Day of the "Tech" Girl

I’m very excited to announce the launch of the Day of the “Tech” Girl website. It is a resource for folks interested in hosting and participating in tech-related activities and events on October 11, the first ever International Day of the Girl. I also see it as a resource for collecting, sharing and collaborating on gender equity issues in computing throughout the year. There are many collaborators and supporters to thank and many can be found on the about page.

Someone asked me why I started using the quotes around the word tech and it is because I don’t want to take away from the original Day of the Girl.  ”Tech” is just one of many facets we girls embrace. Please check out the website and join the collaboration - there are lots of ways to get involved!

Leveling Up Courage

My final assignment for the Educational Technology for School Leaders course I’ve been taking this summer from Jon Becker at VCU was a digital story.  The whole course challenged me to put forth my best, or at least better than usual, effort because most everything I produced was open for internet consumption. I found the digital story the most challenging, not because I’d never created movies before or told stories, but because I decided to actually appear on camera. I got the inspiration for my “story” from a behind the scenes video from one of Geek & Sundry’s Written by a Kid episodes.  I decided not to write a script because I wanted to come across more naturally, instead I jotted down the big ideas to get across for each section.  Then I just started rolling the camera and made many bloopers.

Ever since I discovered Marshall McLuhan, I have found his insights into how technological advances will affect humanity prophetic, so I start the video with one of his prophesies about people fearing the new environment surrounding them.  In one of my video takes, my response to McLuhan’s video is that a key skill an ed tech leader needs in the face of this fear is courage.  Wait - what did I say?  When I played it back, I wondered if that was a slip of the tongue.  Is courage really a skill or is it innate?  There appears to be no definitive answer on the internet, but I do find inspiration from another Geek & Sundry show - The FLOG.  During most episodes, Felicia Day works on leveling up a skill set by trying out something she has never done before like bulldozing, dancing, crocheting and blacksmithing.  I think courage is a skill I can improve on by trying out new things and stepping outside my comfort zone.  So while I think there is a lot of room for improvement of my on screen persona (aka I’m still pretty uncomfortable with the idea of appearing on screen), I’m sharing this video because I really want to level up on courage. 

What can you do on Leadership Day to level up your courage?

It was a small, yet auspicious kick-off for Teen Tech Girls today.  Since there were so few of us, we decided to approach it as a “test drive” of the material I wanted to cover to see if it worked well as a way to tell the story of gender equity issues in computer science as well as encourage interaction and feedback.  Seems like a success!  Here are the highlights:

What’s the problem?:

  • We looked at some data from the NCWIT scorecard & New Image for Computing. They were not surprised to learn about disinterest in computing fields for girls, but were a little surprised at the big dip for both genders over the last 10 years.
  • I shared a traditional definition of computer science - it was not inspiring.
  • I showed pictures by girls who were asked to draw a computer scientist - the pictures were not flattering.  We talked about some of the stereotypes associated with computer science and we decided to add this drawing activity next time.

Alternate realities:

  • We viewed the What IS a Dot Diva? & Girls in a Tech World videos - the girls loved them. 
  • I can’t recommend these videos enough as a way to open up the possibilities of computer science for girls.

Change the world:

  • We talked about next steps.  There was definitely interest in continuing the conversation and possibly starting a girls “club” to learn some new tech skills like creating iOS apps and website design & development. 
  • Of course, the start of summer offers its own challenges to build momentum, but I feel like this is a good start and the right course to continue on.

Many thanks Nilu, Lily & Dolly!

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
Global Village
To Be Continued?

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.

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
Information Explosion
Global Village
To Be Continued?

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.

World-Wide Web

The groundwork for the world-wide web was being laid throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s with the development of Internet technology.  During this experimental time, the Internet was used primarily by computer science researchers (Leiner et al., 1996).  It was not until 1991, that Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, made the first world-wide web browser and server available to the public (Computer History Museum, 2006).  This brought about a key transition to Internet access from a command-line based interface to a user-friendly graphical interface.  In 1993, America Online (AOL) encouraged new users to explore this easy-to-use interface by bringing online games, e-mail, chat and news to PCs running Windows (AOL, 2011).  During the 1990s, there was an unprecedented growth in Internet users and content.  While it took television broadcasters 13 years to reach an audience of 50 million, the Internet achieved this number of users in just four years and then added an additional 100 million users just one year later.  In 1993 there were 50 pages on the world-wide web and by 1999, there were more than 50 million pages (UN Cyberschoolbus, 2000).  

During this time period, Congress also revisited the nation’s educational priorities.  In 1994, Congress authorized the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA), which was an overhaul to the 1965 ESEA.  This legislation included a whole section devoted to Technology for Education.  
“The purpose of this part is to support a comprehensive system for the acquisition and use by elementary and secondary schools in the United States of technology and technology-enhanced curricula, instruction, and administrative support resources and services to improve the delivery of educational services (Technology for Education Act, 1994).”

That same year, Congress also authorized Goals 2000:  Educate America Act.  The purpose of this legislation was to establish National Education Goals as well as to provide a framework for meeting those goals. An Office of Educational Technology was established to support the Leadership in Educational Technology goal (Educate America Act, 1994).

Even with IASA and GOALS 2000 education legislation aimed at improving technology learning, a 1997 report on the state of technology in the classroom, confirmed that there was still a large gap in meeting the objective that every student have access to technology education.  The report highlighted “only 14% of U.S. classrooms have access to the Internet,” the student-to-computer ratio was 10:1, and “only 15% of teachers reported having at least 9 hours of training in educational technology” (Coley, Cradler & Engel, 1997, p. 5 & 7).

In his 1996 State of the Union Address, President Clinton issued “a call to action for American education in the 21st century” and announced a new program known as the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund.  Congress subsequently approved $200 million in the 1997 Appropriations Bill, as the first installment of the Technology Literacy Challenge (ED.gov, 1996).  That same year, the Telecommunications Act established the E-rate program, which was aimed at providing discounts to schools to acquire Internet access (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2004).  

“World-Wide Web” 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
Global Village
To Be Continued?

References
America Online. (2011). About AOL:  Overview.  Retrieved from http://corp.aol.com/about-aol/overview.
Coley, R. Cradler, J. & Engel, P. (1997). Computers and classrooms:  The status of technology in U.S. schools.  NJ: Educational Testing Service.
ED.gov. (1996). Technology Literacy Challenge Fund.  Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/Technology/TLCF/index.html.
Educate America Act, 1994
Kaiser Family Foundation. (2004). Children, the digital divide and federal policy.  Retrieved from http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/Children-The-Digital-Divide-And-Federal-Policy-Issue-Brief.pdf.
Leiner, B., Cerf, V., Clark, D., Kahn, R., Kleinrock, L., Lynch, D., Postel, J., Roberts, L. & Wolff, S. (1996).  A brief history of the Internet.  Retrieved from http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml.
Technology for Education Act, 1994
UN Cyberschoolbus. (2000).  Information and communications technology: Vital statistics.  Retrieved from http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/briefing/technology/tech.pdf.

Information Age

The 1970s ushered in the dawn of the Information Age.  Technology innovations came in the form of ever shrinking electronic devices with ever increasing processing power, as well as the large-scale conversion of information into a variety of digital formats.  In 1971, the first e-mail was sent over the ARPANET.  In 1972, Pong was created by Odyssey, the first game console maker.  In 1977, the Commodore PET was the first home computer system released, followed by the IBM PC in 1981 and the Apple IIc personal computer in 1984 (Computer History Museum, 2006).  The information age unleashed more than just technological innovations; it also created a new labor force known as “knowledge workers” (Drucker, 1986, p. 17).

Desktop computers slowly began making their way into the classroom in the 1970s.  According to a 1971 article in the Reading Eagle, The American Institute for Research conducted a study that “found that 13% of the nation’s public high schools use computers for instruction” (UPI, p. 27).  It is also during this time that the concept of instructional and educational technology was forming.  The Commission on Instructional Technology described it as the use of “media born of the communications revolution which can be used for instructional purposes along side the teacher, textbook, and blackboard” (Gentry, 1970). 

In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education delivered a report to the nation titled “A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.”  That same year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) delivered its report titled, “Educating Americans for the 21st Century.”  Both reports highlighted the need for improving technology education. The NSF’s report issued a specific challenge that by “1995, the Nation must provide, for all its youth, a level of mathematics, science and technology education that is the finest in the world” (Coleman, Selby, et al., 1983, p. v).   This challenge was taken up by Congress in October of 1983 and led to a major funding initiative that restored NSF programs to “encourage the development of educational technologies” (National Science Foundation, 1983).

“Information Age” 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
Global Village
To Be Continued?


References
Coleman, W. & Selby, C. (1983). Educating Americans for the 21st Century.  Retrieved from http://csmc.missouri.edu/PDFS/CCM /summaries/EducatingAmericans.pdf.
Computer History Museum Exhibits. (2006). Timeline of computer history.  Retrieved from http://www.computerhistory.org.
Drucker, P. (1986).  The frontiers of management: Where tomorrow’s decisions are being shaped today. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing Company.
Gentry, C. (1987). Educational technology.  Retrieved from http://bsuipt595.pbworks.com/f/gentry.pdf.
National Science Foundation (1983). A timeline of NSF history.  Retrieved from http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/history-nsf/1983_education.jsp.
UPI. (1971, February 4). Computers employed as teaching aids. Reading Eagle.

Rise of the Machine

The first generation of electronic computers came on the scene in the 1940s.  Even though these machines were extraordinarily large and made lots of noise, they were not well known to the general public.  Colossus, an electronic machine designed in 1943 to break German codes in World War II, was kept secret until 1970 (Computer History Museum, 2006, ).  These first computers, while primitive by today’s standards, proved their usefulness in applied science and engineering (Drakos, 1994).  The second generation of computers in the 1950s, included the first supercomputers for research and the development of high level programming languages  (Drakos, 1994).  The third generation of computers in the 1960s gave rise to the machines developed for commercial use (Computer History Museum, 2006).

During this period two important acts were passed by Congress, creating education law that will have an impact on the future funding of technology learning.  The 1958 National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed in response to the Cold War and desire by Congress to fully develop the “mental resources and technical skills of its young men and women.”  The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was passed in response to the War on Poverty.  While neither of these laws specifically mentioned technology or electronic equipment, according to Joel Spring, Professor at Queens College, they indicated a shift in education policy to provide “federal categorical aid” that “comes with strings attached” and ties “federal education programs to national policy agendas” (Spring, p. 64-65).  

“Rise of the Machine” 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
Global Village
To Be Continued?


References
Computer History Museum Exhibits. (2006). Timeline of computer history.  Retrieved from http://www.computerhistory.org.
Drakos, N. (1994). A brief history of computer technology.  Retrieved from http://www.phy.ornl.gov/csep/ov/ov.html.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. (1965).  Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/49149656/Elementary-and-Secondary-Education-Act-of-1965.
National Defense Education Act. (1958).  Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/57012400.
Spring, J. (1993). Conflicts of interests: The politics of American education. New York: Longman.