According to some studies, charter schools are good. According to other studies, charter schools are not so good.

There are some good charter schools. There are some bad charter schools.

On the whole, then, charter schools make no difference.

[Peer-review *THAT* fellow academicians!]

To those of you who know and learn with Alec Couros (aka @courosa),

Please consider filling out the form below.  The explanation is in the form.  I’ll send the data (or an analysis of the data) to Alec and/or his tenure committee.

Thanks in advance!

One of the earliest and largest 1:1 computing initiatives in the United States has been transpiring in the Henrico County (VA) Public Schools(HCPS) for nearly a decade.  For the last X years, every student in grades 6-12 in the county has been issued a laptop.  The program began under the leadership of Dr. Mark Edwards and continued under the stewardship Fred Morton.  A new superintendent, Dr. Pat Russo, took over the reigns of the school system this year and now the county is holding a series of parent input sessions on the “Middle School Laptop Initiative.”  Given that the program has been implemented across all of secondary education, that they’re holding parent input sessions on the “middle school” initiative suggests that there is a real possibility that the program will be cut in the middle schools.

I have been working for a number of years to help educators understand the affordances for learning of technology in education.  I am also a parent of two not-yet-school-aged children in Henrico County.  Wearing those two hats, I intend to attend the last parent input session on Thursday, November 19 and I hope to offer my input.  I have a pretty good idea of the points I’d like to make, but I’ve built up a respectably large network of educators through my blog, through Twitter and through face-to-face meetings.  So, I’m modeling the power of social learning and I’m asking you to help me frame the arguments to the HCPS board. [Or, I'm outsourcing the work; you decide ]

I’ve started a Google doc where you can help me frame the argument(s).  Please click on that link and head on over there to offer your ideas.  Thanks in advance!

This week, I am privileged to be writing over at Change.org.

Thanks to Clay Burell for granting me this opportunity.

Please join me over there for some good (and courageous) conversation.

Tomorrow, I’ll be spending the entire day with my faculty  colleagues at the VCU School of Education.  We’ll be spending the day “visioning”; a full day of strategic planning.  I believe we’ll be tackling big questions such as: who are we?  what do we do? what should we do? where should we be?

I’m constantly mulling these sorts of questions, but to aid my thinking, I ask you:

What would you like the faculty of a School of Education to explore as part of a visioning process?  What should we be considering?

Thanks in advance for your help!

photo credit: rachaelvoorhees

Cathy Nelson committed a (somewhat) random act of kindness by commenting on a recent post to let me know that my blog birthday had arrived. [NOTE: while the blog went public on Jan. 9, 2008; the first real substantive post was not until Jan. 16.  So, I'm calling today my blog birthday.]  Thanks Cathy; it’s really comforting knowing that there are people “out there” who pay attention and care.

I’ll use this occasion to thank Scott McLeod, who encouraged me to pursue blogging despite the resistance I would get (and that he has fought) from colleagues at the university-level.  I’m not breaking new ground by stating that Scott is a pioneer, but it’s worth re-stating the impact his vision has on me and many others. Thanks, Scott!

THANKS also to those who’ve read and especially those who’ve assisted my learning by commenting on my posts.

***

I figured I would use this occasion to figure out where I want to go from here. So, modeling a form of data-driven decision making, I checked out my Google analytics data which I started tracking around the middle of Sept. 2008. Most of the data in there are meaningless to me, but I did gain some useful insights.  For example, as per the table in the following image, other than Twitter, search engines, aggregators, etc., the top four “referring sites” have been:

• Dy/Dan
• Edjurist
• Dangerously Irrelevant
• Drape’s Takes

The middle two don’t surprise me, Justin (Edjurist) and Scott (DI) are professorial colleagues and like-minded profs. at that.  However, that I got 78 visits from Dy/Dan does surprise me. I think it speaks to the importance of being out there and commenting on other blogs as a way to drive traffic to our own blogs.  I’ve only commented on Dan’s site a few times, but I do think I caught his attention and the attention of his (large base of) readers at least a couple of times.  There may be an alternate explanation, but I’m thrilled to be able to list Dy/Dan as one of my top referring sites (see table/graphic below for more detail); I admire his writing and the work about which he writes.

What were my “top” posts?

My post about conferences, presentations, etc. generated the most pageviews.  That fact is probably related to Dy/Dan being the top referring site since I referenced and linked to that site in that post.  Beyond that, though, it’s hard to make meaning out of the list in the table/graphic above.  I’m a bit surprised by how high on the list my post about charter schools is.  Most of the other posts on the list are newer post; that makes sense since the number of suscribers to my blog has (slowly) increased.  Mostly, though, as with most of the other data from Google analytics, I think the data are pretty meaningless.

I did, however, note that “Reflections of a new-ish blogger” remains on the list of posts with the most pageviews.  Remember that one?  Yeah, that’s when I dared to reflect out loud (“cocktail party” anyone?) and got beat up pretty badly around the blogosphere.  I was disheartened by the turn of events and nearly stopped blogging.  I’m glad I didn’t because this space has added value to my professional (maybe even personal) life.

So, where’s my birthday cake?

I’ve been tagged by Ryan Bretag for this meme, which I think is a nice idea.  The meme, as described by Ryan:

What 10 people would you want President Obama and Secratary of Education Arnie Duncan to engage with in a Meeting of the Minds focusing on the state of education, a vision for education and education reform?

Ponder your vision for education and what people you would want before doing the following

1. Write a blog post that lists your 10 people
2. Optional: Explain why you selected each person
3. Tag at least 5 bloggers of interest
4. Optional: Link back to this blog

So, here goes (in no particular order):

Deborah Meier / Diane Ravitch – I’m stretching the rules a bit here because I think both of these women need to be at the table, but I want to count them as one of my invitees.  If you can read only one “edublog,” their Bridging Differences is the one to read.  These two veteran educators, reformers, and scholars have had fantastic disagreements over the years, and that’s what makes the Bridging Differences blog so unique.  That said, it seems to me that they’ve each softened a bit and tend to agree more than they disagree.  Still, I could listen to the two of them discuss and/or debate educational issues until the cows come home (what does that mean anyway?).

Sherman Dorn – I’d invite Dr. Dorn for the historical perspective.  IMHO, few people have as thorough an understanding of the history of school reform as Dr. Dorn.  He’s been a blogger for longer than most people have even known of the word “blog,” and I learn from him daily.

Alfie Kohn – the more experience I gain as a parent and the more I (re)read Kohn’s writings, the more strongly I align with his ideology (yes, I used that word).  I believe there are two schools of thought in education: one based in developmental psychology and one based in behavioral psychology.  I’m putting myself squarely in the former by inviting Kohn.

Anthony Bryk / Stephen Raudenbush – another tag team.  There are no two scholars who are able to bridge the world of scholarship and practice like these two gentlemen.  They are absolutely brilliant academicians and researchers, having literally written the book on hierarchical linear modeling (a fancy statistical technique that makes perfect sense in educational settings).  Yet, they are able to take complicated analyses and write and disseminate their findings in ways that are totally accessible.  I encourage you all to listen to and watch Raudenbush’s distinguished lecture from last year.

Kieran Egan – gotta have a philosopher at the table right?  I find that Egan’s big picture view of education is helpful.  I use his article Why Education is so Difficult and Contentious as an introduction to my Politics and Education course.  I have not yet read his book called The future of education: Re-imagining our schools from the ground up, but it’s at the top of my priority list.

Fenwick English – if you know of Fen English, it’s probably as the “father” of the curriculum management audit.  However, I think of Fen as one of the few people who have had a long career as a school leader (he was a superintendent in NY) and an equally long and distinguished career as a professor of educational leadership.  I got to spend some time with Fen recently and learned about his working-class background and how that drives his clear and consistent thinking on important matters of social justice and educational equity. He’d be an agitator at this meeting, and I mean that in a good way.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett – I’ve come to know many school leaders over the years, and while I only met Barbara Byrd-Bennett in person once, I’ve never SEEN leadership in action quite like I saw it enacted one day while I was in Cleveland.  I happened to be there working with the CMSD research director the day after a major bond initiative passed.  That day, BB-B called every single employee working in the CMSD office into the auditorium and proceeded to deliver a spontaneous and moving speech thanking each and every employee for their hard work in getting the bond initiative passed.  She was moved to tears as was just about everybody in that auditorium (I might have even welled up a bit!).  The look in her eyes and the passion with which she spoke were pure embodiments of leadership.  Having worked at every level in large urban school districts, from a teacher in NYC to the CEO of Cleveland, BB-B would be a valued participant at this meeting of the minds.

Roger Schank – he’s been “ahead of the game” and pushing the learning technology envelope for many years.  He understands learning and he understands technology.  He’s written many books about e-learning, but I believe his book Coloring Outside the Lines: Raising a Smarter Kid by Breaking All the Rules is a must read for all parents and educators.

Nicholas Negroponte – we need someone with entrepreneurial spirit and with global concerns. Anyone who can dream up and give birth to the MIT Media Lab and the OLPC project is OK in my book.

My mom – why? because I can (it’s my party and I’ll…).  She taught in elementary schools for many, many years in the South Bronx (NY). I don’t know how she’d be received by the others at this meeting, but I’d love to give her this opporunity to offer her voice; an opportunity that I’m sure was never given to her as a dedicated, hard-working educator.

Now, to pass meme on…I tag:

Justin Bathon

Sherman Dorn (hey, why not?)

Sylvia Martinez

Dan Meyer

Bud Hunt

You’re it…

Remember those commercials?

My muse for this post was a clever but meaningful post by Miguel Guhlin yesterday.  In a small font at the end of the post, he links to a service called Newspaper Clipping Generator which allows you to create a reasonably authentic looking clipping of any newspaper article you wish to create.  So, the little “trick” he played on his readers teaches us an important lesson about reading the fine print. It also raises issues of authenticity in the digital age.

Consider also this little video I learned of today through Twitter:

Digital Diet by BeFunky Cartoonizer from BeFunky on Vimeo.

It’s like Photoshop made easy. And it also points out how easy it is to “fake” or significantly alter images.

There are other examples of web-based services like this.  It has been my experience that people tend to use them to play tricks or jokes on friends or colleagues.  But, the number of really thoughtful and intelligent people who fell for Miguel’s joke points out how easy digital deception is.

Information literacy? Digital literacy? 21st century literacy? Nah, but be careful out there folks!

On Christmas Eve, while driving from Princeton, NJ to Richmond, VA, I was involved in a loud and scary car accident (we’re all OK; the car is damaged badly).  The only relevant details I’ll share here are as follows: I was a bit lost; I was trying to get from I-295 to the NJ Turnpike.  I’d done the exact trip at least a half-dozen times, and I knew that I usually took a short jaunt through a commercial section of Burlington, NJ.  I wasn’t sure of all the details, so I had our portable GPS on as a guide.  The GPS had me exit I-295 around where I had expected to do so.  However, immediately after exiting, the surroundings seemed unfamiliar.  Sure enough, the GPS device seemed equally confused and instantly suggested that I make a “sharp left.”  The image on the screen, as best I remember it, suggested that a “sharp left” actually meant a U-turn.  I was confused, but decided to make a U-turn while trying to figure out what the GPS…BOOM, SMACK, BAM!!!

.

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Had my head been up and were I not relying on the GPS device, the crash would have been avoided.  My point here is not to get all philosophical, but the incident has me thinking about reliance on technology and on the importance of getting my head out of the screen and out into the real world.

So, folks, can you think of instances where you might be relying on technology in ways that might ultimately be harmful? Might you/we/I need to “come up for air” more often and interact with the world in more human ways?

photo credit: RabunWarna

[For that title, I must give props to Scott McLeod (who references Milan Kundera, the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being).  More on Scott in a bit...]

I was reading the Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere (2008) report and didn’t get very far before I noticed a glaring omission.  In the first of the five parts of the report, the authors go to great lengths to describe the population of bloggers and to tout the diversity of the blogosphere (“We are highlighting bloggers…so you can see how diverse the blogosphere really is”).  Yet, they also tell us that “[a]s a group, they [bloggers] are educated, affluent, and influential.”  They report the variation in age, income, employment, etc.  Curiously, though, NOWHERE do we get any information about the racial composition of the bloggers in their sample (certainly not of the U.S. sample).

In his report of his survey of the “edublogosphere,” Scott McLeod states that 6% (of the 419 respondents to his survey) identify themselves as “non-Caucasian.”  94% of edubloggers are white!!!

I don’t know if the Technorati folks collected data on the racial identification of the bloggers they surveyed.  If not, shame on them.  If so, shame on them for not reporting those data.

Why do I say “shame on them?”  Simple.  While individual motivations for blogging vary, I would venture to guess that a large majority of bloggers care about the “influence” of their blog.  Furthermore, in the second part of the Technorati report, the two most frequently reported reasons for blogging are: “to speak my mind…” and “to share my expertise and experience…” If that’s the case, then, we MUST consider which voices are being heard (or minds spoken) and just how representative the experiences that are being shared actually are.

Additionally, I know that those of us who publish blogs (myself included) are quick to claim the credibility, validity, legitimacy, etc. of the blogosphere.  I believe that if we are not willing to fess up to our overwhelming whiteness and to critically discuss the impact of that phenomenon, we will lose credibility, legitimacy, etc.  This is particularly a challenge for the edublogosphere, IMHO.

So, discuss away…