Today, I begin with with Sal Khan and his journey to reinvent education. I had the opportunity to visit with Sal, prior to his keynote speech last week, at the 2011 CCSA conference in San Diego. It was great to share ideas with and ask question of someone helping to radically impact education. During our conversation, we spoke about the disruption the Khan Academy has presented to traditional education. Sal began with a decidedly low-tech approach to teaching and posted his lessons to Youtube. Since 2004, he has created more than 2,100 videos that receive millions of views each year.

I was able to record a ten minute selection of our conversation. Listen to Sal explain the Khan Academy and his vision for the future of education.

• Sal Khan-Khan Academy (MP3 Audio File)

As always we look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments. You can find us on Twitter (@darylljohnson or @sroner) and Facebook (EDBuzz).

The goal of this category is to provide school administrator’s with easier access to school-focused applications. This new offering is aimed at helping solve some of the unique issues faced by education institutions. These include lack of financial resources, security for a customer-base that is under 18, and the ability to access current technology. Google’s new education category is designed to offer cutting edge collaboration tools.

Here’s a quick video explaining the category:

With the creation of the Education category, Google has highlighted two significant benefits for schools.

1. Access to cutting-edge tools
2. Easy Integration

With more schools embracing Google-driven, cloud-based platforms, integration becomes a breeze. GrockIT, Aviary, LearnBoost, BrainPop, and others have lined up to provide innovative tools for teachers and students. For schools usng Gmail for student and faculty accounts, adding these applications makes real sense.

Shawn and I have been working with our IT department to provide a more robust Google apps implementation for our school. We will share more of our experiences along the way, please share yours.

I came across this graphic while reading Darren Kuropatwa’s blog which I think wonderfully summarizes the sorts of leadership principles that are necessary to promote meaningful educational reform. Effective change requires a clear vision, appropriate skills, meaningful incentives directly related to outcomes, necessary resources, and a well thought out action plan.

When a lack of vision exists, organizational confusion occurs. This is why it’s important for school leaders to work with administrators, faculty members, and parents to construct a meaningful vision and expend the necessary time and energy to clearly articulate it to the school’s community.

Preparing a school or district for significant change also requires building organizational capacity for this type of change. Simply put, administrators and teachers must have the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to make change happen. When team members lack these skills,  a sort of professional anxiety results which usually cripples an organization.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge facing school leaders is the general resistance to change that is often expressed by teachers. Many schools face the seemingly insurmountable task of convincing their faculties of the necessity of implementing the sort of systemic change discussed earlier. Without meaningful incentives, resistance naturally occurs, particularly when the extent of the organizational change is significant.

Another important roadblock for school leaders to avoid is frustration that results from a lack of resources. With the terrible budget cuts facing most schools, building organizational capacity for change is as difficult as ever. Building a 21st century learning environment sounds great when teachers have fast computers, a network that is reliable, the technological resources necessary, and worthwhile professional development. But, how many administrators have access to the sort of capital that would enable them to build the type of  infrastructure necessary to transform their schools?

Finally, when the leadership doesn’t present a clear, common-sense action plan, the school finds itself on the “treadmill of change.” Effective change requires an effective action plan that includes all the aforementioned principles.

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The professor, David E. Pritchard, led a research team that analyzed student performance in an online homework system called MasteringPhysics.com during four different semesters. The researchers were able to measure the time spent on each question and look for suspicious work patterns. If a student took less than a minute each answering several complex questions and got them all right, for instance, the system flagged that as likely cheating. “Since one minute is insufficient time to read the problem and enter the several answers typically required, we infer that the quick-solver group is copying the answer from somewhere,” said the researchers in a paper due out today in the free online journal Physical Review Special Topics–Physics Education Research.

Based on later surveys of the same students, researchers found that the culprits typically copied answers from friends, by logging onto a friend’s account on the system to copy work or by getting answers via e-mail or instant message.

For veteran teachers this is hardly a surprising revelation. The complexity of cheating and plagiarism schemes has increased with the rise of technology and ability to transfer information digitally. Cellphones and other devices have made cheating easier than ever, see The Cheating Heart for an overview. Furthermore, despite the education aimed at informing students about copyright and intellectual property, it is clear that generation y and future generations seem to have a different perspective regarding copyright.

While many would point to this as indicating the need for better detection systems, real success comes from successfully encouraging students to choose not to cheat. Restrictive access to technology and more robust detection schemes may seem appealing but lead to students and teachers engaging in a never ending cycle of trying to outsmart one another. This doesn’t mean ignoring cheating or giving it a free pass. In this Web 2.0 world, it does mean, demonstrating a better way and allowing students to make choices. If unethical, according to Professor Pritchard, these choices mean that cheaters will earn the scores they deserve.

In my next article I will outline three keys to building an environment supportive of ethical decision-making. Until then I’d like to hear your comments and observations.

With a growing expectation that both the Federal and State governments will provide a large infusion of funds in 2010 to facilitate school reform, it is important that school leaders consider the extent to which technology will shape this effort.  The purpose of the list, then, is to provide a general framework for educators and policy makers as they consider the role technology should play in educational reform moving forward.

According to ISTE, educatonal leaders and policy makers must

1. “Establish technology in education as the backbone of school improvement.” According to ISTE, effective ans sustainable school reform must involve a significant commitment to technology. The authors argue, “technology must permeate every corner of the learning process.” This includes not only student learning but other important areas, including professional development and school administration.
2. Effectively utilize technology to better prepare students for post-secondary learning and increase college attendance rates. According to the authors, “we must embrace new instructional approaches that both increase the college-going rates and the high school graduation rates. By effectively engaging learning through technology, teachers can demonstrate the relevance of 21st century education, keeping more children in the pipeline as they pursue a rigorous, interesting and pertinent PK-12 public education.”
3. “Ensure technology expertise is infused throughout our schools and classrooms.” District leaders must ensure each school in their districts have access to technology experts who can effectively build the organization’s capacity to effectively utilize technology to improve student achievement.
4. “Continuously upgrade educators’ classroom technology skills as a pre-requisite of “highly effective” teaching.” According to the authors, “[Educational leaders] must commit that all P-12 educators have the skills to use modern information tools and digital content to support student learning in content areas and for student assessment. Effective teachers in the 21st Century should be, by definition, technologically savvy teachers.”
5. Ensure all new teachers are prepared and able to use technology to educate students.
6. Use technology to “scale improvement” and “accelerate reform.” “School districts that have successfully led school turnaround and improvement efforts recognize that education technology is one of the best ways to accelerate reform, providing the immediate tools to ensure that all teachers and students have access to the latest innovative instructional pathways.”
7. Ensure broadband access for all students and teachers.
8. Utilize technology to more effectively collect and assess relevant data. Teachers must use technology to help them tailor instruction to meet individual student learning needs. In addition, teachers must utilize technology to collect the sort of data that can be used to inform their instruction.
9. Invest in research and development. “Increased investment in education R&D, particularly with regard to innovation in teaching and learning, ensures that we remain a global leader in education. By stimulating meaningful, broad-based research and the dissemination of such research, we can ensure that the quality of teaching and learning in our classrooms keeps up with the goals and expectations we set for our students.”
10. “Promote global digital citizenship.”

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Cloud Computing

If schools are going to use technology to improve organizational processes, it’s important their leaders consider moving many of the school’s daily operations onto a cloud-based network. This enables the sort of communication that can only be accomplished by utilizing the  networking and information sharing power of a cloud system. I enjoyed a post on this topic from a few months ago, entitled “Heads in the Cloud.” The author discusses a few ways his school uses Google to communicate more effectively. Here are a few ideas I really liked:

1. Noticeboards– “[the author's school] no longer use a noticeboard in the staffroom as all staff log into our Google site from anywhere in the world and the first thing they see is our ‘virtual’ noticeboard and a staff calendar, which outlines what’s going on over the next few days.
   All staff can add events to the staff calendar or add announcements on the Virtual Noticeboard.  Although we are a small school, there are, on average, 4-5 announcements made each week.  These range from reminders about meetings to announcements about new resources.  Teachers often post up announcements that they have uploaded new resources to our resource sharing section.  The calendar also gets used for smaller events that don’t generally make it on to traditional staffroom noticeboards.  For example, people can see who’s gone on EPV days, if the principal (me) is at a meeting or if a psychologist is in.  Another cool feature of the “Announcements” section is the ability for staff to comment.  For example, last week I made an announcement on the site asking staff which week they would prefer parent-teacher meetings and gave a date to answer by.  50% of the staff left a comment on the site and the dates were chosen.”
2. Staff Meetings– “ ‘Will you stick x on the agenda please?’ is an often forgotten job, which can lead to disgruntled staff members.  In my school, if a staff member wants to add something to the staff meeting, we have a “live” agenda document which can be added to by anyone.  A few days before the meeting, the document is “closed” and the agenda is set.”
3. Learning Support– “I have found the “cloud” one of the best things for Learning Support.  One of my aims of Learning Support was to have weekly booster sessions for children who might not have grasped a concept during class, for whatever reason.  I wanted to free up a 15 minute session for 5 days so the support staff could teach that concept to get them back in the fold.  Sometimes a child doesn’t need a long period of Learning Support so this was ideal.  However, it would be almost impossible to manage without my cloud.If a teacher feels that a child (or small group of children) require a boost in a certain area of the curriculum, they can book a “catch-up session”.  This involves them filling out a simple form.  The Learning Support team then “grab” and book a particular session for a particular week.  The teacher can then, at a glance, see when their child will be given this session.  It works on a first come first served basis.  It’s working really really well in my school.
   Another cool thing for our Learning Support team is to have access to any of our assessment results.  Our Micra-T and Sigma-T results can be seen in a table so that we can pinpoint and prioritise who will be allocated Learning Support.”

If you are using cloud computing at your school, please share your ideas!

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1. Google Apps for Education– “Google Apps Education Edition is a free suite of hosted communication & collaboration applications designed for schools and universities.” The suite includes apps to help teachers communicate (Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk) and collaborate (Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Groups, and Google Video).

2. Evernote– Evernote is a great tool to save ideas, things you see during the school day, and important information. Teachers and administrators can use this app from their smartphones to create a note on a student or class, clip a web page to look at later, take a photo, grab a screen shot, or save an audio file. Evernote is a wonderful tool that can help busy teachers easily capture important information and quickly organize it. I access Evernote from my smartphone during the school day to organize my thoughts and record important school-related information. When I get a chance to sit down at my desk (and I have a little more time to think),  I access Evernote from my desktop to update and further organize the information I captured with my smartphone.

3. Basecamp– Basecamp is a terrific project management application. Users can easily share files, assign tasks, organize information, and manage deadlines. Basecamp is a wonderful tool for site administrators, department chairs, or site committees.

4. Dimdim– This app enables users to easily screen share. Users can deliver presentations online, share videos, or other types of interactive information. The best part of Dimdim is that it is 100% browser-based and, therefore, doesn’t require instillation or downloading of software. Dimdim is a great way for teachers and administrators to share information, host online meetings, and participate in professional development activities.

5. Mindmeister– Mindmeister is a mind-mapping tool that can help educators design, organize, and share complex ideas. Mindmeister is a great tool to map and design curriculum, organize department strategies, or outline a district policy. Another similar app I use on my smartphone is Thinking Space. Although it’s not quite as good as Mindmeister, I like being able to access the tool on my smartphone while I’m meeting with teachers, sharing ideas, or organizing my thoughts (on the run!).

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While many secondary schools continue to utilize basic Web 1.0 website technology to communicate with parents, students, and the broader community, most of the people schools are trying to reach, particularly the students and parents, rely on Web 2.0 technology like Facebook to share and receive information, even when it relates to education.

Most school websites are one-way information highways that might be appealing in design but lacking in functionality. As a result of the Web 2.0 revolution, students and parents are becoming accustomed to using social media technology to gather important information. From an educator’s perspective, it seems what makes these technologies appealing, particularly to the edupunks, is the various social media tools that enable users to easily publish ideas and broadcast them to a wide audience. Unlike the one way communication associated with Web 1.0, today’s technology enables users to create a sort of digital identity by sharing personal thoughts and relevant ideas. By utilizing social networking tools, savvy users can create and participate in a vibrant online community. For the 21st century student, this is powerful stuff.

With this in mind, it’s important for educators to consider the different ways this technology can be used to improve how schools communicate with students and parents. It’s also important to consider how social media technology can be used to create a dynamic online presence or digital community that promotes important aspects of the school’s mission. One particular Web 2.0 platform with enormous potential to improve the way schools communicate is the social networking site Facebook.

More and more teachers and administrators are taking advantage of the different tools Facebook offers to improve how they communicate with parents and students. What’s exciting is the way Facebook is being used to create a vibrant learning community.

For the past few months, I’ve been using Facebook to communicate with parents. I have to be honest. Being a high school administrator, I had serious reservations about using social media technology in this way. At first, I guess I was really worried about all the potential pitfalls. I suppose it was the administrator side of me!

Anyway, I thought I’d share a few examples of how administrators at my school are using Facebook to improve the way they communicate with parents and students.

1. Constant Contact– Managing a school today is as difficult as ever. With state-mandated testing, extracurricular activities, fundraising pressures, academic concerns, and so on, effective communication is particularly important. But, finding ways to effectively communicate with parents and students is certainly not an easy task. Today’s digital world  is noisy, complex, and often times disorienting. The result often means school communication gets muddled and with it the intended message is often lost in translation.  With all the other things going on, it’s not easy getting the parents’ attention, let alone the students. This is why frequent contact with parents and students is vital to successful school communication. If schools can find a reliable conduit to communicate to parents and students on a regular basis, school administrators are able to share important information that will not only improve student achievement but help build a productive and healthy school culture.

Facebook’s social networking tools can help build the sort of communication structure that enables school administrators to communicate with students and parents on a regular basis. Because most parents and students are comfortable using Facebook to communicate, utilizing the following applications can really help improve school-related communication.

• Group Feature– Creating targeted communication groups, such as for parents, students, specific grade levels, or extracurricular activities, allow administrators to easily share information in a way that is specifically tailored for the recipient.

• Event Schedule Feature– Because most schools need to communicate information related to numerous school-related events, Facebook’s event scheduling feature can really facilitate effective communication. Scheduling an event is very simple and its broadcast feature allows school administrators to not only reach a large audience but easily remind parents and students of important events (For the busy parent, this is certainly a plus!).

• Send Message Feature– This feature enables school administrators to send messages directly to parents and students. Administrators can create a variety of groups based on communication needs. What makes this application so appealing is, much like e-mail, administrators can pinpoint communication to specific parents or students.

• Multimedia Feature– School administrators can share multimedia with parents and students. The ability to easily share multimedia with parents and students can greatly enhance the way schools communicate.

• Announcement Feature– School administrators can easily broadcast announcements and reminders to help parents and students stay on top of important school-related events.

• Blogging Feature– By using the “What’s on your mind?” feature or the “Notes” feature, administrators can provide daily updates, blog about important events and issues, and provide valuable information for parents.

2. Back-to-school– One of the most powerful ways school administrators can use Facebook is to provide parents with a unique inside view of the daily operations of the school. Administrators can take pictures of daily events, record interviews with teachers and students, film student projects or particular parts of a teacher’s lesson and share this information with parents. If designed properly (and in accordance with student privacy rights), these “snapshots” can provide a powerful insight into the school’s community. Because today’s parents really want to be involved in the day-to-day activities of their students, utilizing Facebook can be a very effective way to create this meaningful connection for busy parents. Besides, by emphasizing certain aspects of the school’s community, administrators can have a powerful hand in shaping it.

3. Digital Discussions– By using the discussion feature, school administrators can create a safe and effective way for parents to share ideas with school administrators. As long as the discussion items are properly designed and managed, they can present a wonderful way for parents to participate in the school’s decision making process.

4. Alumni Communication– One of the most popular ways school administrators use Facebook is to help former students connect with their classmates after graduation.

Facebook is a powerful tool for school administrators because its social networking structure can be used to facilitate communication and build a dynamic online community. Most parents and students have Facebook accounts, and they update them on a regular basis. This means school administrators have a powerful communication tool at their finger tips, one that can be used to share all kinds of information– blogs, event updates, photographs, and video. This information can easily be tailored to meet the personal needs of the school’s community.

With this in mind, it’s important for educators to rethink how they communicate with parents and students. This new communication transformation must involve the sorts of social media tools normally associated with Web 2.0. These tools present an exciting opportunity to improve the way educators communicate.

Here are a few links to help you develop a vibrant school community. Good luck!

Opening Facebook: How to Use Facebook in the College Classroom

The Facebook Classroom: 25 Apps that Are Perfect for Online Education

Schools Use Facebook, Twitter to Get Out Their Message

Teacher’s Guide to Using Facebook

PBS Teachers

If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead

Best Practices for Educators Using Facebook

How To Social Media Videos for Administrators

Drive Belonging and Engagement in the Classroom

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In the “good old days,” dealing with cheating seemed much easier, didn’t it? Instill the fear of God in your students (This is the where we gave the big pep talk about honesty!); implement effective classroom management procedures (especially during exams); keep your eyes peeled, and for the most part student cheating seemed to be minimized to the usual suspects, right? Unfortunately, due to new technology circumstances have changed.

In recent years, it seems the minds of our students have changed in a significant way. Today’s students spend dozens of hours a week on the Internet– playing video games, constantly chatting with friends, and religiously cultivating their Facebook accounts. It appears as students spend more time communicating with their peers using mobile and social media technologies, their minds are being wired differently. I suppose this is why we, the digital immigrants, refer to our students as being digital natives. But, it’s not only their minds that are changing. Their perspectives are changing, too.

Today’s students have developed different learning needs based on the way they process information, particularly the digital kind. As they spend much of their crazy adolescent years navigating through the Wild, Wild West we call Web 2.0, these kids are developing different ethical perspectives, new perspectives formed by their youthful experiences with this new technology. I suppose what is most concerning is this new perspective is much different than that of the educators who are entrusted with the duty of teaching them every day. One particular area where the difference is startling is in how today’s students view cheating.

Perhaps this is why a recent poll conducted by Common Sense Media suggests that students are using mobile technology at an alarming rate to cheat in school. I suppose this isn’t terribly shocking for those of us who are still in the classroom. But what is disturbing is another aspect of what the poll found: The number of students who think it’s okay to cheat. It’s not that students cheat using technology that bothers me. It’s that they don’t think it’s a big deal.

Here’s a few results of the polling:

1. A little more than a third of students with cell phones admit to cheating at least once with their cell phones.
2. Twenty-six percent of the students who admit to using their cell phones to cheat also admit to storing information on their phones to use during tests.
3. Twenty-five percent text friends during test to get answers.
4. Seventeen percent take pictures of tests to cheat.
5. Twenty percent search the Internet during tests for answers.
6. Nearly fifty percent of students call or text their friends to warn them about pop quizzes.
7. A little over half of students surveyed admit to using the Internet in some way to cheat.
8. Twenty-one percent say they’ve downloaded a paper to submit for an assignment.

I could keep going with the statistics, but I think you get the point. Things aren’t looking good for our kids. I think what is most disturbing about the survey, aside from the extent of cheating in school, is the following statistic: Only half of students polled think using their cell phones during tests is a serious cheating offense! Only thirty-six percent of students who have downloaded a paper from the Internet to submit for an assignment think their behavior represents a serious form of cheating.

I can hear the student now. “What’s the big deal?”

After reading the report, I was left wondering why so many kids think it’s okay to use technology to cheat. Perhaps part of the reason has to do with the fact that kids have spontaneous access to all sorts of mobile technology while at school. This makes monitoring students terribly difficult. In other words, cheating is so darn easy! But, why do kids think it’s okay to cheat?

This is where the student “wiring” comes in. After talking to dozens of kids about cheating, whether texting during tests, getting answers from the Internet, or illegally downloading music, etc., I think I might know the reason. Today students think very differently about information (i.e., the stuff they’re putting together to form knowledge and understanding during class.) because of how they interact with it on a day-to-day basis. Unlike the educators who teach them, students see the Internet as a seamless part of their youthful reality. It’s not simply a tool or a form of communication. It’s a social experience based on digital democratization– i.e., total openness, few rules, and little personal accountability. While on the Internet, many students feel it’s okay to do whatever they want, say whatever they want, and there really shouldn’t be accountability for them or their peers.

I think there’s another reason, too. Unlike the “brick and mortar” communication where students have been taught the various protocols of appropriate communication, this hasn’t happened yet for the digital natives. Very few schools implement coordinated efforts with parents and teachers to inform students about the ethical parameters of not only online communication but using technology in general. Just as in any other area of their lives, kids need to learn the rules of the game.