One Room School House, Stratton, Vermont by Redjar on Flickr

I had an article published in the current edition of Principal magazine.  This magazine is published to the members of the National Association of Elementary School Principals.  Unfortunately I cannot post a link to the article because it is for members only, but I did want to take a few moments to discuss the idea I put across in the article.

In my article “What If All the Computers Were Broken?,” I argued that teaching the 21st Century skills of communication, critical thinking and problem solving did not depend on the use of technology.  To be sure, I would never turn back the clock and throw all of our digital devices away – they are critical tools for learning.  My argument is that having technology in the classroom does not replace good teaching and that many education pioneers taught the critical skills we currently still seek.

It is critical that we embrace the true definition of 21st Century Learning to ensure that teaching and learning in our classrooms is transformed.  Too many of our schools are still built upon the factory model of education with a one-size-fits-all approach to students.  The traditional classroom were all students studied from the same text toward the same results might have been well suited for a society where most students joined a factory-based work force, but our current economy clearly shows how inadequate this type of education really is.  We know all too well that possessing a narrow skill set aimed at a particular job leaves one vulnerable to job loss due to downsizing when jobs are outsourced.  While we know a rigid teacher driven, text based education is not the best solution, the current pressures of assessment and accountability push us towards narrowing our focus and keep us from truly realizing 21st Century Learning.  We have known this for quite a long time.  The American philosopher and education reformer John Dewey spoke to the roots of 21st Century learning back in the nineteenth century.  Dewey called for the student to build his or her own capacity to deal with situations and to pursue his or her own interests.  Student centered approaches to education continued to be part of our landscape as evidenced by the free school movement of the 1960’s.  While far from perfect, the free school movement encouraged studies centered on critical thinking and problem solving.  Student progress was not narrowly defined by  a letter grade but, rather, by considering a portfolio of student centered work created over a period of time.  Considering that we have history of progressive education and the fact that that modern computer resources have been in our schools since the 1980’s, we need to sharpen our focus on true 21st Century learning.

Since we want to provide 21st Century Learning, using technology seems to be an automatic good fit.  I argue that it takes more than buying a set of computers, interactive white boards and tablet computing devices to realize 21st Century Learning.  In my own quest to learn about the best use of technology in education, I traveled across the country to visit a model school district.  To be sure, I saw some great examples of technology use and this district had an excellent strategic plan to make sure all of its classrooms were outfitted with technological resources.  I also remember being disappointed to see some groups of students being escorted to a computer lab for rote lessons on the use of different word processing fonts.  Back home in my own school, I have realized that it is infinitely easier to organize the purchase of technology equipment and software than it is to build the capacity of my teachers to provide 21st Century Learning.  As much as I am a die-hard “techie,” I have come to realize that the essential concepts of 21st Century Learning do not hinge on technology alone.  Our students need enlightened teachers who embrace the power of the learner.  Our students do not need someone to teach them about the 21st Century as much as they need teachers to guide them through this exciting time.

The phone plugged into the wall near a locker really isn’t that surprising.  It’s more surprising how we have not taken stock of how connected our students really are.  I know many of our middle school students have iPod touches and some have smart phones, but we have not thought about the learning potential of these devices.  I know we at lest have one student who would always have his or her phone charged up if the learning occasion arose!

Planning a trip is a necessary assignment for sure, but this old fashioned map and string stuff was really bugging me.  With Google Maps, a GPS on the dashboard, and turn-by-turn directions on your smart phone, you hardly need a paper map and you sure don’t need any string!  Modern times call for modern tools, but planning a trip is more than the use of tools alone.  You need sensible guidelines and your own critical thinking to plan a safe and enjoyable trip.  For my daughter, who was planning her first cross country trip, she needed to know basics like Interstate 235 is the circumferential highway that goes around a city and Interstate 35 is the highway that goes from city to city.  She also needed to know that getting onto a state highway will take you through every stop light and past every fast food restaurant in town (my apologies to William Least Heat-Moon and his book Blue Highways).  You also need to know that your paper map or your GPS might take you to the wrong end of town.

I learned how to travel by car when my only tools were a road atlas and the advice of friends.  All of that has changed for me.  Now I take trips today with Google and my GPS.  But I have to wonder about the travel skills and experience I bring along with me from the road atlas era.  Am I able to make good use of my electronic resources because of my “old school” experience?  Is my daughter missing anything in the digital-age of travel?  I’m not sure, but she will need a better map than the one in her driver’s education book.

I share your general worry about what kids listen to, but deciding what they can and cannot listen to is a slippery slope.  Students bring their iPods and the music on the iPods from home, and parents are in charge of that.  An analogy would be if a student brought personal reading from home and it was a racy summer romance novel.  It would be inappropriate for us to censor what students read for their own personal enjoyment as much as it would be inappropriate for us to censor what they listen to.  We wouldn’t say, show me that book before you read it so we shouldn’t say, play me that song before you listen to it. We cannot be in the position to say Beatles yes, Black Eyed Peas, no.

What are your thoughts about our iPod dilemma.  How does your school handle issues like this?

Did this school really enroll students in online classes without telling them? I don’t know but that would have been a horrible mistake. It is also possible that the school could have thought they had communicated the change and what it meant to students and still missed the mark. I have often seen a good idea be tarnished by a lack of communication. All it really takes is for a few students or families to be misinformed for a promising program to fail. And once students and families get burned they will so very reluctant to try online learning again.

This article really frustrated me because I think online education in middle and high schools has a lot of potential – particularly if the blended model of online teaching is used. In order for students to be successful they at least need to be aware of how online learning is different than a traditional class, they need to be motivated and organized, and they will need to be supported by a qualified teacher. I hope more schools offer online learning for their students if they move forward in a thoughtful and well communicated manner!

This blog post was inspired by two other student centered posts: The Hurt by Diane Laufenberg and  The Neighborhood Around the Corner by Tony Baldasaro

Communication is important and change is hard.  And sometimes a lot more communication is needed about a change that you didn’t think was very hard in the first place.  So here is another “simple” (read that as hard) change that I am implementing at my school – moving from Microsoft Office to Google Docs for my middle school students.  What can be hard about Google Docs?  I am using Google Docs to write this blog post right now.  My high school aged daughter uses Google Docs to do her homework and share it with me when an English paper needs proofreading.  I use Google Docs all the time, what could possibly be hard about Google Docs?  Well, a lot can be hard about a tool that many of my teachers and students might be unfamiliar with (like that new bus drop off!).  It all comes down to communicating about the change.  Here are my plans after meeting with my technology committee this morning:  write a memo to teachers about the change that includes a link to a Google Doc introduction video, include teachers in planning guidelines for using a new cloud based tool, organize some professional development to help teachers learn about this new tool.  Have I forgotten anything?  I know, I can ask my teachers if I have forgotten anything since they are the same people who will be affected by what forget!

I am certain that expanding my school’s digital footprint is the right thing to do.  But a social media fact of life just dawned on me.  I am so used to posting information in school newsletters and on our web page that I forgot the two-way, nature of social media.  When I checked my first Twitter follower I automatically looked at their digital footprint – seeing who they were following and who was following them.  I do this all the time with the folks who make up my personal learning network on Twitter.  If some principal from the Midwest starts to follow me I check out his or her followers to see if there is anyone I would like to follow too.  It just makes sense to me.  But it somehow felt voyeuristic to be looking at the digital footprint of one of my school families.  I really don’t “know” that principal from Illinois, but I do know that parent who lives down the road from the school.  Does this make my looking at their footprint any different?

One thing I know for sure, your digital footprint says a lot about you.  If you looked at my @principalwells account you would see the many professional connections I have made over time both by looking at who I follow and who follows me.  These connections are important enough to me that I routinely review my followers and delete any spam followers who have found my account.  I also think twice about who I follow with my professional account.  What would it say if you saw that I followed Lady Gaga?  (No offence to the singer, I wouldn’t want to follow her!)  I realize the really cool thing about this is that my Twitter account can say two things about me or my school.  First, it can announce a concert or share a photo of kids learning science and second, it can show my school’s own digital footprint.  If families who follow me do as I do when following a new person on Twitter, I can subtly communicate to them about who and what my school feels is important.

Am I angry with my department of education?  No, not really.  Like our local schools, the DOE is dealing with huge budget cuts to a department that was already pretty lean.  I am upset with how our national focus on assessment results has lead us to eliminate support for disciplines that do not directly produce measurable results.  Although one could clearly argue that learning to critically analyse historical facts leads to critical thinking skills that span across other disciplines.  I felt even more upset this past summer when a highly regarded principal in Burlington, Vermont was removed from her position in order to make the district eligible for federal stimulus money.   The principal had done an exceptional job in her school but the federal grant required drastic action to be taken in the city’s lowest performing school.  What has our desire for high test scores and needed grant funding caused us, as educators, to become?

I still stand by my last post, that there are some good assessments out there.  We can do an excellent job of educating our students and this can lead to higher achievement scores that we can be proud of.  But when I think of the unacceptable compromises that education has made in the face of high stakes testing, I don’t like who we have become.  It’s not the test’s fault, it’s ours.