Biting off more than I could chew
21st Century Education, Ed. Research, Ed. Tech. May 29th, 2008
I can chew with the best of ‘em, but I was not able to pull of the blogging feats I hoped to accomplish this week. The planned (and much hyped!) series on “Facilitating Technology Integration” did not happen. I underestimated the amount of energy it takes to drive around a mountainous state, visit 3-5 schools per day and ask the same questions over and over. On top of that, by the time I was able to retreat to my hotel du jour, I had…get this…(”real”) work to do! Plenty of it, too, including finishing a complex pre-proposal for a grant competition. So, for the three of you who were waiting with bated breath for my chronicles, I apologize profusely. To myself, I apologize as well.
Some notable “highlights” of my week:
- It’s not hard to understand why they call West Virginia “The Mountain State.” I drove on some windy roads that make the Pacific Coast Highway seem straight.
- I love some of the names of towns I drove through or past. Consider just these: Hurricane, WV; Nitro, WV; Pax, WV. Also, at one point, I drove past a street called Polemic Run Road. Do you think the people who live there even know what a polemic is? I had to look it up to remind myself.
- I visited schools in some of the poorest rural communities I’ve ever seen. If I tell you I saw over one hundred rundown, abandoned shacks on the side of the road this week, I’d be sorely underestimating. I try not to impose my own values, but I couldn’t help feeling sad for people who live in those areas. Maybe they feel sad for me and how complicated my life is? Maybe they’re right?
- In response to Scott McLeod’s post about the role of school leadership in school reform, Stephen Downescommented about “grassroots” change (my interpretation of his comment). Tim Stahmer agreed. Well, fair enough. But, in many of the communities I visited this week, there will be no grassroots movement. There is simply not enough, if any, social or cultural capital in the communities. Leadership is, therefore, so vitally important in the schools that serve those communities.
- Implementation of the technology support position I am studying is so incredibly varied. It turns out, IMHO, that I’m not studying A singular intervention; rather, I believe I saw 14 different models in 14 different schools. How one goes about facilitating technology integration depends on many factors, largely wrapped up in what I would call the ecology of the school. More on that some day…
- The fascination with interactive white boards, oy…i guess if kids get pleasure out of touching the screen and get engaged in the learning process that way, then there’s some value. But, for now, I question the cost-effectiveness of IWBs. Hopefully they’re being installed now so that down the road there are more applications that make them worthwhile.
- Finally, I saw some practices and conditions that I would deem progressive and/or promising, but the old Rip Van Winkle joke about schools is not so funny anymore. It’s really remarkable how a school and classroom in Mt. Hope, WV looks exactly like a school and a classroom in Pheonix, AZ (I picked a west coast city where I’ve actually been in multiple schools). So, with that, I leave you with this (for those who haven’t already seen it):
Tags: education, IWB, technology, West Virginia
Dr. Becker: I’ll raise my hand and say, “I am reading your blog–one of the three!”
I just took Educational Research and found it so staggeringly boring that I can’t imagine crunching numbers about a study in a two-star hotel in the mountains of West Virginia. So for all of that, I give you props. Outside of the statistics, though, I think your topic is interesting and I hope you find some answers. I hope your findings show that instead of a “SYSOP”–one who fixes computers, installs software, and handles glitches–schools need a technology trainer who will spend all of her time collaborating one-on-one with teachers. This is an easy one, of course, schools just need the cash (and the working equipment) to cover it. I’m seeing that much of your tech movement is to get school leaders to see the need and then find the funds. Is the poverty you’re seeing in WV depressing in part because you know that there are so many other essential functions of school in “those parts” (like serving breakfast) that they may never get to the technology piece? It must be frustrating.
Hey Betsy! I’m really pleased that you continue to read my blog.
I think the poverty is so depressing to me because it seems endless; it seems like the cycle will never be broken. And, amazingly, they are getting to the technology even though they are dealing with very basic things (one principal did tell me about kids who don’t have shoes). But, the technology is not sophisticated or robust enough to show what’s possible beyond the hollows of WV. There’s nothing really transformative going on. I so badly want for those kids to see the world beyond their poor communities, and there’s some really simple ways to make that happen with technology. Powerpoints and interactive white boards don’t do that.
After this week, if I hear the word “SYSOP” one more time, I might just explode. It sounds like a monster that roams the schools. But, yes, in WV, they are supplementing the SYSOP with the TIS. That’s definitely a big step.
“…ecology of the school.” Interesting phrase–hmmm…I might steal that and do something with it. There was a decision made this week that was not in the best interest of a student, but was made because it created the least amount of pollution in our school ecology.
Paul, I wish I could take credit for it. Many educational researchers have used Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urie_Bronfenbrenner)Ecological Systems Theory as a lens for studying schools. There’s a fanstastic article that I blogged about a while ago (http://edinsanity.com/?p=23)that uses the ecological framework to examine ed. tech. To this day, that article resonates with me as much as any I’ve read about ed. tech.
Was looking forward to the posts. Maybe next time you can just phone them in to Utterz while driving.
The research sounds pretty interesting and I like the fact that you visited all those schools. When I find myself visiting a town, I find myself walking by the schools and looking in the windows. Kind of a busman’s holiday. 
Great thoughts.
My only caution, and I think you felt it already, is not to impose your values on “poor” communities. As a person that grew up in Southern Illinois in a poor community and really in a fairly poor family (maybe I will post pictures of the house I was born in sometime - it probably fits your “rundown abandoned shack” definition) you don’t want to feel sorry for them. You are right that the key is not just to throw technology in those classroom such as interactive whiteboards that are not relevant to their lives. I can’t comment on West Virginia never having lived there, but in Southern Illinois if the technology cannot be related back to farming, it was rather pointless. Myself and most of my friends went home from school everyday and worked on the farm until after dark. Obviously, I did not social network with the hogs I worked with everyday. But, what I did do was check the radar on the weather map and I became an expert at predicting rain and technology aided me in that. All the other young boys in the school were into that as well and we could sit around and look at the radar map for 15 min. stretches at a time. Also, we had a technology system on the farm that allowed us to track and help predict grain prices so we could sell futures. Also, code scanners for vehicles and tractors. So, there is technology that relates to the rural experience, but a lot of the basic stuff we teach in urban and suburban atmospheres just doesn’t relate. For instance, Google Earth and Google Maps is a favorite tool, but the satellite imagery of most rural areas is so bad as to be almost meaningless. So that tool doesn’t help. Kids in Southern Illinois are not interested in the 3D mockup of skyscrapers in New York or LA that might interest kids in urban and suburban areas.
There is certainly a lot of overlap and good tech is good tech in a lot of ways, but all these tools have to make sense to kids in these areas within the context of their lives and the rural experience in America is different in a lot of ways and we need to acknowledge and work within that framework.
Agreed entirely, Justin. And, by “abandoned shack” I meant something like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mary-heather/183121810/
Clearly not lived in; in most cases damaged or seemingly burnt. There were certainly plenty of other small structures that could have been habitated, but the obviously abandoned ones are everywhere.
Also, one of the schools I visited was a year-round school. The principal loved it and said that the community wasn’t a farm community any more; the kids didn’t need to go home to tend to the farms. Is the community where you grew up still a farming community?
The house I was born in wasn’t as bad as the ones in the photos … but it will be soon enough. The house had major issues and in the winter, it would actually snow into the house and my father tells stories of having to shovel the snow out and all of us having to sleep in the same bed to conserve heat. Many of the buildings on my family’s farm, though, look exactly like that (that’s just the color those old oak timbers get when untreated for a while). The house my brother-in-law lives in right now has a building that is actually in much worse shape than the better of the two in that photo … he uses it as his garage. Anyway, that is just normal Southern Illinois and I feel sort of weird joking about it. Pretty much all young families go though that period of living in an old farm rent house. I did it too. My first house was a 3 room house where I only heated 2 rooms and it had a celler … you know the real kind with a mud floor that was used to store meat. Anyway, it is sort of a badge of honor to have to go through that period in life in Southern Illinois so I don’t want you to think I am speaking of it poorly (pun intended).
As to farming in my community, it is changing, but the farming dynamic is still very prevalent. There is an autoparts factory in my hometown and a lot of people in the town work there these days (including my parents as our family farm of 200 acres is not enough to feed a family on anymore), but that is not the place where you are proud that your parents work. If your parents are farmers, you are much prouder as farming is still much more of an accepted occupation rather than working at the factory for $15/hour or so. So, even the kids whose parents are factory workers (or work at the local McDonalds or whatever) sort of try to learn the farming traditions. If you are a person that has a small farm in your background somewhere, you sort of cling to that. Even now, when I go home I try to get out and help bale hay or whatever. For a lot of kids whose families don’t make a living from farming anymore (including most of my friends) when you are old enough to work (for me 6th grade - don’t tell the IRS or OSHA) you go to work for a different local farmer to learn and to earn a little money. By the time I was in 8th grade, I was working 30 hours a week or so in addition to school. Of course, during the summer and during harvest I worked more.
Now that is not the experience of everyone, some families/kids rejected the farming background and adopted more of a suburban lifestyle (my town was a little over an hour from Saint Louis) but those kids were “preppies” (I grew up in the Saved by the Bell era). Anyway, Southern Illinois is probably a little more farming oriented than West Virginia, but it is in a transition period. Fewer and fewer kids work the “family” farm although a lot of kids still work the local farms. But, there would be outrage at year round school still in Southern Illinois.
SYSOPS = CYCLOPS…one-eyed monsters who roam around with technological tunnel vision…seeing problems clearly but blind to innovation?
I like that one, Betsy! The real problem, as I see it, is when the TIS, the teachers, and the SYSOP are not on the same page. In some cases, I would throw the maintenance staff into that mix. i can’t tell you how many instances I saw where hardware was installed based on decisions by a SYSOP or a maintenance worker without consultation of the teachers. Nothing like little little elementary kids craning their necks to look at a tiny screen 7 feet in the air!