachers should be the moderator of web activity. This is a far cry from what students are used to on "Facebook".

While these remedies were presented in rather random fashion, I think that order matters. This is not to say that we should wait until all our ducks are in a row before we begin to use these tools. Quite the contrary. I'd say that (in our district) the horses have left the barn. It's just that some of them are in more danger and more confused than others. In our district, we lack coordination of these efforts so we have an uneven adoption of technology.

In an effort to coordinate our efforts I think we should approach our conversations with some principles in mind. I'd like us to adopt the phrase:

Conversations for collaboration in technology
Safety for students through education and supervision.
Simplicity for teachers through standardization and starting small.
Training for all!

I think these ideas, while fairly modest and keeps the horse in front of the cart. We can make our conversations productive. We can keep students safe and build support for teachers and students. We can help lower teachers anxiety in the use of these tools.

Menu of 2.0 - You choose

Here's a menu of Web 2.0 tools, an associated application, and our level of support with each. Click on the table for a better view:


I would like to develop this list. It could help my staff clarify the services we are delivering and help teachers and administrators understand what is available. We could prioritize our support based on their selections.

I wonder how many of our teachers are using these tools already, how many would like to and how many would use a service on our district servers if they knew it was available. Given the shortage of bandwidth that we have to the Internet, it would make sense that people use internal resources for these things - especially if they want to upload files like pictures and videos and such.

A thought

I am the thought
I wake to each morning.
Inspired or unhappy, afraid or relaxed, quiet or chatty.
I am the thought
I wake to each morning.

I am the thought
I have for survival
The threat of opinions that don't match my own.
The threat of my safety as I walk the street.
A question of health, of life and of death.
I am the thought
I have for survival.

I am the thought
of desire and aversion
The coffee I relish each morning
The lunch that long for when the clock strikes the twelve
The task that I hate and would rather not go there.
I am the thought
of desire and aversion.

But maybe I'm not the thought that I'm thinking.
Perhaps I'm much more that a passing, concoction.
Possibly I'm more that a thought like a cloud,
rising from space to return to the...

Change your thought, have you changed who you are?
Make up your mind, does it go very far?
Look at a thought, at it's shape and it's color.
Consider it's smell, then look at another.
Where does it come from, where does it go?

I'm not my thoughts.

I'll keep looking.

Technology Plan - On paper/In reality

I finished the technology plan late yesterday afternoon. I have my fingers crossed that it will pass the review of the state. It is pretty clear to me that the powers that be have some specific agendas for us to follow. They are careful not to tell us exactly what we MUST do, but there are specific requirements we are expected to meet. Some notable examples are:

• Insure that students are technologically literate by 8th grade.
• Provide professional development for technology that shows staff how to use new technologies to support education.
• Promote curricula and teaching strategies that integrate technology based on relevant research and leading to improvements in academic achievement.
  
• Measure teacher and administrator performance on technology skills defined by the state.
• Integrate technology into the curriculum.
• Provide adequate funding of technology.
• Maintain compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act. Protect minors "from pornography and activities that can harm them".
  
• Provide an accurate count of computer resources and show that you can support them financially.
• Use technology to promote parental involvement and increase communication with parents.
• Integrate technology with instruction and align with state standards to improve student achievement and increase technology literacy.
  

Some of these directives come from state government and some come from the federal government. Does this mean that they are providing money to accomplish these goals? The answer is a resounding NO. My best estimate of our current budget (including salaries) is $778,400.97. Of this amount, the state provides us with a whopping $8,000.00. The federal government does better, contributing $34,664.80 through erate.

Despite the meager contribution provided and despite their demands for a plan, the expectations that are outlined seem appropriate for the task at hand. Without a plan, we will waste our money because, while there is a lot of potential in technology, there is a lot of potential waste in it. Our students and our teachers can benefit from the opportunity that technology affords but here's the catch:

Teachers and students will only benefit from technology when it is organized and supported in a fashion that is:

• Reliable,
• Useful and Relevant to the task at hand,
• Provides tools that fit well together,
  
• Integrated into the work flow.

This assumes a few things.

• Conscious choice of tools that fit the budget and work together.
  
• Teachers and students understand how to use the tools adopted.
• Teachers and students are supported in the use of the tools.

As distasteful as it was to pour through all the notes and memories of our work over the past 3 years, it has helped me assess whether we are making good choices. It has helped me bring a few of our "business assumptions" into focus. Consider these:

Let every school decide.
Our school district is steeped in a tradition of "site based managment" - that every school should have right to choose a path of their own. This is a wonderful ideal and could have benefits in the area of innovation and rapid change. Problem is that it assumes that every school will have an equal amount of talent in all areas of management, development and support. Clearly there are some benefits - "economies of scale" - when a district can promote decisions for all schools. While this seems obvious in the area of technology, we continue to deal with resistance to a common adoption of software, hardware and support procedures.

It's not about the technology, it's about student learning.
True. We need to keep student achievement and learning at the forefront. Technology types are often criticized for putting technology at forefront instead. It is popular to criticize technology directors for restricting access to websites and narrowing the types of resources available. These criticisms fail to consider that the directors are trying to protect students, teachers and the community resources to insure reliability.

Living on the cutting edge is a good and necessary activity. But - with great power comes responsibility. When people are trained and understand the risk of an activity, they are empowered to handle the vagaries of that activity whether it is exposing oneself to "bad guys", dealing with lost data, or breaking their operating system. I would love to have a greater number of skilled people to help us innovate, test, train and promote new technology. I don't see these people standing up for the job. I see people who feel overworked and happy to get through the day with their current responsibilities.

Make it available and they will learn to use it.
We've seen the myth of this over the past 10 years in our district. There are a plethora of options available to our teachers for publishing web pages, collaborating and communicating with their students, peers and parents. There is software and hardware available to create presentations, provide practice, research and simulate concepts. What we lack is the time to show them these resources and support their use. Paradoxically, we spend our limited time chasing novel hardware and software applications instead.

These "myths" splinter our efforts to promote a coordinated and supported system of tools and training. They represent a segmented view of the task at hand. In writing the tech plan it is obvious that we need to recognize the interdependence of our learning plan. This plan needs to start with:

• What do students and teachers need to know? If technology is a legitimate tool for learning, how does it fit into the core curriculum? Are the 21st century skills adequate for student? I expect they are a good place to start.
  
• What are the most important tools (knowledge, skill, hardware, software) for accomplishing the former? Once we have agreed on what they need to know, we can choose some standard tools that promote the goal.
  
• Are we teaching and supporting our teachers and students in the use of these tools? Once we understand the most important responsibilities we can increase their reliability.

These are pretty mundane prerequisites. They aren't as enticing as the lastest release from Twitter. But if you don't understand your direction, who 'ya gonna twitter?

Springing the Roaring Fork Valley

Last week it was warm enough to ride my bike. We have so many great trails to ride in the Valley. While I was out I tried to catch the evening light and some scenery.


The snow is still covers the mountain but will soon fade with this weather. I love this time of year because we see the greens of spring and the white of winter all in the same scene. We're watering the mountain in this shot.

Technology Planning

Spent two days working on the tech plan for our school district. This gave me ample opportunity to consider what we have accomplished and what is left undone. There is no doubt that we have been moving about as fast as we can to keep up with the demands of software, hardware and support. On the whole, are we improving the state of instructional technology across the district? What would be the major indicators of such progress?

According to the Colorado Department of Education, progress will be indicated by an increase in:

• the integration of educational technology / information literacy (ET/IL) into the curriculum.
• an increase in the proficiency of teachers and administrators in their use of technology.
• an increase in the proficiency of 8th graders on 21st Century learning skills
• a budget that indicates support into the future and includes training, infrastructure improvement, provision of bandwidth and support.
  
• policies and procedures for insuring student safety and specifying the rights and responsibilities of users.
• collaboration among staff and outside entities to achieve the goals.
• An action plan of goals, objectives, strategies and a method of evaluation.

This list of requirements is a large bill to fill. We are on top of some and lagging on others. My biggest concern is in the area of training. While we are pressing hard on training in general in the district, we have done very little to help teachers understand and find ways to use technology to learn and teach. We are just beginning to expect teachers to do this. While this is a great start, the expectations in themselves will do no more than frustrate teachers.

A key indicator of progress will be the degree that staff are collaborating and communicating with one another in their use of technology. This movement will be a sign that we are using technology to actually teach and learn from one another. Hopefully it will indicate that we are developing resources that are useful, and that will leverage our knowledge and skill.

To this end, it appears that the time is right for implementing and training teachers to use more tools for collaboration. People are ready to publish staff resources on the web, in a format that can be used and/or edited and improved. The goal is to create resources - references that will help teachers focus their instruction and save them time. We can create a workspace where people can discuss and generate ideas (a wiki) and another space where these ideas are formalized into adopted practices and resources (Moodle). I am encouraged that there is some understanding and desire among administrators to move in this direction. Hopefully we can deliver the tools AND shape and structure them in a fashion that is relevant for teachers.

I still have quite a bit of work to do on the technology plan. It is due this Thursday. I hope we can realize some of the goals in the plan, especially the promotion of tools for teaching and learning.

Impermanence - the birth and death of technology

It's been a tough week for tech support. My staff and I are battling our first run of viruses. While our history of health may sound improbable it is true. We've gone over 10 years without an substantial infection. But our run is over. We have been toppled from our high horse, our years of innocence ended. While it has been a pretty isolated event it has made us appreciate the relative bliss we have enjoyed and what a drain an infection can have on our time.

Our freedom from viruses was won, not by chance. We have been careful to protect our computers with virus protection. We have controlled downloads with our firewall. We have chosen Macintosh and Linux computers whenever we can. We have done our best to restrict users to non-administrative accounts where viruses have limited power. But despite this best effort, we have seen viruses chew up the computers resources to a point where the computers are useless.

The most frustrating part of this event is that it has dominated my staff time. After hours of trying to clean the computers, we decided that a re-image was the fastest and most effective way to bring the computers back in service. Since the computers were older, Windows computers, we had to resurrect images that have been on the shelf for 3 or 4 years. Because we have lived free of this problem and given that imaging Windows is not something we invest in heavily, this was a very time consuming process.

These things happen. The world of technology is very dynamic I know. But somehow this struggle slapped me in the face this week. It put the grand experiment into new perspective. Though I don't deny that my staff and I are in the support and maintenance (not the innovation business), I like to thing that we are creative in what we do. But no matter how creative we think we are impermanence is our constant companion. Like the reality of death in our culture, it is the "uncomfortable truth" of our work.

Technology is marketed as a youthful endeavor - sexy, engaging, innovative, fresh, new. The attraction for technology is to make life easier and to some extent it accomplishes this ideal. Technology is forward looking. What new great innovation is on the horizon? What new tool is going to connect us, help us communicate, improve productivity. There is no doubt that technology has moved our society ahead with these goals. But the Madison Avenue, profit making, engine of industry has veiled the practical reality of making things work and keeping them alive.

Even as we battled the legacy of our old computers and their sickness, my staff and I tried to find time to work on the latest initiatives. New projects, new software to incorporate, new business processes; the wheel of birth continues to turn. These initiatives are fueled partly from necessity and partly from an obsession with the latest gadget, or a hope that life will be easier with the adoption of the next great technology. But ours is not to question why, just to advise and support.

But birth, like death, is a painful process right? It requires time for gestation. Sometimes one gets a little nauseous, perhaps to the point of throwing up. And when the bundle of joy emerges, it changes your life. The little one has to be fed. There are diapers to change, late night feedings. But despite the pain and inconvenience, the presence of new life is a joyful event. And just as the birth of a child has it pain and pleasure, the adoption of new technology has these aspects.

As I've struggled with my frustration this week, I've tried to understand this cycle of birth and death. I'm trying to be patient and realistic with both. I often feel deceived by the promises of new technology and challenged by the retirement of the old. But why should technology be any different than the rest of life. My job is simply to meet the day to day, ups and downs with equanimity. If I can maintain my balance, I expect I will be a better arbiter in the adoption - mantenance and retirement process.

Do you do Windows?

Word on the street is that Microsoft will end support for XP on April 14th. They will provide security updates for it until 2014. Surely I'll retire before then :-) I don't consider myself to be a Windows hater, but certainly not a fan. Our school district is 2/3 Macintosh, 1/3 Windows on the desktop. We favor Debian Linux on servers but have Mac and Windows there as well. I'm working on an accurate count of the desktop computers right now.

Windows has been on my mind a lot lately. We've been eaten by our first Worm this week. I spent the last week going computer to computer, installing software and virus updates. We spent at least 10 staff days on these "projects". For us, supporting Windows is a difficult (read time consuming) process. Some of this can be attributed to our relative lack of expertise and standard routines with it but a large share of the problem is due to overall:

1. Expense - requires seat licenses, critical software updates, domain control, Active directory, virus protection, spyware protection, security controls, 3rd party imaging software.
   
2. Requirement of a highly consistent implementation - users have to follow and live within policies to a greater degree.
3. Complexity of configurations.
   
4. Inconsistentency in performance - restarts required, fragmentation.
   
5. Complications due to hardware variety. The guessing required to provide consistent service.
   

The Mac has it's own expense. This is the much debated of course. Clearly you pay more up front for a Mac but many of the expenses I have listed above don't exist or exist to a lesser degree for the Mac. This reduces it's cost over time. I have 8 year old Macs that are serving their limited purpose quite well. They are running a modern Operating System. The PCs running Windows will not provide this level of service for 8 years.

While my preference would be to standardize on Macintosh computers, I am not the only one who makes this decision. I have to do my best to support whatever is "chosen". As a tech director I look at 1500 computers and think we'd be better off with a standard desktop for all staff across the district - whether it's Mac, Windows or Linux. Any of them should be supported using standard configurations, management and imaging strategies. If we have to have routines that encompass 3 Operating Systems, we have to be incredibly gifted or crazy.

All that said, what is a "reasonable" diversity? There might be compelling reasons for having Windows in a High School computer lab. A few computer labs would be relatively easy to manage. I think my small staff, along with some dedicated technology teachers, could handle this. But it doesn't make sense to complicate computer support further than this when there is so little money and time to go around.

Given that we have a number of Windows computers. 1, 2, 3, or 4 computer labs in a building, what is good Windows management? We have a small staff. We are willing but short on time. How do we sustain this and provide Windows reliability?

1. Get a good inventory of the hardware and where it is located.
2. Select a method for keeping the image of the computers clean.
3. Keep a library of clean, basic, images.
4. Find a way to distribute the image.
   
5. Find a way to update OS with service packs, virus protection, anti-spy software.
   
6. Maintain hardware repairs.

But wait! A number of these computers are donated to us right? Shouldn't we just thank our lucky stars, bow down and put our nose to the Windows grindstone? No one is donating Macs to us. This bowing to "free" computers is at the root of a growing armada of Windows computer. The armada is begging for attention but we have not planned accordingly.

Perhaps there is a place for Windows in our children's education. Let's say that we support a computer lab in each high school. That's 3 labs - around 75-90 computers. Why not buy new Windows computers every 4 years for our labs. We can start with a good image, manage them well, and then retire them to the general building (teachers and mini labs). But (here's the twist) before you send them out to the masses, install Linux on them. Ubuntu Linux for education.

Taking this further, let's put Linux on every donated computer. Any computer over 3 years old could be managed with a Linux image or as a terminal, controlled by a Linux server.

Do we do Windows? Sure. But let's keep this in perspective. This is an age of constraint right? Time to consider what we can afford rather than living on credit right? Time to be practical and sustain our resources as best we can.