A Tale of Two Cities - ISTE & School

 "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness . . ." - Charles Dickens

  This week I feel as if I have had my feet in two different worlds. I have been attending ISTE via Twitter and the Google+ NOT AT ETC community.  I've also been providing instructional technology support to reading remediation camps.

 

Remediation camp is for students who didn't score high enough on their end of grade tests or their end of year reading assessments. By state law the school district must provide the option for students to attend a camp with reading instruction. Unfortunately on some levels the camp feels like punishment. The lessons are tightly scripted and leave little room for student or teacher creativity. Students are assessed repeatedly during the short camp and then retake a paper and pencil test on the last day.

 

At ISTE, educators are talking about teacher collaboration, the maker movement and differentiated instruction. In camp, students are completing worksheets and receiving the same instruction regardless of their instructional needs. There was pressure to provide cookie cutter, sage-on-the-stage style instruction. Some of the teachers bucked the system and provided innovative, creative instruction that empowered and engaged students, but we need much more of that!

 

As Scott McCleod said, "the work of transforming school systems is slow work." I couldn't agree more, Scott. Education is a tale of two cities. We are at once in the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness. We have to keep pushing to get the foolishness out of our schools and implement best practices everywhere!

Is Social Networking Really THAT Scary?

I watched over my niece's shoulder while she was looking at her Facebook page at grandma's house. It really didn't look so scary. As I said in my Christmas day post, she has protections in place to keep her information relatively private.

Social networking has become a victim of our fear-focused society. Opponents, like Chuck Favata in a recent Learning & Leading with Technology column, cite the danger of pedophiles. In reality, the number of children being solicited on-line is dropping while the number of kids using social networking sites is skyrocketing. According to a report recent published by the Pew Internet research project, 55% of online teens are using social networking sites. Isn’t a bit like sticking our heads in the sand to say that we don’t want to address them in schools?! To read more about the safety concerns, check out this blog by Scott McCleod.

We need to talk more to students about the specific dangers of posting personal information on the Internet. According to a report from Missing Kids, about half of parents are talking to their kids about this issue, but only about one-third of kids report hearing about it at school.

We are in a race to reinvent our schools and make them more relevant to today’s kids. Shouldn’t we be looking for creative, responsible ways to harness the power and excitement of social networks instead of putting them on the shelf because we are too scared to figure out how to do it safely?

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