why I teach

I teach because a friend encouraged me, a principal took a chance on me and the kids challenged me.  I teach because I get to meet these amazing human beings in progress.  They give me hope for the future, especially when I’m frustrated with the present.  I teach technology because I learn something new every day.  I can’t imagine keeping up with the pace of technological advancement if I didn’t have this focus and I learn so much from the kids, who are using technology in ways we never imagined.  I teach because I want to help kids find and share their voices. I believe technology and social justice are intertwined.  Technology is a means to empower voices, bridge divides and level the playing field.  I want to convert technology users into technology creators, collaborators and activists.  I teach because I had a successful career in technology.  I thought I was helping to pave the way for the women after me to be treated as equals, but instead I finally realized I was just playing by the rules of corporate America.  I teach because I want to change the world.

Do you teach?  Why?

Impact of Education Law on Technology Learning

The rapid advancement of technology has been viewed with both a sense of wonder and trepidation.  Technology-driven innovations like PCs, the world-wide web, social media and smart phones have fundamentally changed the way we work, communicate, govern and educate.  This change has been so rapid and so profound, that the educational system in the U.S. often finds itself trying to catch up.  In the past 50 years, we’ve experienced a technology revolution.  Education law has played a critical role in shaping our response to the upheaval this revolution has brought into our lives.  It has had both positive and negative impacts on the progress of technology learning in the classroom.

Arise then…women of this day!

I first learned about the original Mother’s Day Proclamation in 2006.  Can you imagine that it wasn’t first conceived of as a commercial idea to sell flowers, but a radical idea to embrace peace?  The proclamation was written by Julia Ware Howe in 1870 from the ashes of the American Civil War and it was a call to action for all women in all nations to make their dream of peace a reality.  She saw, as many see today, that it is the mothers who have this passion and it is the mothers coming together that can have this power.  So to all mothers out there, I encourage you to join the dream.  Celebrate your motherhood and be celebrated, but don’t settle for a day of appreciation when you can change the world!

“Arise then…women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe our dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace… Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient and the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” ~ Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

If you need a little inspiration or a little convincing, you can see evidence of this mother power in the story of Liberian women who took on the dictator Charles Taylor in Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

To Be Continued?

In its paper titled “The Right to Communicate,” UNESCO found that “technology does not by itself shape the character of cultural communication, but that such shaping is rather due to the legal framework as well as the economic conditions prevailing in a given society” (1985, p. 10).  The legal framework of education law has similarly influenced technology learning.  It began with NDEA and ESEA laying a foundation that tied federal funds to national education priorities.   Technology learning became a priority in 1983 based on findings reported in “A Nation at Risk:  The Imperative for Educational Reform.”  In the 1990s, IASA and Goals 2000 provided further details on what technology learning should encompass.   In the 21st century, NCLB, COMPETES and ARRA continued to promote technology learning as a national priority.  CIPA went a step further by creating a policy on how technology should be used at school that had a direct impact on technology learning.


The two charts above show examples of the availability of educational technology in public schools.  This and other data collected by the National Center for Educational Statistics show a strong correlation between funding priorities and usage policy set by education law and the increase of technology used in school (2011).  However, as the 2011 Horizon Report indicates, “keeping pace with the rapid proliferation of information, software tools, and devices” will continue to be a challenge for students and teachers (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine & Haywood, 2011, p. 4).  Education law has and will continue to have an important impact on how the educational system in the U.S. helps students and teachers face this challenge.

“To Be Continued?” is the final in series of posts related to the the Impact of Education Law on Technology Learning, a fascinating journey through technology evolution, public policy history and the classroom.

What is Technology?
Rise of the Machine
Information Age
World-Wide Web
Information Explosion
Global Village

References
Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011 horizon report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2011). Available from http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=46.
UNESCO. (1985).  The right to communicate.  Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0006/000658/065817eo.pdf.

a countercultural computer scientist

On my spiritual journey, I discovered that my ideas and attitudes about religion and faith were countercultural.  So, I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that my ideas and attitudes about technology and computer science are countercultural as well.  Recently, Gary Stager (@garystager) shared a link with me that he suggested would blow my mind.  Today, mind blown, I am also a mind freed of previous misconceptions.  The article he shared is called “Epistemological Pluralism and the Revaluation of the Concrete” by Sherry Turkle and Seymour Papert from 1990.

epistemological pluralism in a nutshell
“The concerns that fuel the discussion of women and computers are best served by talking about more than women and more than computers. Women’s access to science and engineering has historically been blocked by prejudice and discrimination. Here we address sources of exclusion determined not by rules that keep women out, but by ways of thinking that make them reluctant to join in.  Our central thesis is that equal access to even the most basic elements of computation requires an epistemological pluralism, accepting the validity of multiple ways of knowing and thinking.”

The paper goes on to share some of the different ways of thinking and knowing:

  • computer as extension vs. computer as tool
  • transparent vs. opaque
  • soft vs. hard approach
  • creative vs. scientific method
  • hands-on vs. hands-off
  • contextual vs. hierarchical
  • connected to objects vs. disconnected from objects
  • concrete vs. abstract
  • corrections vs. mistakes
  • conversation vs. monologue
  • negotiation vs. structure
  • relationship vs. reason
  • playful vs. serious
  • attachment vs. boundaries
  • relational vs. environmental
  • interconnected vs. autonomous

Can you guess which ones are countercultural?  I had pretty much given up on myself as a computer scientist.  First, I had determined I just didn’t want to play by the rules of corporate America anymore, as they no longer seemed adequate for my life.  So when I quit corporate America, what did I become?  A wife, a mother, a volunteer, a writer, an activist, a technology consultant & technology teacher.  Along the way, I thoughtlessly gave up my identity as computer scientist because I certainly wasn’t fitting the cultural norm.  But I still kept teaching about it and wondering why so many women and girls were not involved in it.  Now I realize, if the traditional idea of computer scientist is off-putting to someone who’s actually been there, what a giant hurdle it must be for someone who hasn’t.

While we have even further to go than when I was in school as far as numbers of women in computing, there are signs of hope that some are making a space for those who think and know differently.  Here are just a few examples:

  • The Art && Code conference I attended last year was the most diverse conference I had ever been to and included many non-traditional approaches to thinking about coding.
  • Bret Victor (@worrydream), certainly appreciates the soft side of coding and the desire of creators to be hands-on and concrete with their creations as he demonstrates in his video, Inventing on Principle.
  • Chad Sansing (@chadsansing), middle school teacher, follows his kids into gaming where they discover glitching then modding and finally coding.
  • Ben Chun (@benchun), high school CS teacher, has flipped CS on it’s head - using CS to teach & think differently about other subjects.
  • @Thinkersmith is creating a computer science space that is fun and accessible for all to explore. 

Any other countercultural computer scientists out there?  I want to hear what you are doing to change the world! (@kimxtom)

Book Review: Linchpin by Seth Godin

Are you indispensable?  That is the question Seth Godin returns to over and over again in his latest book, Linchpin.  Seth is a product of the information age.  He has written dozens of books and founded dozens of companies, many of which, as he is quick to point out, were failures.  He’s also a best-selling author many times over and a successful entrepreneur.   When Seth asks if you are indispensable, it’s clear that discovering the answer to this question has been his compass, guiding him onward.

Seth’s writing style is fast and furious as he rapidly fires one idea after another at the reader, presumably hoping some of them will stick to their target.  The chapters in this book are loosely affiliated thoughts that read much like someone’s blog.  This can make distilling the big ideas a challenge, but they are there.  One major focus of the book is describing the linchpin.  Linchpins are not some special class of people born with magical talents.  They are people who choose to figure things out instead of wait for instructions, thrive on change instead of defending the status quo, make a difference, invest emotional labor, share their passion and leave their comfort zones.

Two other main ideas that Seth wants to get across is that both nature and nurture have been working against humanity in the pursuit of becoming linchpins.  He starts by arguing that the factory model of education and work has nurtured compliant workers who are most comfortable following rules.  When the rules change, for example with the technology revolution, the factory model does not know what to do.  All it can do is try to make things faster and cheaper using the same old rules.  Linchpins are needed to help draw the new map, provide insights and create.  An even greater force working against the linchpin is within their own brain.  The amygdala or the lizard brain, as Seth refers to it, is the oldest part of the human brain and its job throughout the ages has been survival.  It is afraid and avoids risks and when in conflict with higher brain functions, it always wins.  Seth suggests the way to work through the relentless resistance from the lizard brain is to recognize that it is causing the fear and face it.  The resistance also provides a good clue as to what direction a linchpin should go in next - straight into the resistance. 

Finally, Seth suggests linchpins embrace a new economy, or rather a very old economy that has been lost in the consumer culture, the gift economy.  This is the economy of the tribe that is based on mutual support and generosity.  Linchpins do what they do because they are artists. They need to create and share their work, not for profit, but for respect, connection and to change the world.  The very act of putting their unique work out there results in them being indispensable and sought after by others. 

It seems ironic that Seth makes such a compelling case for linchpins being absolutely essential to the educational system while pointing out that the educational system is likely to use all the bureaucracy and fear at its disposal to stamp out the artistry and unique gifts that linchpins bring to the table.  He argues that what should be taught in school really comes down to two things: solve interesting problems and lead.  This may be overly simplistic for the educator armed with pedagogy and curriculum, but in fact, the reality is that something is broken in education.  Recently, IMPACT, a grassroots justice group in Charlottesville, VA issued a press release about the unemployment rate for people under 30 being three and a half times larger than the rest of the population.  And why is that?  Research into this issue by IMPACT has shown that employers feel many young people do not possess the soft skills - things like working as a team, relating to co-workers or customers, appropriate attire - needed to maintain a job.  What if their unique gifts had been nurtured during school and they had been challenged to solve problems and lead?

Global Village

The concept of the global village is often idealized as a state of interconnectedness around the world that is now being achieved through the Internet and social media.  McLuhan, who coined the term, agreed, “the global village is created by instant electronic information movement.”  But his thoughts about its consequences were far more foreboding, “The global village is a world in which you don’t necessarily have harmony, you have extreme concern with everybody else’s business and much involvement in everybody else’s life” (McLuhan, 1968).  In it’s Millennium Report, the UN points to a “darker side to information and communications technology. While some countries and people have benefited greatly, more than 95% of the world still does not have electronic access” (UN Cyberschoolbus, 2000).

The educational system in the U.S. is still adjusting to the walls coming down and the ongoing construction of the global village.  Controversies abound about how schools should deal with the online interactions and conduct of students and teachers.  Every technological innovation brings with it questions about how it should be incorporated into technology learning.  Online learning is beginning to challenge the ongoing role of the brick and mortar school.  The digital divide still exists and is a more complex issue than ever, referring not only to those that do not have access to technology, but also encompassing a paradigm shift from information transfer and retrieval (literacy) to information evaluation, collaboration and creation (fluency). 

“Global Village” is a part of a series of posts related to the the Impact of Education Law on Technology Learning, a fascinating journey through technology evolution, public policy history and the classroom.

What is Technology?
Rise of the Machine
Information Age
World-Wide Web
Information Explosion

References
McLuhan, M. (1968).  Age of the information explosion interview.  Retrieved from http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com.
UN Cyberschoolbus. (2000).  Information and communications technology: Vital statistics.  Retrieved from http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/briefing/technology/tech.pdf.

“For all it’s material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled.” ~ The Humans from the Sagan Series

Information Explosion

In the first decade of the 21st century, digital output reached epic proportions.  In 2007, the digital universe was estimated to be 281 billion gigabytes and the amount of digital information created had for the first time exceeded available capacity to permanently store it (Gantz, et al., 2008, p. 2). Marshall McLuhan predicted this information explosion and described it in his 1964 book, Understanding Media:  The Extension of Man, as being “surrounded by answers, millions of them, moving and mutating at electric speed” (p. 239).  

The social media revolution began with the launch of MySpace in 2003, Facebook in 2004 and YouTube 2005.  Facebook reached 50 million users in just 3 years and by 2010 had over 500 million users (Facebook, 2011).  YouTube users viewed 100 million videos per day in 2006 and by 2010, exceeded 2 billion views a day (YouTube, 2011).  McLuhan imagined what this social media revolution would feel like in a 1968 interview, “All the walls go out between age groups, ethnic groups, between family groups and national groups and between economies. The walls all go out.  People suddenly have to adjust themselves to this new proximity, this new interrelationship.” 

As the name implies, the information explosion brought with it volatile conditions and this may help explain why there were so many attempts by Congress to address technology learning throughout the decade:

  • 2001 Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)
    One impact of the walls coming down was that any kind of information could be posted online, accessible to anyone of any age.  CIPA was put in place to “address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers” (FCC, 2001).  CIPA is enforced through a set of requirements on schools and libraries receiving any type of federal funding for Internet access through the E-rate program.
  • 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
    NCLB was a reauthorization of public school financing, which set “standards for student performance and teacher quality” (ED.gov, 2004).  Part of NCLB included the Enhancing Education Through Technology Act of 2001, which set goals of improving “student academic achievement through the use of technology”, bridging the digital divide and encouraging “effective integration of technology resources and systems with teacher training and curriculum development” (ED.gov, 2001).
  • 2007 America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science (COMPETES) Act
    COMPETES authorized funding increases for the NSF and created scholarship and training programs to recruit new K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) teachers (Stine, 2009).
  • 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
    ARRA provided $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top Fund, a competitive grant program targeting innovative education reform.  It placed high priority on programs that emphasized STEM (ED.gov, 2009).

Technology learning continued to gain ground as confirmed in 2010, by a Department of Education report titled “Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools: Fall 2008.”  The report estimated that “100 percent of public schools had one or more instructional computers with Internet access and the ratio of students to instructional computers with Internet access was 3.1 to 1” (Gray, Thomas, Lewis & Tice, 2010).

There were some unexpected consequences of education law on technology learning.  The implementation and subsequent revisions to CIPA provide one example.  First generation filtering software was rudimentary and implementation often aggressive, so that according to Karen Cator, Department of Education’s Director of Education, “wide swaths of the Internet” were shut down for both students and their teachers.  She goes on to say that “we need much more nuanced filtering” because we need to “educate this generation of young people to be safe online” (Bagseghian, 2011).  In addition, CIPA did not take into account students bringing in their own Internet-enabled devices to school, like smart phones (Office of Educational Technology, 2010).  A 2008 revision to CIPA included a provision that by 2012, all participating schools must create and implement an Internet safety policy that educates minors about appropriate online behavior and cyberbullying (Funds for Learning, 2011).

“Information Explosion” is a part of a series of posts related to the the Impact of Education Law on Technology Learning, a fascinating journey through technology evolution, public policy history and the classroom.

What is Technology?
Rise of the Machine
Information Age
World-Wide Web

References
Bagseghian, T. (2011).  Straight from the DOE: Dispelling myths about blocked sites.  Retrieved from http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/04/straight-from-the-doe-facts-about-blocking-sites-in-schools.
ED.gov. (2001). Enhancing Education Through Technology Act.  Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/pg34.html.
ED.gov. (2004). A guide to education and No Child Left Behind.  Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/guide/guide.pdf.
ED.gov. (2009). Race to the Top program executive summary.  Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/executive-summary.pdf.2007.
Facebook. (2011).  Facebook company:  Timeline.  Retrieved from http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline.
FCC. (2001).  Children’s Internet Protection Act.  Retrieved from http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act.
Funds for Learning. (2011).  FCC releases order updating Children’s Internet Protection Act.  Retrieved from http://www.fundsforlearning.com/release/2011/08/fcc-releases-order-updating-children%E2%80%99s-internet-protection-act.
Gantz, J., Chut, C., Mandfrediz, A., Minton, S., Reinsel, D., Schlichting, W. & Tonchev, A. (2008). The diverse and exploding digital universe: An updated forecast of worldwide information growth through 2011.  Framingham, MA:  IDC.  Retrieved from http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/diverse-exploding-digital-universe.pdf.
Gray, L., Thomas, N., Lewis, L., & Tice, P. (2010). Educational technology in U.S. public schools:  Fall 2008. U.S. Department of Education.  Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010034.pdf.
McLuhan, M. (1964).  Understanding media:  The extension of man.  NY:  McGraw Hill.
McLuhan, M. (1968).  Age of the information explosion interview.  Retrieved from http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com.
Office of Educational Technology. (2010). National education technology plan 2010.  Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf.
Stine, D. (2009), America COMPETES act:  Programs, funding and selected issues.  Retrieved from http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/19990.pdf.
YouTube. (2011).  Press room:  Timeline.  Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/t/press_timeline.

I don’t know

As a parent, I’ve become quite comfortable with the “I don’t know” response.  It started early on with the sheer volume of questions and now it’s the advanced nature.  Even as a tech teacher, I was okay with “I don’t know”.  First of all, I’ve got the whole rapid advancement of technology thing going for me.  If an adult asked me a question I didn’t know, I could often amaze and astound by merely searching and finding the answer.  If a student asked me a question I didn’t know, I’d often suggest some strategies for finding the answer.  I thought it was pretty cool when they’d show off the answer they’d found to me. 

Now as a masters of education student, I’m beginning to wonder at my laissez-faire attitude toward the amount of stuff I don’t know.  This week, I read in a textbook based on the latest brain research from 2009, that as a teacher I need “to have a very good grasp of the standards and be fully proficient in the subject that is being taught” while also providing a global experience of the subject that will cross curriculum boundaries and provide opportunities for students to authentically contribute.  There’s a disconnect for me somewhere in there.  While I agree that knowledge and proficiency is important, I think the information revolution has also made it relatively cheap to attain with the appropriate skills.  It’s those skills that most interest me and that I want to pass on to my students -  the ability to aggregate, validate and synthesize information.  At least, that’s how I approach the many thing I don’t know.