These two headlines, both from Education Week, crossed my desk today. It was a poignant and instructive juxtaposition. I spent years studying (and experiencing) teacher burnout. I found that lack of control (perceived, anyway) was closely associated with burnout. The current research cited lack or control as a key factor in principal frustration.
After 15 years as a teacher, I became a principal. ”Wow,” I thought, “now I’ve got the power to make things happen.”
No and yes. I found that despite my new, elevated position, I had far less power than I thought I would have. Principal’s can dictate, surely; that doesn’t mean anyone has to abide by the dictates. A principal’s real power comes from sharing it, from persuasion, from setting an example, from inspiring people.
It doesn’t surprise me that today’s principals are feeling frustrated; given the context in which they work, why wouldn’t they be?
Assuming that it make sense to run education as though it were a business—a debatable assumption—then of course we need a metric for the bottom line. Test scores alone, however, are a poor surrogate for net profit.
As we venture forth into 2013, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at some items that should be on every administrator’s radar. We all need to be developing a plan on how we will incorporate each into our schools.
Learning Management Systems
A learning management system (LMS) is a software application or Web-based technology used to plan, implement, and assess a specific learning process. Typically, a learning management system provides an instructor with a way to create and deliver content, monitor student participation, and assess student performance. A learning management system may also provide students with the ability to use interactive features such as threaded discussions, video conferencing, and discussion forums. Read more.
Flipped Classrooms
Flip teaching (or flipped classroom) is a form of blended learning which encompasses any use of technology to leverage the learning in a classroom, so a teacher can spend more time interacting with students instead of lecturing. This is most commonly being done using teacher-created videos that students view outside of class time. It is also known as backwards classroom, reverse instruction, flipping the classroom, and reverse teaching. Read more.
BYOD
Bring your own device (also referred to as Bring your own technology (BYOT), Bring your own phone (BYOP), and Bring your own PC (BYOPC)) is a term that is frequently used to describe the policy of permitting employees to bring personally owned mobile devices (laptops, tablets, and smart phones) to their place of work and use those devices to access privileged company information and applications.[1] The term is also used to describe the same practice applied to students using personally owned devices in education settings. Read more.
MOOC
A massive open online course (MOOC) is a type of online course aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the web. MOOCs are a recent development in the area of distance education and a progression of the kind of open education ideals suggested by open educational resources. Examples include Khan Academy and free offerings from Stanford and MIT. Read more.
Google Docs
Google Docs is a free web-based office suite offered by Google within its Google Drive service. It also was a storage service but has since been replaced by the before-mentioned Google Drive. It allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real-time with other users. Google Docs combines the features of Writely and Spreadsheets with a presentation program incorporating technology designed by Tonic Systems. Learn more.
Authorized school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools to claim average daily attendance funding for student participation in approved online courses.
Authorized school districts to contract with public and private providers to deliver online courses taught by credentialed teachers.
Allowed students to take online courses offered by any school district, regardless of student’s residence.
Provided students access to courses required for admission to state universities.
Established the “California Diploma”, which would have demonstrated completion of courses required for University of California and California State University admission.
If students need flexibility in their schedule or a teacher in another district has a great online course, students will definitely seek out that option if available—and the ADA would follow the student for that course. Students will no longer be held hostage to what their local district, school or individual teacher of a course is offering.
Click image above to read this Huffington post article.
Personal Learning Networks
A personal learning network (PLN) is an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a personal learning environment. In a PLN, a person makes a connection with another person with the specific intent that some type of learning will occur because of that connection. Read more.
Sir Ken Robinson: Changing Educational Paradigms
This is a great 11 minute video by Sir Ken Robinson to open up the dialog about the need to change and adapt our schools to meet the needs of students today and into the future. Pay particular attention to the section on divergent thinking. As Sir Ken points out this is one of the most important traits students will need to be successful in our changing world. Learn more.
A Question
Let me finish by posing a question. If students truly have a choice about what courses they take and where they take them, will they choose to stay enrolled in a course that is textbook-driven and without access to technology or any expectation to use technology to produce evidence of their learning? Or would they choose a hybrid or blended course with online,24/7, access to highly interactive threaded discussions, media rich resources, and the ability to schedule the class around other commitments and activities?
Take for example this brief blog post. It starts with a brief description and includes links to other resources for those looking to explore a topic in depth. Compare this to a one page article with definitions of each trend. Which would provide a better understanding of the topic? Which would lead to a deeper understanding? Which is more engaging?
If you are looking to continue this conversation you should consider attending the Leadership 3.0 Symposium sponsored by TICAL, ACSA and CUE. It takes place April 11–13, 2013 at the Hyatt Regency, Irvine, California. Learn more.
For school districts, this year could see the worst budget struggles in California’s history. Most districts used up their reserves long ago; the rest have scant reserves left. Districts have tapped categorical funds in historically-unprecedented ways. One-time funds and the American Renewal and Reinvestment Act money have been expended. Maintenance projects have been deferred year after year. Furlough days and salary cutbacks have been implemented. What to cut next?
How districts choose to reduce budgets can be very revealing. When under pressure, a district’s true colors come out. Let’s look at some of the most common ways that a school district might approach budget reductions.
Across-the-board cuts
One of the most common is an across-the-board simple percentage cut of all budgets. For example a district might cut all school budgets by 10%. This kind of cut can be politically expedient; it treats every budget and program equally, and has the appearance of being even-handed. What an across the board cut does not account for are the goals of the district. If a district has a goal of getting all students to learn and use twenty-first century skills, an equal cut to all budgets will reduce the funding on programs that support this goal and the programs that are unrelated to the goal equally.
Targeted cuts
Another common way to reduce budgets is to target specific programs for reduction. Ideally, the long-term goals of the district are used to select which programs will be eliminated. On the other hand, such cuts may be linked to certain personalities or to local politics. For example, an easy way to eliminate a personality conflict is to transfer or lay off the person at the center of the conflict. It is an old budget axiom that in tight budget times, “dead wood burns fast.” Targeting programs for reduction can be a beneficial to an organization if it goes through a period of reflection and makes choices that increase the efficiency of the organization as a whole.
Turning down the flame
“Turning down the flame” is budget reduction strategy in which programs are reduced to a level where they are kept alive but are not given the funding to be particularly effective. The organizational statement here is that the program is valued, and there is hope that when funding returns the program can be rejuvenated. To implement a turning down the flame strategy, each program is evaluated to see the minimal level of funding that it it would need to survive. Each program is given a reduction based those calculations. Such calculations are time-consuming and difficult to predict. What appears to be the minimal level to one observer might appear very differently to another.
Focus on the future
Finally a district might choose to focus on the future. In this method a district would fully fund the programs that link directly to the most important goals of the district first, and then reduce other programs. In this method the district commits to achieving stated goal, even at the risk of doing damage or eliminating other programs. A district at a turning point might adopt this approach, because it is essential that strategic goals be accomplished regardless of the ramifications. This is a very difficult approach to implement and requires strong leadership and vision and clear goals linked to a shared vision.
Insights into decision-making
Each of these strategies provides insight into the decision-making of a school district. They are indicators of how a district functions, what it values, and the goals it is setting for the future. Perhaps a number of these strategies are employed. An observer might examine the motivation and inspiration for each. Interpreting how a school district chooses to reduce expenditures in hard times is like reading tea leaves at the bottom of a the cup—a skilled observer will see more than tea leaves.
“What words do you associate with the phrase, digital age learning culture?”
That was the question colleagues and I posed to a group of over 100 educational leaders attending a workshop earlier this month. We asked them to respond in the form of a brief silent conversation. Each table of eight people had one large sheet of chart paper and one pen per person. The instruction was, in stream-of-consciousness style, write down all the words and phrases that come to your mind when you hear, “digital age learning culture.” Participants could pause, look at what others had written, and add additional words until time was up.
It’s interesting to see the results. But before I reveal them, take a minute to try it yourself.
Now, watch this 30-second video to get a flavor of what people wrote.
Here’s a Wordle that gives you a visual impression of the terms and phrases that were more or less frequently mentioned. Click on the Wordle to see a larger version.
Finally, click here to see the “raw data” from the charts.
Putting time into perspective when talking about hundreds of thousands of years can be difficult, especially for younger learners. While preparing a short talk for the recent sixth grade promotion ceremonies at my school, I wanted to discuss how little time in the overall age of the earth have we as humans been influenced by the current technologically-rich environment, I discovered a great web resource—the Geological Timeline—from the British Geological Survey. The timeline puts the advent of technologies of all types into an astonishingly short time frame!
The above document was created as a classroom lesson plan by the British Geological Survey. The plan is built upon the following precepts:
Children are expected to digest the concept of thousands of years when studying the Egyptians, the Romans, or the Vikings.
If children are challenged to comprehend thousands of years, how can they possibly conceive millions of years?
To do this, geological time, needs to be scaled.
The BGS believes models that scale the passing of 4600 million years by using a book 460 pages long or a 24 hour day were misleading in that they give the false appearance that once humans appeared we represented the ultimate life form.
The BGS model considers that our solar system is in its mid-life. Instead of being a planet that is 4600 million years old, it can be thought of as a middle-aged person 46 years old.
Their belief is that this scale related to human terms may be more understandable.
With the above notions in mind, the folks at BGS created a timeline of 46 birthday events of 46 equal time units depicting key geological events in the history of the earth. Many of the following events do not, of course, fall exactly on any specific anniversary. For convenience they are placed to the closest increment.
I chose only ten events from a significantly longer and more detailed timeline. The last entry is the most astonishing of all and makes my point regarding the relative youthfulness of technology.
Birthdays
Approximate Age of Earth in
Millions of Years
Approximate Time Before Present in Millions of Years
Key Events Along the Timeline
0
0
4600
Earth formed from a dust cloud with the sun in the center. At 80% of present size, it crashed with another planetoid to form the moon.
25
2500
2100
Oxygen is a waste product produced by bacteria and would have been poisonous to early life forms.
45
4500
100
First birds evolve…
8 Months Ago
4535
65
Mass extinction of 65 to 70% of all species including all the…flying reptiles and dinosaurs…birds continue to thrive
4 Months Ago
4565
35Ma
Primates related to lemurs evolve…
2 Months Ago
4585
15
Grasses such as wheat, barley, maize, and rice evolve…
5 Days Ago
Almost 4600
1.3
The Ice Age begins…temperatures varied to such high levels that animals such as mammoths and elk evolve…
12 Hours Ago
4600
130,000
Modern humans evolve in Africa.
1 Hour to Go
4600
11,000 years ago
Humans learn to farm.
1 Minute to Go
4600-4900
250 Years Ago
The Industrial Revolution occurs.
Goodness! With one minute to go before the earth turns 46 we have 3 iterations of the iPad, 4 of the iPhone, millions killed in wars, and global warming threatening our very existence.
Take time to study the entire timeline. This is a profound perspective on the current speed at which change occurs in our lives. I walk away from this phenomenal timeline with wonderment about what other things in our natural world are evolving that we pay little attention towards. As for our future, will we use technology to make our lives better or are we perhaps evolving ourselves right off the timeline?
As we venture forth into 2013, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at some items that should be on every administrator’s radar. We all need to be developing a plan on how we will incorporate each into our schools.
For school districts, this year could see the worst budget struggles in California’s history. Most districts used up their reserves long ago; the rest have scant reserves left. Districts have tapped categorical funds in historically-unprecedented ways. One-time funds and the American Renewal and Reinvestment Act money have been expended. Maintenance projects have been deferred year after year. Furlough days and salary cutbacks have been implemented. What to cut next?
“What words do you associate with the phrase, digital age learning culture?”
Putting time into perspective when talking about hundreds of thousands of years can be difficult, especially for younger learners. While preparing a short talk for the recent sixth grade promotion ceremonies at my school, I wanted to discuss how little time in the overall age of the earth have we as humans been influenced by the current technologically-rich environment, I discovered a great web resource—the