Three things this week that may indicate we’ve hit the ground. We may not have “hit the ground running”, but “the project” is ready to get up and walk.
One
I spoke with Jeff LeBow, Dave Cormier and the friendly folks at Ed Tech Weekly on Sunday night. Though embarrassed at allowing my amateurs colors to fly by causing an echo in the skypecast with my speakers, I was happy to have the chance to fish for some connections with schools that are also pursuing a Moodle/ELGG model. There is no doubt that the administrative, social and pedagogical issues will soon make themselves known, yet it would be helpful to have a “heads-up” from a school with experience. It turns out, there aren’t many.
However, I may have found some leads that will help us create the student dashboard which can take feeds from both the Moodle course calendars and forums and the ELGG blogs. Because I cannot even pretend to know the technical issues behind this, I will forward this to the Steve Auxter, the district’s Network Administrator, who has not yet failed to figure anything out.
Two
At our sparsely attended Technology Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the green light for population of the Moodle/ELGG classes was lit. My classes will make the jump from my private Moodle site to the school’s Moodle/ELGG as their current units end. Several other teachers have expressed interest with experimenting; now we can tell them they can start right away.
This is a significant step – we cannot tell what will happen until the teachers and students get into it and start to work.
Three
I shared the Essential Learnings Presentation with the Parent Teacher Organization last night, and it seemed to be received well. As some point I will have to write those thoughts into a complete article, with the hope that they are generally original, and add something useful to the vast dialogue on the changing nature of education.
It is important and encouraging that the parents, who are truly unique in combining their demands of the school system with unending support, are receptive to our ideas. They seem caught, as most of us are, between the grindstone of mandated, standardized tests, and college admission requirements still fettered with the requirements of an industrial age and the millstone our understanding of the changing nature of our world. Even if we know the arguments of Dan Pink and the analysis of Thomas Friedman are accurate, even if we know our children must be information processors instead of information memorizers, we still need them to top out on their SATs and SAT IIs in order to get into college.
Perhaps this dynamic is endemic to a cusp between one age and the next.
“even if we know our children must be information processors instead of information memorizers, we still need them to top out on their SATs and SAT IIs in order to get into college.”
I hate to do this, but I tend to disagree with that comment. I would tend to think that the majority of people would tend to be information memorizers rather than processors. Let’s be honest, for the most part, kids want to know what is on the test, and what they need to do to pass it. For the most part, that means that they recognize the need to memorize certain facts, events and ideas and then reproduce them on paper or select them from A, B, C or D. Sooner or later, the information that they memorized is gone because it is never reinforced, and that is where the true job of teachers is. The kids don’t ever really learn the material except for their purpose: passing a test. What teachers need to do more often, in my opinion, is work to continually keep the kids processing the information, that way a number of things will happen. 1) they will learn the material, 2) they might start to develop an interest in what they are now learning, and 3) with this new interest, they might go out and perform more research and make a career out of it. Repition is the mother of all learning and it is unfortunate that kids these days don’t really learn. That is stressed because of the major emphasis on tests.
So now let’s address these tests. All schools across the nation have to administer tests to their students. In many cases, it makes or breaks a teacher/principal/superintendent. Their job suddenly strays away from teaching, but becomes showing you how to pass a test. The SAT has become a joke in my opinion. It should be renedered obsolete. These so-called prep classes don’t teach you material, they teach you strategies on how to beat the test. In essence, these kids aren’t learning any material, they are learning how to play the system and win. That is ludacris. The same thing is happening across the nation in schools of every level. There has to be a lot less emphasis placed on these tests. There are kids out there who could be and who probably are geniuses at something, but because they may not be able to sit for a three hour test we are going to punish them for it. The same thing happens for grade schools and elementary schools and middle schools. It’s all about tests, and it kills not only the kids, but it kills the curriculum and much of what teachers should be trying to accomplish.
I would offer two comments, Platinum; one regarding information processing v. information memorization, the other regarding “repetition as the mother of all learning”. I believe the premise is that in an age where information (historical facts, statistical data, mathematical formulas, news accounts) is immediately accessible via a computer and shortly via hand-held device, memorization of minutia is no longer necessary. Instead, the skills of efficiently acquiring and organizing accurate information and then applying it in the analysis of a current challenge and employing it in the development and evaluation of various solutions is a higher, more fundamental aim of schooling. In this arrangement, learning is skill-based proficiency building, rather than information storage.
Next, in my experience, repetition may facilitate information storage but true skill development comes via active, real-world, contextualized “processing” (read activities/discussions/projects) that has meaning for students. Of course, this may be what you alluded to in your mention of processing. The only interest here in my response is to shine a light on what types seem to optimize motivation, cognition and growth. Thanks to both you and the author for encouraging me to “process”!
Separately, to Mr. Maher: Love the site … keep up the great work.