by John T. Spencer Someone recently commented on this blog, asking if an innovative high school was simply a "minimum security prison."  I'm not shocked by the comment.  Lately, it seems that teachers have been compared to slave-drivers, prison wardens, thieves and child abusers.  Yes, I've read about the industrial nature of schooling.  Honestly, I agree that there are some real issues with compulsory schooling.  But prison? Really?  How many people who make that comparison have ever known a loved one who spent time in both?People can slam schools all they want. They can slam the system and complain about industrialization.  They can make charts comparing the similarities (walls, cafeterias, lack of free movement, design, etc,) But just as I don’t oppose home learning (as opposed to homework), I don’t oppose an alternative method of education within the confines of the school.The social and cultural realities are that my students have parents who work two or three jobs and they simply cannot un-school or homeschool. I don’t get to choose my students nor do they get to choose me. We don’t get to chose standards, either.But . . .I can do documentaries, independent projects, murals, blogs and all kinds of learning that they find interesting.I can advocate a humane, meaningful relationship to replace traditional discipline.I can shift my pedagogy to problem-based and project-based.I can do away with grades and homework.I can encourage free movement.I can have honest dialogue that leads to small acts of liberation.Some would point to me and say that it’s simply a "minimum security prison." And at that point, it’s not worth it. When we disagree on metaphors, it’s pointless to have a conversation. Maybe it is a prison. Maybe. But if it is, I would hope that a seed can grow under the industrial pavement and something organic is happening inside a place that is designed to be artificial. I would hope (and perhaps I am naive) that authentic learning can happen anywhere - even within the prison walls. I would hope that if we are stuck in a box, we can repurpose that box.If it is a prison, don't we need compassionate people working quietly to subvert it?  Don't we need a few more Andy Dufresne bringing art and voice and beauty to a place that is so often at war against such things? 

by John T. SpencerThere are no free apps.  I know, I know.  Some of them don't cost a penny.  I get that.  But they aren't free.  Not really.  Corporations use "free" in order to sell something.  Apple sells more products.  Google sells more advertising.  App-developers offer "free" with the goal of selling a nicer version.  Often, freeware developers have a goal of selling customized consulting and IT development. Even open source comes with layers of cultural, social and political systemic thinking.  Regardless of geography, every medium develops in a context and that context comes loaded with socio-cultural layers. There is a cost to every application.  Sometimes it's environmental.  Other times, it's social.  But it always costs something.Perhaps we shouldn't be looking for "free" apps at all. Maybe we need to switch to a paradigm that says, "What is the cost?" and "What is the trade-off?"  Perhaps instead of saying, "Is this free?" we need to ask, "Is this worth it?"

by David AndradeI keep wondering about this. Supposedly, public education in America is "failing". I don't understand how. We have changed how we do things in our classrooms and have all these online resources. Students can access information and help resources from their phones. So why are we "failing?"When I was in high school, we sat in a chair and took notes. We talked about books in English, studied historical events, did labs in science, and did tons of problems in math. We learned and we went off to college and did well. We had almost no support programs in the building.Now, as teachers, we differentiate, do projects, have students doing online enrichment work, have social workers, psychologists, tutoring and mentoring programs. Yet, students are apparently failing.We have "improved" education, yet we are "failing". I don't get it. We do all this "reform" yet nothing is changing.Of course, it could have something to do with the method of evaluating education being a mostly invalid, standardized test where even students who don't speak English have to take it. It could have something to do with more and more students having less parenting at home due to single parents, absentee parents, or parents working multiple jobs. It could have something to do with students not getting read to and starting to read later in life. It could have to do with the test being completely useless. It could have to do with professional educators being left out of decisions and planning for educational issues.It just boggles my mind how we have some many support systems, great teachers, incredible lessons and resources, and yet we are "failing."Can anyone explain it?-- David Andrade, http://tinyurl.com/edtechguy 

by Shelly Blake-PlockI think this is sort of a big deal: http://www.youtube.com/Teachers

by Shelly Blake-PlockWe've debated Douglas Rushkoff's ideas regarding "Program or Be Programmed" on this blog before. Whichever -- and whatever -- way you feel about Rushkoff, the idea that kids would benefit from learning to program is an idea in and of itself long overdue in the edu mainstream. In my own experience, I still remember learning BASIC back in second grade as part of a computer science pilot program. That early introduction to programming gave me much more than the ability to write GOTO operations; it gave me a sense of how conditional operations function and thus impressed upon me early the structural value of logic.We've come a long way since BASIC, but for many kids programming remains something of a mystery. With this in mind, it put a smile on my face this morning to run across a @noblehour retweet of a mention by @edlioinc of the resources available at happynerds.Happynerds, the brainchild of Rails developer Michael Kohl, provides descriptions and links to a ton of kid-oriented programming learning resources for Windows, Mac, Linux, and even browser-based media.As the site states:I believe that in today's world there are many reasons why children should pick up programming early on. In an environment increasingly dominated by computers, accompanying skills should be taught to children for the same reason we teach them languages, mathematics or geography. It is our responsibility to equip children with the knowledge necessary to understand our world and to have a host of options in it and I believe that programming can play an integral part in this.Happynerds began back in December 2009 and now features everything from Ruby for Kids to game design software. The original post explaining how the project started cites the inspiration of Railsbridge's "Teaching Kids" mission. Some very inspiring ideas both at Railsbridge and at Happynerds; it's well worth your time to check it out. 

Margaret Roth is a secondary school teaching intern in Baltimore City Public Schools. An MAT candidate at Johns Hopkins, Margaret is interested in leadership and all sorts of avenues of education beyond the traditional classroom. This piece came out of her work in my Paperless Classroom course at Hopkins; it's context is Baltimore, but the theme is pretty universal. I thought it would make a good fit in the pages of this blog, and so I offer it to you. To read more of Margaret's writing, check out her blog: teachingdaisies. -- Shellyby Margaret RothIs there a place for 21st Century Technology in Baltimore City Public Schools?This is a stupid question. Of course, there is place for social media and digital technologies in Baltimore City Public Schools, maybe not that there is a place, but there should be - there has to be, and we, as educators and parents, have to make it. I have spent the last five weeks of my life in a class titled "The Paperless Classroom." Day one I was told to make a Twitter, a freaking Twitter. At first I freaked out and I grasped for remnants of my pre-college too-cool-for-Facebook-MySpace-hating-self to justify my life up to this point. I was then forced to answer the question why? And I didn’t have an answer. For the next five weeks, I signed up for more digital media programs than I ever thought for a second existed. I found out that an entire universe of information was living all around me and that there were people who could breathe it, and I was suffocating. And today, maybe, I finally learned how to breathe in this world. I realized why all of this new media is important, what all this has led up to: I have created my digital soul. I have entered the digital age, and I am a more complete individual because of it. Yet, this digital world is being made inaccessible to our students. Why do we send our children to school, if we are not going to let them learn to breathe on the outside? If we send students to school to lock them up in a building, to take away their phones, to restrict them with web filters, to forbid our teachers from forming relationships with them, what are we teaching them?Nothing. Nothing but to be afraid of the rest of the world, that the rest of the world and the digital universe are only there to hurt them. We are cultivating ignorance by fueling our students with disconnect and starving them with a lack of resources. Right now we have the opportunity to give students a global classroom, to connect them with the rest of the world, all of our history, and all of our future. If we don’t make changes and get our students connected to this digital world, we will leave them behind, without a chance of changing. Students in this city have enough problems when they start out, they are already dealing with things that no child deserves to face. How can we knowingly deprive them of the resources to make themselves better?Our students have the right to extend themselves and we have the responsibility to give them the tools to do so. To extend themselves they need to have an understanding of digital technology, they need to create and have an ownership of their digital soul. We need to start acknowledging the fact that what we do and experience digitally defines us just as much as the things that we do in our sensory life; that the comments we leave on a website, or photos we upload, are a digital record of ourselves - they are the ultimate journal, a record of our thoughts, saved universally, something that we can never loose, showing how we grow, and pending disaster, never erase. We need to embrace the fact that there is nothing wrong with this - we need to quit teaching our children to be afraid of this. The digital soul -- the record of ourselves and the redefinition of our personal space -- may be the most important advantage of social media and digital technology.But due to the culturally created fear and the resistance of our current school policies to change, we have limited not only our own lives but the opportunities for the success of our students. Unless we enable them to move into the 21st century classroom, we are locking them out of success in our rapidly changing world, we are leaving them on the wrong side of a rapidly rising wall - a wall that they can not even see.  Baltimore City students see enough walls. We have to give them the tools to build a place in the digital universe where their digital souls can be just as real as the ones we see dreaming inside of them.

by Shelly Blake-PlockAs I am teaching my students virtually this year, it's become important to create a space where I can provide structured office hours. That space is Google+ and from noon to 12:30pm EST most every Friday, that's where I am.I am opening up that time to anyone in the professional teaching community to chat, brainstorm, and discuss issues in education and professional development. My only caveat is that if one of my students drops by the Google+ office, they get my full attention.

by John T. SpencerI'm co-writing a novel right now with my wife.  It's an exciting, confusing, invigorating, messy process.  It's something we talked about a few years back, but I never pursued it, because I didn't see any opportunity in it.  After all, I had to say something re-tweetable on Twitter chats in order to maintain my Klout score.  I felt the need to prove myself on a few group blogs and chase every opportunity for teacher professional development.  I had the chance to boost my ego, but to co-write a book felt humbling.  I wouldn't have control. I wanted to matter. I wanted influence. I wanted my voice to count. But instead of refining my voice, I grabbed the megaphone and shouted into it with a look-at-me mentality.   I chased an Edublog Award nomination and engaged in a who-says-the-smartest-tweet pissing contest.  I chose snark over substance.  I became increasingly competitive, even when writing posts about cooperation and collaboration.  I became envious of the gurus and superstars who garnered so much attention in conferences.  I hit embarrassing moments of self-despair over my lack of adequate book sales. I woke up one morning and began a ritual of checking my stats: subscribers, followers, friends.  I Googled myself (not as disgusting as it sounds).  It felt empty.  I was after opportunity when what I wanted was influence.  Not Klout or even clout.  I had lost my voice in a yelling contest. I'm not sure I walked away from that entirely, but slowly I shifted from opportunity to influence.  I gave myself the permission to take long breaks from Twitter and to retweet even if a person doesn't retweet my work.  I quit censoring what I wrote through the filter of branding.  I started talking up some of my favorite blogs instead of silently competing.  I decided that I would do Facebook in person for forty days and I would blog about it even if I appeared less professional.   I spent more time commenting on blogs. I'm still in a place of transition.  I'm still discovering what it means to bring others into my world.  I'm still figuring out what it means to to ask rather than shout. I'm still stumbling over my ego and learning to say "yes" to the things that matter rather the things that will benefit my make-believe pseudo-self brand.     So, back to the novel.  I'm writing the kind of novel that I would want my students to read.  And, honestly, they might be the only ones to read it.  (Or it might be popular.  Popularity is a crap-shoot). But if they are, that's okay.  I want to speak truth in nuance and narrative, pulling students toward a story that matters. I'm not sure if there's any opportunity in this, but I'm convinced that there is influence.

A colleague recently asked me what I considered the most important writing from 21st century education blogs. I started to respond, but then cut myself off. I did so because I really don't think that question can be answered by a single person. So, I'm asking you to help.Let's crowdsource our own anthology of the most essential writing of 21C education blogs.I'd like you to say what the most important writing in 21C edu blogs has been to you. And I'm not asking you to just forward your RSS or Diigo over here. I'd really like you to take a moment, if you would, to think about all that you've read in education over the last few years. What really sticks out? What moved you? What made you think about changing your attitudes and your practice? What compelled you to connect?Here's the form I'd like you to fill out with the name of the author and the post as well as an explanation of why it's of such significance to you: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dE1OZVpHMllhb2Z0V0JURXltSlFhMHc6MQ.I already posted one of mine as an example; you'll be able to see the results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As_ADRi5NNLsdE1OZVpHMllhb2Z0V0JURXltSlFhMHc#gid=0Let me know if there are any problems with the form or spreadsheet. I look forward to reading (and reading) what you all post. Please forward this around to all the educators you know.best,Shelly Blake-Plock@TeachPaperless

by John T. Spencer and Shelly Blake-PlockThe first time I watched a Steve Jobs product announcement on YouTube, I was struck by the way the media seemed to hang over his every word without questioning the high price tag, the closed system he advocated or the war metaphors he was using to describe winning over the market share.  It straddled the line between Amway pitch and religious revival.  Don't get me wrong.  It was much prettier.  Jobs was a master marketer who understood the Zen of design.  But in the end, it was the same li(n)e that many of us experience: "If you consume, you will find happiness."I don't hate Steve Jobs.  For what it's worth, he's never broken any Windows in my home.  However, in the euphoria of Apple-philia, I think we need to remember that his company made a ton of money selling very expensive computers to schools.  Whether or not they were worth it (and often they were worth the money), it is important that educators remember the reality that Apple has a vested economic interest in public education.  It's why I shudder every time I walk into the district office and see the sheer number of Apple stickers branding the public space.I mention this because I've read many tributes to Steve Jobs describing how he transformed education.  Bloggers have gushed about how Jobs was a visionary for 21st Century Learning.  However, like Bill Gates and other technocrats, it's important to remember that engineers often make piss-poor education reformers.  Simply glance back at history and see how well techies have done in moving education forward.  Thomas Edison believed that classrooms would be radically transformed with phonographs and motion pictures.  He envisioned a futuristic classroom where students passively experienced the information.  Henry Ford was a technological genius, but his vision of factory schools are the very thing that have gotten in the way of authentic learning.It's important that we remember Steve Jobs accurately.  His teardrops did not cure leprosy and his products themselves did not radically transform education; rather, it was only once the full force of the Internet became a mainstream staple of our culture -- decades after the first Apple IIe was ever sold to an elementary school -- that Jobs' products even had an opportunity to transform education. If we want to look at the values of Jobs, we need to ask, "Are these really what should drive education in the future?"High priceA rejection of open source and open knowledge for everyoneClosed systemsAn embrace of aesthetics over capacityInnovation intrinsically tied to corporate powerCompetition to the point of forcing the issue of monopolyRelying on expert-created content (for sale) rather than encouraging user-based content creation (share via Creative Commons)Intuitive user experience that demands users intuit alikeEmphasis on quality and craftsmanship produced on the back of globalizationSustainability through products that last until their manufactured obsolescence kicks inCentralized organizational structure and corporate secrecyMarketing to childrenLack of Social Justice: Heavy use of manufacturing from under-developed countriesSelling hardware and software for profit rather than relying on connected networks The list isn't all bad, but it clearly has its flaws and it suggests that maybe it's time educators take a long, hard look at the apple.  Consider contrasting Apple to Wikipedia.  Yeah, Wikipedia isn't sexy, but it's a far better model of education than a transnational corporation.  Apple is the-one-the-only-the-top-of-the-line-thing-to-buy.  Meanwhile, Wikipedia is a symbol of the transformation that has occurred as technology became de-centralized and democratized.  Which serves as a better model for the future of the relationship between technology and education?It comes down to this: the iPad is a great device; it could be argued that the iPad will be an essential device.  But the iPad is not an essential device because of what it physically is.  The iPad is an essential device because of what it represents: mobile access to the fruit of the Internet.  The idea that the Internet itself is mobile and accessible by all is far more transformative than the number of megapixels in the webcam or the ergonomics of the leather magnet cover.In the end, we have to remember that Apple made and continues to make products.  It's the artists and designers and thinkers who use those products, it's the people who make connections using those products, it's the rebels who subvert and augment and redefine the uses of those products (think the origination of iTunes University) that defines transformation.  Jobs himself would likely agree.  It has been therefore ever the more disheartening to see the flood of memorializations and hagiographies that seek to portray Jobs' inventions (as though there were no engineering teams working at Apple) the important thing rather than what those inventions represent within the ecosystem of Internet-era technology.  And by Apple's own corporate code, those inventions have represented secrecy in an era of openness, closed systems in an era of collaboration, and high price at a time of great financial anxiety.Steve Jobs couldn't fix your classroom. In fact, he never really had that in mind.