An Open Letter from a Teacher Educator to EduTech Companies

I am a teacher educator. I work with pre-service teachers every day. I am also an EdTech expert leading professional development and research in this area. I love apps OERI and bells and whistle. I want my students to use tech tools for every opportunity it fits their lesson. I want them to give feedback electronically and use the best tools for the job. But I can't. The simple truth is that my students are having less open access to the technology. As a result, my students have very limited access to the tools used in their school district.

Here is the deal,  curriculum companies turn into Tech companies joined by startups in the field. They all try to sell district-wide products. The problem is that they are selling to school districts, but my students who are in practicum, internship and student teaching in the same classrooms do not belong to the district. As a result school districts do not want to pay for licenses that will not benefit teachers or additional students.

The problem is that more and more the cost is locking my students out of the materials they need to teach. There are hundreds of thousands of pre-service teachers in the US. EduTech companies, please figure it out. Use some of the capacity for innovation to create a profile for pre-service teachers.

Help us make the next generation of teachers connected capable and ready to go.

First Reflcetions on our China Tour- Common Ground

Photo Op in a First Grade Classroom Linzi, Shandong, China

We came back from our China Tour two weeks ago. It was a whirlwind tour focused on Linzi in Shandong province and Chengdu in Schizuan province. In each we visited elementary schools that are integrating iPads with our support. There were many lessons to learn and I am still thinking through much of what we saw. In addition we visited only three schools and observed instruction in only two. There is no way for me to know how representative this ample is so please read with great care. This, however, are some of my observations:

There are many differences between US and Chinese schools. For example Chinese classrooms were much larger (over 40 students), and the stakes to students future are higher (high stakes in China is much higher stakes for students not teachers. What struck me though were the similarities. When we observed teaching, our Chinese partners and us were often in agreement about high quality instruction and what it should look like. In our last school after three days of work the principal asked to see me privately. She sat opposite me with her four assistant principals (one each for instruction, professional development, organization, and discipline) and with a tense expression asked for my opinion on the instruction we saw. I laid out a step by step analysis of the lessons (I used LessonNote to annotate lessons carefully). At the end of my exposition she was visibly more relaxed. Smiling she asked: "Do you think it is possible to integrate technology into our traditional lessons?" [translation].

Earlier in our visit I thought traditional meant a focus on memorization and recitation, but at this point it has become clear to me that she was referring simply to the existing curriculum. This is the same question/ concern I often encounter in schools. Teachers and administrators interpret our effort in professional development as an addition or even substitution of the existing curriculum, the reality is that we see it first and foremost as part of the curriculum already taught with some extra skills integrated when they are relevant (e.g. digital citizenship). I carefully responded that yes I thought there could be such integration that would benefit students and help instruction as well as 21st century skills. I went back to the SAMR model as a core foundation to move forward and for the first time since we entered the school we were on the same page.


At the heart of the matter was the fact that both sides did not understand how close our positions were. We were seeing the same instruction and evaluating it in similar way but all of us were also hung up on cultural differences not wanting to assume common ground that was actually there.

Jazz as a metaphor: Creativity Diversity & Modern Media

 Papa Celestin’s band Circa 1927

Let me start with full disclosure. I know fairly little about music. In a sense my musical taste is non-existent. My family contends that I will enjoy any music performed live (true), but will prefer talk to music on the radio (almost always true). Despite all this I was thinking about Jazz this week.

As winter break set in I had time to watch some movies and shows on Netflix. One of the shows was the Ken Burns documentary Jazz. As I was watching it I listened carefully to the language used to describe Jazz especially by Wynton Marsalis. They describe what can only be creativity. Not "inspiration" but perspiration born out of practice, deep understanding of the craft, and the license to experiment. In essence the quintessential 21st century learning experience was created over a hundred years ago. Down in New Orleans musicians from all walks of life created a genre of music that allows all of its participants to be constantly engaged with creation and recreation. In many ways Jazz is a great metaphor for 21st century learning.

Thelonious Monk 1947

• Creativity. Jazz requires creativity from all. Not just composers but players and even the audience.
• Collaboration. Jazz is inherently at once a collaborative and highly individualistic endeavor. Musicians sit together and collaborate to create an experience for themselves and audiences. They must take turns, lead, and follow. 
• Experimentation. For Jazz to succeed there must be room to experiment and fail (often to be saved by your fellow musicians- so I am told).
• Communication. Musicians must communicate with each other to take turns, solve problems and create a cohesive sound, not an easy feat while improvising. They also must be able to communicate verbally and musically with their audience.
• Subject Matter. This creativity and effective collaboration happens as musicians master their instruments. There is a threshold of understanding of music and of a specific instrument before the rest can come into play in meaningful ways.
• Diversity. Jazz was also born out the meeting of many cultures led by African Americans and later Creoles. It shows how important diversity of culture, language and experience are. And how they can make something new, original and wonderful that has survived the test of time. When we argue for diversity in our schools, universities, and places of work, we should keep Jazz as a shining example of the possible.
• Technology. The spread of Jazz was aided to a great degree by the information technology of its age. First the gramophone and then radio that became the great equalizer like the internet does now.

Wynton Marsalis reflects:
"Well, we have to realize that just like in New Orleans, a, a band
would march down the street; everybody heard the music. Buddy Bolden’s open this trumpet up. If you were white, green, red, it didn’t make a difference. You were going to hear some swinging jazz music. If you played trumpet, you wanted to play like him. The radio did that in an ad… The radio did that nationally. Now, you could be in Dubuque, and you could hear somebody playing in a ballroom somewhere in New York, many times, you, you didn’t know whether the band was black or white. All you knew was, Man, whatever this is, I want to get a part of this. And the radio did a lot to break down segregation. In fact, even though the laws remained, in fact those m…, tho…, the, in fact, people all around the United States of America were listening to the mind and the soul of the Afro-American unguarded.
They could really check out the music of Duke Ellington, the music of Count Basie."(full transcript here)

Wynton points out the ability of technology to break down barriers, serve as a voice that is more democratic, more human, transcending some of the stereotypes generated by time and place.

So, Jazz can be a great metaphor, or maybe just maybe it can be part of a 21st century curriculum. A kind of learning that really goes to the uncommon core that can make our students truly creative, collaborative, and embracing diversity.

Five Wrong Paths Down Technology Integration Road

I believe we stand at the dawn of a great change in education. Technology is forcing schools to change as it does society at large. The direction of change, however, is not always clear and looking around I see plenty of examples for paths we should not be taking.

1. Buy Devices- This is an if you build it they will come argument. True new devices will push some teachers to try them out. But, it usually starts and ends with a massive investment in equipment followed by very little professional development and opportunities to experiment. Devices are great but they are just tools, teachers and students need to be shown how to use them well.

2. Teacher Devices Only- For financial and other reasons some schools see teacher devices and professional development as the end game. They champion a laptop/iPad/smartboard in for every teacher or in every classroom. These are inherently teaching devices and will increase student achievement marginally if at all- the real gains and 21st century learning will be achieved only if we put instruments in students hands.

3. Lets wait until they master basic skills- This is an old argument that has been used in many ways to stand in the way of making sure that all students learn high level thinking. In technology integration it usually means that students who have lower achievement are robbed of opportunities to explore other modalities and ideas. In this we may be limiting the futures of our most needy students. Just last week I heard a teacher say that her third graders were going to do research without computers because they have not learned how yet! It is our job to teach them and administrators jobs to make sure there is space for that.

4. The disabled device- Most teachers I meet have device/s from their district that they cannot update, download to or in one case even change the background on. In that way iPads go for a year before they are updated (making some apps useless) and prevent teacher from downloading great (mostly free) apps.  In some ways it is a curious argument. We trust teachers with the lives and well being of 20 seven-year olds but do not believe they are responsible enough to use their computer/iPad wisely. The same goes for student use. While I do not advocate allowing students full access to every device, if you do provide individual devices you must open it up, as recent examples from LAUSD show.

5. The canned curriculum- At the heart of 21st century learning is user choice motivation and creativity. In some districts, however, technology is leveraging curriculum company software to deliver a "one size fits all" curriculum. Paradoxically what started as an opportunity for teacher leadership and professional decision making is turning into a regimen of assessments, activities and monitoring that limits teacher decision making. If the curriculum companies with districts created a dashboard driven structure in which teachers can create their own sequence to a core curricular path, that would be great, but that is not what is going on on the ground. This is perhaps the most dangerous road to take as it may very well help de-professionalize the teaching profession further.

At the heart of my argument is that technology is opening new paths to leaning, adding a diversity of possible paths. Let's not use it to close down options. And if we choose to go down the road (I do not think we have a real option about that) we need to make sure that it is used by students and supported by top notch PD that helps teachers experiment and learn not follow a predetermined path.

The NEA Foundation and Talking Ginger- Moving National Meetings to the 21st Century

My son, now seven, had a wonderful time with the Talking Ginger app last year. The app allows him to talk at Ginger the cat and Ginger repeats his phrase with a distorted high pitched voice. It also creates short movies based on actions and phrases created by the user. A few weeks ago I took a look at my YouTube channel and was surprised to find that he had uploaded about 50 videos he created to YouTube. To my chagrin his videos had more hits than mine, but I digress.

Last week I spent two days with the NEA Foundation in DC. The convening had exceptional organization, great speakers and quality content. It was also decidedly a 20th century affair. We had paper books, paper feedback sheets, paper poster boards, our tasks and responses and reports were also text and paper heavy.

There we sat creatures of the 20th century discussing 21st century education innovation in 20th century ways. Nobody created a movie a prezi or a piece of art, music or a storybird. We discussed globalization without global connections and just one global speaker. We discussed curriculum without open source ideas. We discussed ways we use technology on paper and reported orally- not a single image, collaborative product (say mural.ly) or a link was shared. Groups that complained about culturally insensitive curriculum didn't share any alternative- none have realized that with the advent of the Internet and online mostly free resources there was no reason to keep sticking with curriculum companies. The 21st century gave us ways to stop complaining and start acting.

Do not misunderstand ,we all had devices, iPads, iPhones and other smart devices. It was clear that as individuals we have entered the 21st century. But as a group we collectively act in 20th century ways. As a group we are not digital immigrants- we are still on the boat dreaming of the old country pretending we are still there. How can we lead change for students that have already uploaded 50 youtube videos of Talking Ginger?

Five suggestions for a meeting:
1. Have each grantee create a short 2-3 minute video describing what they do. Suggest some styles but let creativity reign. It could be a narrated prezi or ppt or a flash documentary
2. Have a Twitter back channel and share it on a video crawl
3. Have group products created digitally
4. Make the digital curriculum choices especially Open Educational Resources (OER) a major point of discussion
5. When discussing globalization connect globally in real time into group discussions
plus a simple one:
6. All materials should be available in apps/ live websites and paper should be shared only with those who request it (greener too!)

I could go on for quite a while...

The Bridge, Layering Information and Redefining Literacy

The Bridge is a new FX TV show that I picked up on demand recently. The topic of a thriller around the border crossing between the US and Mexico seemed like an intriguing opportunity to examine how pop culture is viewing the issues.

While I found the series thoroughly enjoyable I was even more intrigued by their effort to integrate media. The website for the show includes everything in both English and Spanish just like the show itself alternates between English and Spanish as appropriate for a scene.

In addition the series created a free iBook that provides additional textual and photographic layer. I think that this aspect of the show is very interesting for educators trying to create content that is interesting, integrated, and meaningful. The way I think about it is purposeful layering of information in different information without guiding the conclusion. For example the series shows many facets of immigration and the people who are impacted by it but it does not come at it from an obvious pro or con stance. The book just thickens that layer and allows those who are interested to explore further.


In a way the show is a good example to how popular culture and the entertainment industry are seeing as the next step and I see as a redefining of literacy. Literacy is no longer primarily reading and wring on paper but instead a multimedia weave of forms and content- including visual, audio, video, word, and social. It is as interactive and social as we'd like to make it. The layering allows each person to choose an entry point and explore in different directions.

Creativity in Teaching, Alchemy, and Technology?

One of my new colleagues Lauren Gatti has recently summarized her research interest as "The ways teachers are alchemizing a crappy curriculum". It is such an apt metaphor of what we do in teacher education- that I had to share. In alchemy early scientists tried to make gold out of lower metals, and we try to teach our teachers to make something out of top down often ridiculous mandates about content, delivery, and assessment.

The driving force in alchemizing I would argue is creativity. My reading and thinking about creativity has led me to think about creativity as a process and not a product. Bob Woody a colleague who has great insights about creativity has recently twitted this review of a working paper on creativity. At the heart of the argument is that creative minds are inquisitive, persistent, imaginative, collaborative, and disciplined. It occurred to me that while teaching creativity is an oblique idea, teaching these qualities is not just possible but in many ways is already happening. If we focus on process and not product we can help our peers, colleagues and students develop creative processes- the kind that can help them alchemize crappy curricula and directives into meaningful learning.


So what does technology has to do with this? Well, technology is not necessary for the process.You can alchemize without high-tech tools. Technology, however, provides a space and time to be creative and open horizons that are usually closed. I find that many of the more creative teachers I work with gravitate to technology because it provides them new, multi modal ways of being, thinking and alchemizing.

You Think Technology is the Answer to Everything!

My wife and I had a discussion a few days ago about high school requirements in our school district. I highlighted the fact that the requirements include four years of English, more than any other subject. Unlike the current national mood that seems to channel everything to math and science our district has stood firm on Humanities while increasing the requirements in math and science. Off hand I commented that I hoped that some digital literacies were included in these four years. My wife said "You think technology is the answer to everything!" There was quite a bit of emotion in the statement but that may have had more to do with the dishes in the sink...

I paused and thought "I think technology is the question, not the answer". Her response is probably a testament to what I talk about at home. My mind has been focused on art and technology integration for the better part of a decade now- so I understand my wife's exasperation with the comment. At the same time her comment echoed one made by one of my colleagues recently. In a conversation about technology he said that ultimately we need evidence that the integration of new technologies impact student learning. By that, of course, he meant learning as measured in traditional ways.

I think that both comments come from the same place. The underlying assumption is that technology is part of an educational solution. That it is supposed to solve old problems. I argue that technology can sometimes do it, but it also has a broader application. To be fully integrated we need to teach our students to participate in this digital world. Art is exactly the same, it can often be integrated so it can help achieve in other domains (in our research writing and vocabulary knowledge) but ultimately it helps build well rounded students who thrive in life and not just math.

Digital media, just like the arts, created new ways to express ourselves and to BE. It is omnipresent and have become part of the fabric of our everyday life in a way that transcends the notion of a tool. As a result digital media should part of school curriculum not as a tool but as a mode of learning and being.

Dragons and the Curse of the 99₵ App

As I sift through hundreds of apps for our iPad in the classroom podcast I am occasionally surprised by quality apps. In our TechEDGE conference yesterday Rob McEntarffer from Lincoln Public Schools showed me DragonBox. In this brilliant app (see geek Dad review) students learn algebra in a way that "sneaks up" on them. It teaches them algebra principles through a true game environment (bringing Gee's vision to life) . Such brilliant apps are rare because they are brilliant. But in effect most of the educational apps have limited learning value. Most have limited content and focus on drill in ways that leave the educator in me cringing and hoping for more.

The problem though may be that the app store set the income margin too low. Right now an app for 5.99 is expensive and gives purchasers pause. The dominant modes are free and 99 cent apps. I just wonder if developers can create and maintain quality educational apps at these prices. I have gone through more than a thousand educational apps in the last year and I can answer with a "not yet". There are some great apps but most fail even my basic criteria to be useful.

I believe that mobile devices with an emphasis on tablets are going to be dominant in education in the next decade maybe even longer. Apps are an important part of this ecosystem but to be useful we need a bigger pool of great apps that serve students need to learn.

The lesson from the print news industry is that new pricing models connected with technology seem to create changes that are irreversible. Some companies are trying to buck this trend by creating educational subscriptions e.g. Footsteps 2 Brilliance and BrainPop.
This is an interesting direction that I hope can be successful but here I want to identify here other possible solutions.

As we discuss flipping classroom I would like to suggest flipping the curriculum and professional development equation. That is, providing the materials for free (or for a nominal sum say 99¢) and charging for backend services such as professional development and data services. This is a concept I have written about before and I think can potentially be viable. The Dynamic Indicators of Basics Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) seem to have successfully followed this model providing the assessment for free but charging for training, data services and optional assessment materials. While it is a not-for-profit organization it still proves the concept.

An effort like this may benefit from a partnership with a university combining the entrepreneurship of start-ups and the educational know-how of university faculty. This combination can make excellent products for the educational market that mesh gaming concepts and excellent content that lead kids to learn.

Finally, states and districts can choose to partner with universities and invest in creating digital materials to replace the commercial curricula altogether. Such efforts would require upfront costs but may actually reduce the dependence on commercial products and save districts significant amounts of money that can then be invested in professional development and emerging learning technologies.

Back to Creativity- A Response

I find myself in a discussion on creativity with Kurt Knecht and Bob Woody. I come at creativity from the psychological research side and my experience conducting research on the integration of arts into the elementary curriculum for a decade. I did not measure creativity, in fact I resisted some of the pressures. I find that most measures of creativity are artificially focused on a small subset of tasks without extensive validity to back them up. I am not opposed though to the social science  endeavor studying the phenomena as Kurt has said. I come at it from the educational side and my understanding of how our political and educational leadership systems work.

It is widely perceived that America's advantage in the world is it's creativity. We once manufactured, engineered, were well funded and had a technology edge. As a society we feel that America has lost its edge and we are worried looking for our advantage over China and other threats. Our political system needs to manufacture a solution that will get them elected. The way things go the next logical step is to say: well if our advantage is creativity then how do we promote it from kindergarten and how do we really know children are creative? At this point the big testing companies will offer a test of creativity- a standardized one and we will create a generation of students "uniformly creative" then discover it didn't work and blame teachers and unions. My reluctance is really fear of a series of intended consequences that leads to less time for music and art in school because we have to teach creativity.

Finally a note about the nature of creativity. I believe that creativity is rooted in a deep understanding of a domain as a precursor. Lehrer describes the study of mopping to find a new solution. The key part of the story for me was that Continuum designers studied mopping for 6 months then learned from an expert who was years at the task, that is I believe he described the evidence that creative innovation is actually linked to doing! The second aspect the Lehrer highlights and I actually agree with is having the space to try, fail and retry. It is where schools have the hardest time creating the time and space to experiment. We have packed the curriculum with so much "stuff" so many standards and tests that teachers are hard pressed to find time for their students to experiment and wonder per Kurt Knecht or play per Margaret Latta. Without this space to be wrong creativity is a risk not worth taking.

This space for risk with the notions of Flow and Studio habits of mind are the best linkages to elementary education (my domain).
So in summary I do not think we should shy away from studying creativity, only that we should be very careful as both Kurt and Bob emphasized shy away from over generalizing. My suggestion is always to go back to the original studies and avoid the urge to read journalistic versions.

Sunday Morning Tea- Looking for Clarity

As I sip my tea, black with honey, I am looking for clarity. In her Swanson award acceptance speech Margaret Macintyre-Latta used the fog of her childhood's Canada as a metaphor for her educational worldview. The talk made me think of my own childhood and the bright unrelenting light of Israeli summers as well as the clear crisp days where you can see for ever. In my own work I look for clarity, the kind that I can hold firmly in my hand. This approach is limited as somethings are elusive and defy clarity. The context is a chapter I am writing about Evaluation of Arts Education programs, I am trying to clarify to myself what I mean by Professional Development as Curriculum. Curriculum doubtlessly matters, but in recent years we seemed to start focusing on curriculum as the only thing that matters, maybe even more it is curriculum as driven by assessment but I digress. [the tea cup is empty and my throat feels much better] The failure of this approach may be the seen in the demise of Reading First [disclosure I am the Reading First evaluator for Nebraska].
In Arts LINC we are using a different approach that looks at teacher professional development as the key to changing the way classrooms work and student achieve. This is by no way original, but we are explicitly trying to change the way we all talk about change in school. It does take guts to say what we offer is not the only thing that can work just a version of it. But what does it mean to turn the Professional Development in the curriculum? We have some teachers that have internalized the ideas of arts integration into their practice so well that in their day to day practice it is inseparable. Others do the units we ask them to with varying degrees of fidelity but it is clear that they have not internalized it as part of everyday practice. Maybe clarity is by looking at examples. The tea is done children waking up more later...