Tech Disruptions

Secretary of Education Duncan Speaks Positively About Cellphones in the Classroom

Cathie: Did you catch the video interview with Secretary of Education Duncan where he said that cellphones in the K12 classroom are a good idea and can help children learn.
Elliot: He said that?! I am speechless.
Cathie: A novel feeling for you; better sit down and rest.
Elliot: Ha ha ho ho. That was a figure of speech; you know what I meant.
Cathie: No, you didn’t say anything; you were speechless.
Elliot: You are such a pain sometimes.
Cathie: Ok, next time I won’t take what you say seriously.
Elliot: UNCLE; you win. As usual. Just tell me more about Duncan’s statement.
Cathie: Uncle? That really dates you… as old.
Elliot: Duncan; tell me about Duncan, please.
Cathie: First Duncan said that since today’s youth are so engaged with video games outside of school we should use them inside of schools to facilitate learning.
Elliot: America’s highest education officer endorsing video games. I am…
Cathie: No, you are not “speechless”. You don’t have a speechless bone in your body.
Elliot: Clever – and true. More Duncan, pretty please.
Cathie: Well, the video clip on the website was a tad laconic.
Elliot: “Tad laconic”?
Cathie: You having trouble with the definition of “tad”, too?
Elliot: You are on a roll this morning! What did you eat for breakfast?
Cathie: Smart Start – just like every morning.
Elliot: I wonder whether our President agrees with him.
Cathie: If one can take his campaign promises seriously, President Obama wants to close the digital divide. And, as I have said before, cellphone technology is the surest way to close that divide. Rich or poor, having an Internet-connected cellphone in a child’s hand enables a child to answer his or her own questions – and those of his parents and his friends, too.
Elliot: That’s a blog of another color
Cathie: Nice turn of a phrase there, shorty.
Elliot: Folks, you’ll have to excuse us; I need to have a conversation with Ms  Cathie – privately. 

Netbooks: We are making the same mistake again.. and again.. and again.

Elliot: We have seen this movie before.
Cathie: It was a bad movie then and it hasn’t gotten any better with age.
Elliot: Folks, we are speaking of the new wave of districts rolling out thousands of netbooks without an educational plan.
Cathie: For example, at NECC 2009 in Washington DC last week, we talked to a curriculum-tech specialist who shook his head in disbelief when he talked about his superintendent demanding that 7,000 netbooks – and several thousand electronic white boards – be rolled out in all in September 2009 and all without a pedagogical plan.
Elliot: His story wasn’t the only one; we heard versions of this story every day of the conference. Haven’t we learned anything from the past?
Cathie: The New York Times documented the failure of previous laptop rollouts.
Elliot: May 4, 2007 – Laptop’s Pearl Harbor Day – front page of the New York Times. At least it was below the fold.
Cathie: Laptop’s Pearl Harbor Day? A bit over the top, Elliot.
Elliot: Not really! Since K12 clearly has not learned from its past mistakes, I feel we must raise awareness – somehow.
Cathie: It’s disconcerting that districts are repeating the mistakes of previous 1:1 laptop rollouts – but this time they are just substituting netbooks.
Elliot: Simply putting a computer in the hands of students is not necessarily going to lead to the desired impact: increases in students’ performance.
Cathie: The New York Times article identified three mistakes that previous 1:1 laptop rollouts made. (1) There was no educational software on the laptops – just the productivity suite that came preloaded on the devices. (2) There was no professional development for teachers other than to show the teachers how to turn on the computers and use the productivity suite. (3) Schools were surprised at the significant effort – and dollars – involved in maintaining laptops; school budgets were overwhelmed and emptied in order to pay for broken keyboards, hard drives, and screens as well as replacement batteries. 
Elliot: And we are doing it again; where is the PD to help teachers take their 2 foot high stack of paper-and-pencil curriculum and transform it into lessons appropriate for a netbook? And schools think that that there is not going to be any cost to sustaining those netbooks; boy will they be surprised – again.
Cathie: What about that dirty secret – the significant costs involved in developing and maintaining a wireless network that can support a 1:1 deployment.
Elliot: Yes, such a wireless network is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than the one needed to support a few teacher laptops and a few carts of laptops.
Cathie: Time to stop the rant.
Elliot: Oh when will they learn; oh when will they ever learn?
Cathie: Please, spare us your rendition of Peter, Paul and Mary.
Elliot: You recognized it; I must not have been that off-key.
Cathie: I read the words you goof; you can’t hear singing in a blog.
Elliot: Picky, picky.

Who will integrate cellphones into classrooms? A Litmus Test

Elliot: I think I have found a litmus test for determining which school administrators will be comfortable having their students use cellphone computers for curricular purposes.
Cathie: Litmus test? What do you know from litmus tests? You told me you barely earned a C in Chem 101 at Ohio State.
Elliot: Ah, excuse me, but the proper pronunciation is “Ohi-a” State. Columbus Ohi-a, home to that most scholarly of institutions, had the singular distinction of being the only city in the North to favor the South during the Civil War – or, as those in the South prefer,  the War of Northern Aggression.
Cathie: My, my, “litmus test”, “War of North Aggression” – you are quite the polymath.
Elliot: Calling me names, eh? Sticks and…
Cathie: Very clever. Slick; you’ve finally moved beyond bathroom humor. So, let’s hear about that litmus test already.
Elliot: Already? It was your little dig….
Cathie: Yes, yes, yes… ahhhh….the litmus test, please?
Elliot: One of these days, Alice… one of these days… So, I was on a conference call with a district’s CIO and he said: “I have been watching how my daughter uses her cellphone for everything – she accesses Google all the time, she jots down notes, she sends text messages…..”
Cathie: But she doesn’t use it much to make voice calls.
Elliot: Yeah, he did say that; were you there?
Cathie: I should know not to interrupt you; go on with your story.
Elliot: Thank you. Then he said: “Maybe we need to see about using cellphones in school.” And then, not 20 minutes later, I was visiting with a principal and he said: “I was watching how my son uses his cellphone for everything, except phone calls. It got me to thinking – maybe we need to use cellphones in school?”
Cathie: Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I take it you are about to draw a lesson from those two conversations.
Elliot: Yes, yes, yes!! We both know how challenging it is to convince school administrators that cellphone computers are an excellent choice for a 1:1 solution.
Cathie: So, let the school administrators convince themselves!
Elliot: That’s it! We only work with school administrators who have observed their own children since they’re sure to have seen how important their cellphones are in their lives.
Cathie: And the CIO and the principal – are they bringing cellphone computers into their classrooms?
Elliot: Indeed they are. Pretty accurate litmus test, eh?
Cathie: On a practical level…
Elliot: This is where I exit, stage right….