Lessons from Reddit: what it means for educators

Reddit is in the news again. I was introduced to reddit by Erez, my son, a few years back. I am not a frequent user, BUT I am extremely interested in the flow of reddit and the ways it behaves. Last week, the CEO of reddit Pao resigned after a power struggle with reddit users.  What caught my attention was the fact that even the leadership at reddit did not fully understand the power of the crowd. Reddit is a company founded to create communities and built value out of the willingness of many to create and participate with no monetary gain. This is a form of crowdsourcing, and what baffles me is that the leadership of reddit did not understand how crowdsourcing in a strong community gives the users at different levels immense power. The users can and did shut down most of the popular reddit pages in protest.

Even if you've never been on reddit (and you should) there are a few lessons here for educators.

The first lesson is for us as professionals. We should create online communities and use them to wrest control away from large businesses. If you are challenged by the big curriculum companies, band with other educators and create your own materials. At that point, the large companies will be less relevant. The new teacher union is not the NEA or other 20th century organizations with hierarchical leadership. They have their place, but the web has provided us with a new way to work, influence, and act. This can be where the next professional liberation comes from.

The second lesson is that the same structures that can empower us can empower others, including parents and even students. Learning about the way these structures work can be instrumental in forging new partnerships with parents and students and avoiding conflict.

Finally, we should remember that these structures are not inherently good or evil. They have the capacity to be both and we must help our students make moral decisions about the way they interact in such communities.

Better late than never- The joys of blogging

In May, I celebrated seven years of blogging. Blogging is probably the most serious writing
commitment I have ever had. This is a great opportunity for me to reflect on why I still blog.

Many better than me have explained the virtues of blogging, so here I want to talk about what I get out of blogging.

1. Blogging is putting my thinking into words. In a regular week, many thoughts zoom about in my head and between me and other educators. Blogging forces me to choose one idea and focus on it long enough to write about it. Long ago, Jean Detlefsen taught me that art is about making choices. Blogging is too. It forces me to commit to an idea at least long enough to compose about it.

Page views of guytrainin.blogspot.com

2. Blogging gives me an audience. I write up research in professional journals and present in conferences. Blogging, however, is probably giving the widest audience. Seeing that people are reading and interacting with their comments is a pleasure that I seldom get with journal articles. Readership is joy.

3. Blogging is sowing seeds for later writing. In some ways, I write for a living. Blogging creates seeds that allow me to play with ideas and language that makes more formal writing be much easier.

4. Blogging allows me to forget. Blogging about a topic allows me to "unload" the idea onto the web. Sometimes the value is in doing just that- unloading the idea so it stops interrupting everything else. In that way, I use it like David Allen does in Getting Things Done. It's just that for me its not about tasks and things to do it is about ideas.

5. Blogging allows me to be reflective about teaching and the changes I make as I teach. My teaching has transformed in recent years and blogging had much to do with helping it along.

Should everyone blog? Why I believe that the answer is yes.

The four things I wish tech innovators would do & discuss now

ISTE is now over, the keynotes done. The trumpets have quieted down. I have to be honest, I lately leave conferences with a sense of hunger, not for more but for something else. This sense got a direction when I met with Evi this week. So here are four things I would like to hear and see:

1. Educators who are staying with an innovation for a while. Too many of us are running from one innovation to the next permanent novices in a rush to get to the next big thing. From iPads to flipped classroom to Minecraft to coding to makers space. There is great value in repeating refining and becoming an expert.

2. Patience to train everyone, not just a select few. It is connected to the first section. If you stay with the same good innovation as a school/ district then you can get most teachers to join you. If, however, you keep moving the target it makes it hard for many of the teachers to join.

3. Research- innovation is nice but how do we measure its impact? If we really believe that technology can make a real and lasting difference we must insist that innovation comes with research and evaluation.

4. Race and inequality- many even most of the presentations and innovations ignore the social challenges we face as a nation every day. It is time, that race and inequality were a part of our discussion and action.

I believe that it is time for us to move beyond the excellent work done so far- up to the next level.

iOS, Cognition, and the Ghost of Steve Jobs

Despite my best efforts, Steve Jobs' ghost does not actually come and visit me. I never met Steve Jobs nor do I know what he would think. Instead, I am writing about the mythical Steve Jobs that occupies my mind and is loosely based on a guy that used to run Apple.

I am an Apple user, I love my MacPro, iPhone, and most of all my iPad. I also think that iPads are uniquely well-tailored devices for the classroom and talk about it weekly on my webcast iPads in the Classroom from TechEDGE. I love the iPad because it is designed with the human brain in mind. That is what makes it intuitive. In essence what iPads have done  is to reduce cognitive load, allowing the user to focus her attention exclusively on the task at hand. I believe that is the genius of the device and its interphase. I believe it is also the source of the limitations put on certain features including media multi-tasking. That is, some of the things that other devices can do are not really a failing in Apple's design, instead they are a result of a deep understanding of what people need (instead of what they think they need) to be effective users.

Now, however, in an effort to catch up" with Android Apple will be offering "real" multi-tasking on the iPad screen. I think this is a clear case of yielding to people's perception that they are excellent multi-taskers just like everyone believes they are above average drivers. There is mounting research showing that in general most humans are not good multi-taskers. We underestimate the number of times we actually shift attention and pay a hefty price in accuracy and efficiency when we do (e.g here). Until now the iPads would not allow multi-tasking on the same screen (apps can run in the background though). Now with the new features we can.

Adults can make their own decisions, but when we are concerned with using devices effectively in education the need for reducing cognitive load and increasing student focus is paramount. The new feature is an example of what people think they want but really shouldn't have. My mythical Steve Jobs would not let this happen.

Sleepless with my Chromebook

About two months ago I ordered a Chromebook. It was mostly because many schools around the nation are making this choice including the district my kids are attending. While I had a sense of what Chromebooks are, the personal experience is always best.

I have used the Chromebook multiple times but never extensively. This (very early) morning I needed to grade assignments online and I found myself with only the Chromebook. For the first time I sat at it for an extended amount of time doing my daily work.

It worked just fine. It was a tad slow at times (with heavier graphics) but nothing that was significant enough to consider waking my family to get my mac book pro. It's a very functional machine.

In my discussions with educators and administrators they often mention they like the fact that it is a no nonsense machine. You can do basic work on it, nothing fancy but it works, connects you to the web, lets you do stuff. Students they reason will view it as a learning machine, not a toy. The iPad, on the other hand, is viewed as a toy. We hear the same thing from parents and teachers in multiple countries. That is something I hear fairly often. There is work, then there is play, confusing the two create problems and students will stop learning. Basically, for students to learn we need to remove joy.

Do we really think kids are having too much joy in school that we need to remove it?
Do we really think play is not part of learning?
Do we think that the features that make tablets attractive (not just iPads) portability, creativity, and interface interfere with learning or maybe they actually help?
Do we really think that the dichotomy of work and play is still relevant? Is it in your life?

Four things we already know about PD (but need a reminder)

I just finished a week with a fantastic group of educators. Laurie Friedrich, Alison Preston and I ran our fourth iPads in the Classroom workshop. The name of the workshop is inadequate since we had users with all kinds of devices including windows machines, Macs, Chromebooks, smartphones and of course iPads.

The intensive one-week tech workshop is always fun although at the end of each we all experienced the sense of reaching capacity. It also reminds of what we know and often conveniently forget about effective professional development (PD):

1. We need significant time away from the everyday tasks to make significant changes. If you are tinkering with existing structures short workshops can be fine, but if you want a departure from normal you need to take time.

2. We need to work in teams. Shared cognition when learning something new is empowering, supportive and extends the boundaries of what can be accomplished. Even after facilitating numerous PD events (30 presentations and two classes last year) Laurie and I are still learning new things every time.

3. We all need time to practice. Showing isn't enough, everyone must participate in doing and experimenting during the PD. Showing and then sending teachers back is just not enough especially with new technologies that without support can become frustrating and with support are almost trivial.

4. We all need follow-up. That is our next step, making sure teachers have opportunities to discuss and extend what they already know.

Teacher websites are so 2010... and what to do about it

I am working with teachers this week on technology integration. I am seeing a real determination to find productive ways to integrate technology and subject matter (TPCK anyone?). Speaking yesterday during our summary I said "Websites are so 2010", as some are working on a website this may have come off wrong BUT I do stand behind my main point. Businesses have already realized it, teachers and schools are still trying to come to grips with it. Having a website is not enough. To be in contact with our students and families, we have to shift from static web pages to interacting  using social media, texting, and email to reach everyone. This way new content whether analog or digital can reach its target audience.

I can see the justified reaction: Teachers are asked to do more than ever and here is one more thing... and: We might get in trouble...

I believe that this are true concerns. On the other hand:
A good communication plan will make sure that parents and students have the most up to date information increasing the rate of homework completion, assessment success, participation in parent conferences and many more activities that require the collaboration of parents and families. Our hardest to reach families may become much more available and attentive if we use communication channels they use anyway. The potential benefits outweigh the risks and costs.

In short, I believe that the days of sending notes home on paper are numbered. For now we probably should still have them as a backup to ensure equity of access, but I am convinced that the rate of engagement would grow significantly with digital, especially, social channels. Districts (and teacher education programs) should help teachers by providing tools, training, and guidelines that would encourage contact while protecting all stakeholders.

P.S. Can we do away with paper planners for students?

Creativity Moments (a note)

Jeff Bernadt presented today and included a segment on creativity. Creativity is not just a message for us as teachers, it is also for our students as a conscious act. Tell them that it is part of our goal in the classroom.

The main message is that creativity can be in any domain and that it is a local concept.

How does all of this connect to technology? It doesn't have to, but my argument is that technology opens more doors and enables students to create even with lower skill levels.

I still maintain that creativity can emerge only when you have a deep understanding of a domain with lots and lots of practice. Technology can facilitate practice and learning that is guided by the learner that can use the web to increase their knowledge and apps for repeated practice.

Falling for Gadgets and Getting Up

Last week five graduate students and I traveled to Beatrice, NE to participate in the ESU5 Tech Fair.  It was a very successful day and we worked with many teachers in very short sessions. Nick Ziegler was a great host and the event went without a hitch (at least as far as I know).

At the end of the event, I was asked to draw the winners of the door prizes. Nick has arranged for an impressive set of prizes that included screens, printers, iPad, software licenses and more. I agreed to draw for all prizes except for the Interactive Whiteboard. This was the gadget that caught my eye and where I have put all of my door prize tickets.

Despite all of my efforts, I did not win. On the way back, I thought about the gadget and why I was focused on it? It is easy to fall for cool gadgets. You see them in actions or just imagine what you could do with them. It is like getting a present- that sense of getting something cool and starting it for the first time. Laurie calls it the Christmas morning effect. And seeing the gadget I can already anticipate how great I will feel when I open it.

Surrendering to my emotions I forgot to ask the most important question we need to ask about any technology in the classroom: Is it a teaching device or a learning device? In the case it was more a teaching device than a learning one. Now that gadget fever has subsided I also recall that most schools that I have worked with and adapted whiteboards were disillusioned within a year or so. It was simply not worth it and made very small if any gains in instruction. The change if any will come from well-used student devices that are scaffolded for teachers and students.

Apple's Folly (in Education)

The news from LAUSD (see here) who is suing Apple and Pearson has made the news and is probably hurting the chances of a large district buying iPads in the near future. Apple is an iconic company and I believe that it has exceptional products that work very well in k-12  and higher ed environments. You can see my reasoning in this short YouTube.

HOWEVER

The fail in LAUSD has to do with two major problems. The first is not directly up to Apple, but instead to the partner Pearson education who offered up a not fully developed product to a large district. The second was the lack of preparation of teachers to meaningfully use iPads in the classrooms. These are common problems that are seen in a lot of tech integration including districts I work with. Adding to LAUSD and other district woes are restrictions on student and teacher uses through management software that prevents students and teachers downloading or accessing certain features. Notice that most of these problems are not directly linked to the Apple product but rather to the way it was rolled out.

It's easy to give advice, but given the PR that Apple gets from failed implementation (definitely at the scale of LAUSD), I have radical suggestions about how Apple may prevent implementation nightmares. I suggest that Apple can use its position to insist on having certain pieces part of any sales contract and be brave enough to walk away from contracts that do not include them. I believe that such an approach actually fits with the way Apple image has been projected- no compromises, we know what is good for you and will insist on it!

Remember this ad?

I believe that the same approach is needed here. Walk away if implementation is doomed (yes I know easy for me to say).

Here are the three elements that I think Apple should insist on when selling in Education:

1. Insist on a reasonable professional development for teachers that goes beyond a single event. Part of the contract needs to be a reasonable plan for supporting teachers for at least one year. This can be part of Apple services (they do it extremely well in some places) or internal to a district or school, but insisting on a funded well designed PD is a must for successful integration (and good press, and renewed contracts). We all know what it should look like (if you don't watch out for our next publication).

2. Insist on minimal or NO management software. The management software has repeatedly failed, updated and still falls short of the quick agile response that people expect from personal mobile devices. I will argue that it will never work because our expectation from mobile devices is inherently different from other devices. Students and teachers are perfectly capable of managing devices like iPads. Insist on the personal freedom to make decisions and learning to be a good digital citizens without external control (rewatch the video). I cannot express how many frustrated teachers I meet during PD that describe in exasperated tones how long it takes to use a new app that we just talked about and will take 3-4 weeks to get to them (if not more). For example an description from a teacher I worked with:

"As easy as it may sound when someone says “oh, that’s easy, there’s an app for that”, when working with public school property, it was definitely not easy to just download the apps I wanted.  After several frustrating, failed attempts at trying to download from the app store, I found out that despite having an apple ID to purchase, download, etc., from the app store, that does not carry over to School owned devices.  There was a protocol for getting an app put on a device that was owned by the district.  Unbeknownst to me there were several steps I needed to follow in order to get a single app downloaded to just one device, and there were three.  I could not simply ‘get an app’ downloaded within minutes like a personal device.  Nor could I just delete one that I didn’t like.  One of the biggest barriers so far was not being able to put the apps on the devices when I needed them. "
 

If you want teachers to use devices and give the product a good name (and repurchases) insisting on full access (even if just to free apps) would be priceless. The note to districts is always the same. If we trust teachers with the lives of 20 priceless six-year olds I think we can trust them with devices. 

3. Make a push for OER (Open Educational Resources). The device gets much cheaper when it is coupled with an excellent free curriculum. OER is on the rise and may very well be a major part of the new No Child Left Behind Act. The move to OER can also pay for the aforementioned professional development. This last bit is not a must in my mind but a strong suggestion that will help use of the great aspects of the device such as iBooks, iTunesU etc.

I love Apple products and think they have great promise in the classroom. That would be my roadmap.

Transformation

By Real Change [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

After two negative posts I vowed to write a positive one. This week it's easy. We concluded our semester long professional development course on new literacies integration. As each teacher shared it was clear that we have all changed.

I have to admit that taking this new path was not easy. Laurie (Friedrich) and I had constant discussions about setting clear expectations and providing support. We rejected a notion of formal point by point grading. Instead we embraced an atmosphere of acceptance and support. We were absolutely right, every participant in the class emerged as a true professional and found ways to surpass our expectations (and I am quite sure their own). In an era when teachers are devalued and de-professionalized our humble experiment showed (once again) that treating individuals with trust and professionalism leads to exceptional professional growth.

This group of teachers have put their trust in us and Laurie Friedrich and I did our best not to fail them as a group. This PD was not about grades or reaching some arbitrary standard, instead it was about each professional identifying a goal and working towards it. To be honest I think everyone, myself included, achieved more than we originally planned. Here are some excerpts from our teachers' blogs:

"Even though this class has only lasted a semester, I have learned a tremendous amount. I have pushed myself to try new things and through this process have found incorporating technology into my lessons as simple, fun, and best of all… engaging for my students! "

"I've learned to be a little more patient as I try to integrate technology into the curriculum. I'm still working to be OK with the "messiness" that comes with using new technology for the first time. No matter how much I prepare and try to anticipate glitches, new issues arise when we use an app or website for the first time. I can't let that stop me from trying new ways to enhance learning via technology."

"As I reflect over the course of the semester, I realized I have integrated more technology into my teaching than I ever have before. I now feel more comfortable trying out new technology resources with my students. Previously, I was too scared that the lesson would be a total flop or that my students would know more about computers than I do. As it turns out, I am knowledgeable, capable, and confident in teaching my students skills with the use of technology."

We included in the class graduate students who were not currently teaching. These students with varied classroom experience stepped into the breach and supported classroom teachers as they worked to integrate new literacies into the classroom. Carly is a graduate of our program who will get her first classroom next year wrote:
"This semester I learned so much about how I can integrate technology into a classroom. As I start my first teaching job in August in a third grade classroom, I am very eager to take many of the activities/ideas and the knowledge I learned and use them in my own classroom! I was very fortunate to be able to work with many great teachers this semester that have prepared me and shared many great things I can do in my classroom. I am very thankful for the teachers who invited me into their classrooms for me to observe and help out with the technology aspect of their lesson. From these opportunities, I gained confidence as a new educator."

Fear Factor (iPad edition)

I see this in many districts I work with. As new devices are brought in, someone has the "talk". Do not break them, if you take them home and they break you will owe us. Do not use it for anything personal. They talk about insurance, cost and consequences. They want everyone to take the devices seriously

Every meeting with a new batch of teachers I have a few admitting that the combination of their fears and the threat of insurance has caused them to leave the device in the box, or attached to the charger on their desk.

I am here to say that that talk is destructive and counterproductive. Especially early in new adoption of devices. So e of the educators who are introduced to devices are scared before we say anything. Driving the point home with any kind of threat (percieved or real) drives the teachers on the fence about integration to avoid the new devices. And devices not used are not any better than broken ones.

I understand the concern about costly devices. Three years ago when we got 30 iPads and I gave them to students I was worried. Lost some sleep, but I decided that I will take personal responsibility and try not to scare them off. It paid off big time, with one exception everybody used their device. I am pretty sure that had I started the iPad discussion with a stern warning half of my students would have left them at home (they actually told me that). Recently I worked with teachers on iPad integration and once again half of them did not get them out of the box. Why I asked? Because we do not have insurance yet! Turns out that insurance was to take it out of the building but too late, the fear factor already worked its magic.

So if you can influence this- with students and teachers: make rules but do not scare, do not strike fear, we need these devices in our students lives and ours it is their future and thus our present.

Why am I doing this? (four reasons I work with schools)

This week I met with a colleague from our school district. We had a lovely working lunch/coffee sharing ideas and current projects. I described our main Tech EDGE activities:
    Laurie Friedrich and I have been working with Rousseau elementary at their invitation for over two years. During the time we developed a professional development model that seems to work well and is responsive to staff needs and time frames.
    The UNL elementary education program has developed a class that focuses on tech integration while pre service teachers are in practicum. The instructors are available to teachers as are our preservice teacher. This makes trying new integration ideas a lot easier. It also allows us to reach another six! schools.
    We offer a graduate class in tech integration to practicing teachers who have presevice teachers in their classroom. This class is offered at a great reduction in tuition to teachers and content parallels the one we have for preservice teachers.
   We offer online resources through youtube, iTunesU and beyond.

My colleague looked at me and asked: "Why are you doing this?" This is not the first time I have been asked that, and probably not the last. It always makes me stop and ask myself if in all the activity I have (35 presentations, 74 videos, 60 blog posts, 4 articles all last year) am I doing the right thing? These are my reasons:

1. I work for landgrant institution. Working with our community is a big part of our mission. This is even more true of our college aiming to improve lives and communities across the State. Working with schools let's us have a measurable impact on the future.

2. It allows me to make sure that the teachers leaving our program are truly ready to teach in the 21st century. The teacher we train will potentially teach into the fifth decade of the 21st century. We are responsible for making sure they have a solid foundation for their future growth.

3. I can generate research on tech integration working WITH teachers to figure out what works. This is a new and exciting field and there is much we do not yet know. It is the kind of design work that calls for trrue partnership between practitioners and university faculty generating ideas and measuring impact.

4. It is fun. There is no way around the fact that I love working with teachers, seeing impact, solving problems and coming up with innovative ideas for instruction.

Are Standards an Outdated Approach?

The standrd movement and the Common Core that emerged from it have been with us for so long that we only ask what standards and not whether we should have content standards at all. I am ambivalent about standards. In theory I understand the intent but in practice it often gets diminished to a set of alessons and assessents. The main problem is that a series of standards takes a few years to develop perhaps with the rapid development of new content area, new technologies, and new insights the kind of standards we have now are simply outdated by the time they find the way into classrooms.

I suggest that we need a much more flexible framework of standards perhaps more like the new science standards a framework of principles instead of atomized skills. Yes it'll be harder to show that students reach standards but then again all learning that is worth it is hard to measure. 

Many voices call for mastery learning. I want to challenge that as well. Mastery is not enough, with many skills fluency is the next step. The point is that fluid performance "in the zone" or Flow is the key for expertise. Our goal should be not just for students that can do it, but for ones that can do it efficiently. It is a complex demand especially when discussing 21st century skills that can be demonstrated in so many alternative ways.

I am not calling for abolishing standards but I am calling for continuing to challenge our assumptions and consider our alternatives.

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.

Losing Faith in Journalism- a response to "Can Students Have too Much Tech?"

My dean directed me toward an opinion article in the prestigious New York Times by Susan Pinker. The title was "can students have too much tech?" Who can resist this title? Of course you can have too much tech- thinks the person reading this on her iPad seating at Starbucks on a staurday morning. Kids these days all they do is play video games and waste their time texting.
A closer read of the article actually disproves the main thesis quite clearly. I expect more from a published author and a psychologist by training! I almost never comment on writing like this. In this case, however, I am mostly because we all expect better from a publication like the New York Times.

I would like to say that I agree with some of the premises in the article namely:
1. It sucks to be poor. Children raised in poverty have lower outcomes on standardized tests.
2. Devices are no magic. It depends what you do with them. Duh.
3. We still need teachers to teach even if we have devices.
4. Putting crappy devices in students hands without support will do very little to improve academic outcomes (sorry Sugata Mitra I am not a believer).

While we definitely need to be careful about technology use and balance in this just like any other facet of our lives a careful of the article and the sources cited bring a totally different picture.

Here is what is inflammatory, cherry picked, and untrue:

The story starts with the Obama initiatives on free and open Internet and providing access. Both policies are crucial for long term success of our educational system and social justice but are also completely unrelated to the evidence cited later. The critique is mostly about tech use at home

(where they gathered some correlational data) but the implication is that the president¹s agenda in this area is wrong.

The main concerns I have about the data presented (you can read the report here):

1. There is no consideration that technology is an area of literacy that is just as important than any other. Without computer/Internet literacy students are behind (if you can't conduct an excellent Internet search for research- how good is your research paper going to be?).

2. They basically point to an interaction between poverty and home access to technology. Does that mean that all kids are better off without access at school or even at home? Is she advocating letting middle class students have access at home but not for African American boys? Really?

3. The data is old and it predates smart phones, high speed internet, and the wide array of educational resources avaialbale and required in education (for example GAFE). Smart phones are now ubiquitous and most students from mid school up have them- including children growing up in poverty. That means that access is already there all that is left to schools and parents and to try and channel the activity to educational benefit as well as social and entertainment.

4. Now for the main source of data. The report is from 2010 the data is from 2000-2005 (what tech did we have then?). The report is by two economists. They actually claim: (1) that students that always had a computer actually improve over time (2) some students do better after they get a computer and finally and 

5. Most importantly their effect sizes are all in single digit % effect size that is for them an effect size of .02 standard deviation is fairly large. In educational research any effect smaller than .40 (that is 20 times higher than that reported). This effects are considered  small and not educationally meaningful.

The clearest part of this is that the author has failed at critical reading and thinking. She does not (want to?) understand that the devil in any report is in the details and in complete reporting including the context of a decade old study. It is legitimate to have concerns, it is also legitimate to question the ways technology can be used. Support for the argument should be based on a reasoned argument, and facts that are relevant to our current context. 

Aurora 1:1 or what I learned this morning

Today we had our 13th TechEDGE conference. We spent the whole day with brave teachers in Aurora Public Schools who are integrating technology in a 1:1 iPad environment and agreed to let us come in and observe.

It was great. It was also the first conference that I have participated in (let alone organize) that happened during regular school time with authentic teaching presented.

Here are my three takeaways, not new, but refreshing to hear from teachers:

1. One to one integration does not mean all tech all the time. Teachers integrated analog and digital across lessons

2. Social media is encouraged. I have heard multiple teachers start with "as you saw in my email" or "please post to twitter with the hashtag...". One teacher declared: "it is my job to model digital citizenship on social media. I let them know if they misbehave online.

3. Teachers need to know that what they are doing is special and of high quality. The school admins said that the conference was a great efficacy boost for their teachers.

The Top Ten most watched videos on the Tech EDGE Channel

A quick look at our most popular videos for 2014 shows that the topics of Apps for English learners is consistently at the top of the list and we will try and add additional ideas that address this topic. The second topic that received attention was App Smashing both in our regular show and from our Tech EDGE conference.

I hope we will have even more success reaching teachers and answering the specific needs of our viewers.

Tech Edge - Episode 38, English Language Learners

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 133, Apps for English Language Learners

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 110, App Smashing

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Trailer

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 49, Top Free 

Apps for a One iPad Classroom Part 1

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 111, Apps for Elementary Classrooms

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 94, Real Time Collaboration

Tech Edge Conference 10: App Smashing 101

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 115, Apps for Creativity

Tech Edge, iPads In The Classroom - Episode 125, Note Taking Apps Part 2