Social Networking and Education-as-we-know-it

"A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes. The resulting structures are often very complex."

The Economist debate on Social Networking Systems has concluded, though final thoughts can still be posted. And I wanted to suggest a few things I have learned so far.

First, here is the complete proposition:
"Social networking technologies will bring large [positive] changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom: Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have now become a ubiquitous part of many students’ lives. The value of social networking has been defined, in one sense, as the collective power of community to help inform perspectives that would not be unilaterally formed – e.g. the best thinking comes from many not one. Others argue that significant time spent on social networking platforms actually distracts students from their studies. So a question emerges, could the introduction of social networking tools be useful in a formal classroom setting? Additionally, is the concept of social networking a progressive, but legitimate, form of student-to-student and student-to-teacher collaboration?"

In the debate many themes appeared. It began with Ewan McIntosh providing significant evidence of the transformative power of these tools in and out of classrooms in Scotland.

"I've been fortunate to work with thousands of school children and hundreds of teachers, creating mini social networks based around a rather traditional 'social object': the classroom. Students have been empowered to publish not just their best work, but the many drafts it takes to get there. They've received feedback from 'real' people outside school and, surprisingly often, the occasional expert has paid a visit (my personal favourite: the professional diver that corrected one student ended up being invited to visit the school to demonstrate the various bits of kit that go into a marine biology dive).

"And even if it's not happening in schools, learning is about far more than what happens behind the school gate. Lifelong learning is the policy du jour, and rightly so. We are all learners, all the time. Ubiquitous social technologies help us connect to those who can help us learn when we're outside the domain of formal education. One of the biggest iTunes success stories this past year has been Coffee Break Spanish, run by a teacher from his home in a seaside town on the West of Scotland. "You've got Spanish native speakers learning French with Coffee Break French, helping out those from around the world learning Spanish on the Coffee Break Spanish blog," says Mark Pentleton, the 'teacher' whose 21st century remit is closer to that of a living breathing social network for a band of young and old learners of foreign languages."

Dr. Michael Bugeja, expressing the "Con" side, was deeply concerned about power, authority, motives, and "time-honored standards."

"Interfaces that access social networks present a host of problems, depending on the device. Motives also vary by brand. The interface of an Apple iPhone differs from that of a Dell laptop. If we use handhelds to access social networks, odds are we will purchase digital music, videos or ringtones; or else, those devices query us daily on whether we might sample such merchandise. If we use laptops, we cope with software downloads or peripherals that also solicit online orders. We deal with these factors so often that we accept them without complaint.

"Technology has made us compliant.

"We must analyze use of social networks in education with a high degree of skepticism to ensure time-honored standards. Otherwise we may realize belatedly that those standards had value—social rather than financial—and that we inadvertently shortchanged our students who above all need to think critically and interact interpersonally to succeed in a diverse, multicultural world.

"Social networks advertise access to this diverse world while simultaneously confining users to affinity groups so as to sell, sell, sell.

"I, for one, am not buying."

Though the arguments wandered over many areas as this "Oxford-Style" debate went on, these essential themes never changed. On one side there are those (including myself) who see expanding communication technologies as new opportunities to connect, relate, study, and learn, and who are willing to take risks to explore how best to guide our students through this gathering world. On the other side are those more concerned about the risks than the benefits. As commenter Neil Shrubak said at the end of the conversation, "The Proposition argues that social networking signals a dawn of a new age of learning that will allow us to discard the baggage of old, stifling educational systems. Out with the old, in with the new. Hmm… This is the oldest rhetoric in the world. In the last 5,000 years it has not created much, but bloodshed. The more utopian the vision, the more blood spilled because of it. Don’t call this a conservative or a retrograde approach. My position is, indeed, as liberal as they get. Evolution over revolution. Cheers to Bacon, Newton, Darwin. Down with Mao, Stalin and both Kims."

The rebuttal to those fears goes like this - as I noted in my ("PostColonialTech") last comment, "SNS alters students' expectations of learning and truth, making it more collaborative, less hierarchical, perhaps less bound to certain "centres of learning." Yet that does not mean that it makes knowledge acquisition easier - it may, indeed, make it much more complex, much more difficult. But - here's the thing - I am not sure that in learning "easier" (as in "simpler") is the better thing. It is simpler to hear either Dr. Bugeja or Mr. McIntosh lecture and accept (whomever) point of view. It is more complex, yet to me richer and more rewarding, to participate in this SNS conversation - even if you cannot see whatever credentials I might have hanging on my wall. And even if you - or I - lack the credentials which might, under older systems of technology ("the lecture hall") allow us major roles in the debate. " and Jon Pincus adds (from his blog), "...social networks can also make a huge positive impact on some underlying issues in the education field. Start with the exclusion and marginalization of a lot of voices and from debates held in the halls of power. Again use this debate as an example: no current or recent students in The Economist’s roster; the speakers, Moderator, and guest participants all currently occupy positions of (relative) privilege; and the tone is often condescending towards practitioners (as opposed to “experts”). Social networking technologies make it easier to broaden the conversation, with people bringing their friends and acquaintances in environments that are more inclusive – and creating opportunities to network together, creating connections among existing networks that didn’t exist before."

So, while there are many issues, including questions regarding the understanding of history (Dr. Bugeja at one point takes time to blast Gutenberg, who, "printed a few Bibles but was better known in his time for disseminating the junk mail of the 15th century—indulgences."), and questions regarding an understanding of technology (Dr. Bugeja makes an explicit distinction between "tools" - such as a chalkboard - and "technology," - "why technology is not a tool like a ruler or chalk board but an autonomous system that changes radically anything it touches without itself being changed much at all" - while I think of chalkboards, books, even lecture halls and classrooms as obvious forms of technology), and a brief, if esoteric, argument about what is and what isn't a "Social Networking System," I still find myself believing that where you stand on this issue relates principally to questions of power, and thus fear.



If you believe that education, as we have known it over the past two centuries - that is, formalized, structured, hierarchical, and occurring in a specific setting, has generally worked well - for yourself, your family, and/or the world, then you will likely find the idea of social networking as an educational strategy disturbing, because, by its definition, it slices through hierarchy and alters authority. But if you see the world as needing a dramatically more flexible, more collaborative, more open form of education as we attempt to reach across the huge chasms of difference in human experience, you will likely find the idea of social networking as an educational strategy so powerful as to be worth the investments in time, money, training, as well as in terms of the risks which come with any change.

One of the critical things about Social Networking Systems is that authority is a flexible idea. Braha and Bar-Yam (2006) found that "authority" (the "highly connected nodes") in a social network changed day-by-day, even when participants were much the same. [1] Contrast that with a lecture hall (one highly connected node that is constant through the semester) or the traditional classroom (with one primary highly connected mode - the teacher - and a few lesser-connected nodes - the "top" students, again as constants). The structure of the technology of the lecture hall or classroom literally works against the acceptance of distributed expertise. It is hard, very hard, to stand up from the back row and declare that the central authority might be mistaken. It is very hard for a fourteen-year-old to demonstrate knowledge on a topic superior to that of the teacher. And it is almost impossible for either of those "interrupters" to pull in the expertise (via human interaction or data) that would prove their point. Also impossible to instantly reach outside that room to ask questions from a larger library of data.

SNS reverses these issues. On a social networking site it is difficult to maintain authority. I can challenge Dr. Bugeja in ways I would never think of doing in a classroom. Everything he says can be loudly doubted, assaulted, even insulted. He can no longer control the discussion. But, I can easily bring my expertise in. I can (often) easily track the experiences of those making agreeing or disagreeing statements. I can look up data and put it where everyone can see it. I do not need credentials to enter, but, in ways unique to the structure, I must quickly establish my credentials. It is indeed messier, more complex, in many ways more difficult. But I would argue that it can also be richer, more inquisitive, and in many ways, far more human.

At the end, debate moderator Robert Cottrell brings up one commenter:
"As we move towards the close, I am going to pull out a line from JOHNNAUGHTON that I think merits reflection.

"Social networking, he says, is "intrinsically non-hierarchical and largely uncontrollable. It's therefore a poor fit with our hierarchical and tightly-controlled educational institutions—at every level from kindergarten to university. Social networking could conceivably have beneficial effects in education—but only if the social structures implicit in our educational system adapt to accept it."

"It seems to me that if Mr Naughton's first sentence is correct, then it is revolution, more than an adaptation, which is required, for social networking to make its way in education. And I am not sure that the proponents of the motion have made that clear."

I hope I have made this clear. I believe that I and others, like Ewan McIntosh, come to be proponents of SNS systems in education because we believe that a revolution is necessary. I know that I look at schools every day and wonder at the cruelty and meanness of the environment, of the way learning and creativity are limited and stifled, of the high percentage of students for whom our "time-honored" systems do not work. That is not to say that SNS systems should be our only form of learning environment, but it does suggest that there is a reason that you often have to drag children to school, while having to drag them away from their computers and mobiles.

To the question: "could the introduction of social networking tools be useful in a formal classroom setting? Additionally, is the concept of social networking a progressive, but legitimate, form of student-to-student and student-to-teacher collaboration?"Part A: Yes, useful and transformational. Even the temporary alteration of the power structure in the classroom engages different students in different ways - opens possibilities - alters both self-perceptions and world understandings. Part B: Yes, progressive AND legitimate, and again, transformational. Used properly, "teaching will never be quite the same," Nor, I might add, should it be.

- Ira Socol

[1] D. Braha and Y. Bar-Yam. From Centrality to Temporary Fame: Dynamic Centrality in Complex Networks. Complexity 12: 59-36, 2006.

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com

US $16.00 on Amazon

US $16.00 direct via lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

The Fear

"Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "Alright, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance." so says, Henry Drummond - the Clarence Darrow character in Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's play Inherit the Wind. He continues, speaking directly to the jury and, of course, the audience

"Madam, you may vote, but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder-puff or your petticoat. Mr., you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline." Darwin took us forward to a hilltop from where we could look back and see the way from which we came, but for this insight, and for this knowledge, we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis."

Despite the fears of some religious extremists, today it is not "the pleasant poetry of Genesis" which is threatened, but certain "norms" of information transmission. Yet the fear described by that play, and by the Scopes Monkey Trial itself, is a real thing.

In a changing world, it is not surprising that people are afraid. It is, of course, least surprising that the people for whom the 'old world" has worked really well, will be most afraid. No one wants to be relegated to the old "dustbin of history," surely not those for whom status (as opposed to say, great wealth or great power) is the key to their identity. The current debate at The Economist's web site reminded me of this.

"Many would argue that online education is currently exacting such a price. Critics are already lamenting what is lost, particularly from interpersonal relations in the classroom, but the real test of online education will be what is on balance gained," says Douglas F. Johnson of the University of Florida in his chapter "Toward a Philosophy of Online Education" (in Developing Faculty to Use Technology, Programs and Strategies to Enhance Teaching, edited by David G. Brown). Posted on Stanford University's "Tomorrow's Professor" Blog.

He continues, "Creating a flexible leaning process and an environment that incorporates online technologies can attract more students and improve their access to learning opportunities while enhancing their understanding and retention of new information about both the process and the content of education. Such a learning environment can best target specific and rapidly changing educational needs.

"These changes do not mitigate the rationale for the traditional liberal arts curriculum, as many fear. In fact, they reinforce it, for what can be of greater value in a just-in-time, needs-driven world than a broad base of understanding, a demonstrated ability to learn a wide variety of subjects, and a proven track record of learning how to learn? Online education presents important opportunities o reach a mobile population, but it must be structured on clearly conceived concepts so that the cherished and time-tested educational purposes of the past may continue to add value to the learning needs of the present."

If you read the "con" comments in the debate (in which I appear by the nom de keyboard PostColonialTech) you will see the fear. There is a sense of lost control - Social Networking, it is charged, will somehow replace the art of teaching, it will destroy literature and received knowledge, it will turn content over to capitalists in pursuit of nothing but profit, it will replace face-to-face interaction.

All of these complaints assume two things - first, that everyone benefits from the "pre-technology" system - in this case the delivery of content in "teacher-controlled contexts" through books, lectures, and controlled dialogues. Second, that internet-based social networking cannot co-exist with other forms of human communication.

Both assumptions are wrong. Education must change, becoming far more flexible and far more learner-controlled, because it has not worked for most of the world. Not only do most students do "poorly" in school - that is, they get less than they need from the process - but much of the world suffers because so much of our "received wisdom" comes unexamined and untested against realities outside of the narrow experiences of academics. This does not place us on that "slippery slope" to where "nothing is true." Instead it means that we need to integrate, and challenge, a far more diverse group of voices than schools traditionally have done, and we must deliver content in many more ways than schools have done. And the technology of our age allows us to do both things - we can connect students in Kentucky to students in South Africa, and we can offer content via a wide choice of delivery systems - authentic voices, authentic experiences, real challenges - joined to content provided in a way which allows the highest degree of personal comprehension.

But yes, technology systems for education must exist within an educational context. So we must teach and model on-line behavior. Obviously we must teach on-line searching, and navigation, and discernment. We must encourage critical thinking in social network interaction, and we must demonstrate interactive expansion - from network form to Skype video conference in (how many?) deliberate steps... These are not "natural skills" - but they are skills our students must know if they are to succeed, to flourish, in the future.

So, it is ok to be afraid. Teaching will need to change. Teachers will need to learn new things. And the world will change. Nothing will ever quite "be the same." But fear is not a reason to stop progress. Fear is something humans overcome in order to progress. Social Networking, like mobile phones and web-based news delivery, will change education - and if we use these technologies well, if we teach them well, they will change education for the better.

Anyway, come read, and come join the conversation at The Economist.

- Ira Socol

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com

US $16.00 direct via lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

Stop Abusing Children!

If you listen to the educational researchers who currently hold sway in the United States - including those advising every current presidential candidate - Republican and Democratic - no one in the Scandinavian nations or in Germany learns to read - "it is impossible," they imply, to learn reading without explicit instruction at the youngest ages. Of course years of moving this instruction down have done nothing to improve reading among adolescents - in fact, evidence is that these tactics help few and damage many - a tough set of facts hidden within the statistical fictions of large studies conducted by people with curriculum systems to sell.

Now the "No Child Left Behind" disease has jumped the Atlantic, and now infects the British Labour Party. And now 3 and 4 year olds are threatened with the nightmare of age inappropriate reading lessons which will likely exacerbate dyslexic conditions and teach young children to hate books and reading. It is a disaster in the making which may only be stopped by concerted political action. If you are a British citizen, please read the petition below, and sign it if you agree.

- Ira Socol

Dear All:

Please, please, please . . . if you have a problem with 3 and 4-year-olds having to learn to read and write (outrageously, this becomes law in the UK in 9 months time for all nurseries – not just state-funded nurseries), then please sign the following Downing Street petition: just click on this link and follow the instructions
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OpenEYE/

They (the gov't) just haven't got it. They think the sooner a child starts something, the better it will be; the notion of age appropriateness doesn't seemed to have crossed their mind. There is masses of evidence (e.g. formal schooling in Germany starting age 6/7, etc) demonstrating that delaying formal learning and letting children learn through just playing is no hindrance to later literacy. In fact it helps.

If you want to sign the petition, please do it today, as to get over 1,000 signatures in a couple of days apparently gets 'registered'. Current total 469 !

Full text of this Downing Street Petition:

We, the undersigned, petition the Prime Minister to commission an urgent independent review of the compulsory Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) policy framework, and to reduce the status of its learning and development requirements to `professional guidelines'.

We recognise the government's good intentions in its early-years policy-making, but are concerned about the EYFS legislation, which comes into force in England next September.

Our concerns focus on the learning and development requirements, as follows:

1. They may harm children's development

2. They will restrict parents' freedom of choice in childcare and education

3. Their assessment profile requirements may place an unnecessary bureaucratic burden on those who care for young children

4. Recent evidence suggests that government interventions in education generally may not be driving standards up and may be putting too much pressure on children

5. There is significant evidence to suggest that introducing formal education too early is damaging to some children in both the short and the long term, especially to boys. Consequences may include the development of unpredictable emotional and behavioural problems, unwarranted levels of stress, damage to children's self-esteem and erosion of their enthusiasm for learning. Research has shown that 5 year olds drilled in reading and writing were outstripped four years later by children whose first year at school was more socially interactive and stimulating. Such evidence suggests that in practice (notwithstanding the reassurances offered in the legislation) the approaches to teaching that will be encouraged by broad-brush EYFS targets - such as that by the age of 5 children should "begin to form simple sentences, sometimes using punctuation" - are likely to be those which may be harmful to young children.

6. The EYFS will be mandatory across all settings – childminders, nurseries, playgroups, schools (including independent schools). We appreciate that the Government's intention is to ensure the same high standards everywhere, but we believe that this could be better achieved by investing the necessary resources in comprehensive staff training across the field. We do not accept that the EYFS encapsulation of child development reflects the views of professionals worldwide, nor do we accept that it is acceptable to mix developmental milestones with aspirational outcomes.

We note that the law allows for the Government to make regulations regarding exemptions to EYFS. However such exceptions are to be made only at the request of individual parents, and it will therefore be impossible for parents to find a childcare or educational setting which takes a different approach to the EYFS and therefore does not teach to its learning and development requirements. This is an unprecedented restriction of parents' freedom to choose how their children are cared for and educated. It may actually increase the use of informal care, with accompanying lower standards in some cases.

7. The EYFS profile demands that carers assess children against 117 different assessment points. With less than a year to go until implementation, arrangements for carers to receive training and ongoing support are seriously inadequate. Without such training and support there is unlikely to be any consistency of assessments and random "box-ticking" is a real probability. Even once trained to do it, assessment and recording will add significantly to the workload of those who care for and work with young children. It may skew the way staff observe and interact with those children, and the paperwork required will certainly take up valuable time that could otherwise be spent with them.

8. Recent evidence – including the reports of the Cambridge Primary Review, and the latest OECD PISA report (the "international league tables") - suggests that government-driven changes in education have been largely ineffective in driving up standards and may at worst be adversely affecting both educational standards and the quality of children's educational experiences. We see no reason to believe that the EYFS learning and development requirements would break this pattern.

In conclusion we believe that this unprecedented legislation could lead to harmful long-term consequences and therefore contradicts the responsible "precautionary principle" which should surely be exercised in all early-year state policy-making.

http://openeyecampaign.wordpress.com/

The Mobile Scanner

I've set up many university students with what I call "the backpackable scanner" - the LiDE series of flatbed scanners from Canon which sell cheaply (typically US $35-$75), weigh under two pounds, need no electrical power (just a laptop's USB connection), and come with a great "lite" version of OmniPage. With that scanner carried along they can create instant conversions of any printed text to a digital form usable by text-reading software almost anywhere they find themselves (classroom quizzes, in the library stacks). It's a great solution, but still, we're at "almost anywhere."

Now, "almost anywhere" becomes "anywhere," with a digital camera and an online service called ScanR.

ScanR allows you to turn your mobile phone [with 2-megapixel or better camera] or digital camera into a full-service scanner. Take a picture of a document or even a whiteboard, send it to ScanR directly from your mobile or your computer, and they will convert it into a PDF file (like Adobe Acrobat) or a text-file and deliver it back to you. ScanR is free for very limited use (5 conversions per month) or fee based (US $2.99/month) for unlimited use.


Now, there's one more essential reason to have mobile phones in the classroom - ScanR just made the phone the best notetaking support possible. But think of all the other uses - a dyslexic student or worker could quickly convert print into text for a screen-reader wherever they might be. Attention-challenged students could grab the whiteboard information even if they had needed to escape the room for a few minutes. Literacy-impaired students can make substantially better use of print libraries. I can also see great uses of this for senior citizens who might need to alter text into more readable forms - and, of course, it already seems well on its way to being an essential business tool.

- Ira Socol

Empowering - Accepting - Developing Students' Futures

Guest Blog:

The Internet can be empowering in schools

By MÓNICA GUZMÁN
P-I REPORTER

The scene: a high school classroom. Students gaze into their laptops. They might be taking notes like good little boys and girls. Or they might be passing the time on MySpace, quietly playing a Web game while their teacher thinks she has their undivided attention.

It looks like a teacher's worst nightmare. But it's the future. If we're smart.

The best thing about the Internet is the power it gives. Power to have a voice in civic government, power to learn on our own terms, power to share our lives. But that power isn't allowed in the classroom. Not yet. And that's a mistake.

Schools all over the country lock their computers away in a lab or a library. That's the situation at Garfield High School, where the district's Web filter blocks access to sites like MySpace and YouTube and occasionally some blogs teachers want to use in class.

The filter saves everyone a lot of trouble and worry. Students are curious and schools are scared. Filters are the easiest way to stop young minds from wandering where they shouldn't -- whether it's a mindless online game, a profanity-filled blog or worse. Schools need to be careful. So they hold back. They stay safe.

That's the wrong way to go.

Giving the Internet a place in the classroom would cost teachers some control, but the perks are worth it and teens deserve it -- not just to make use of their skills in the classroom but to take make full use of the technologies available to them.

Consider the situation at the University of Washington's medical school, where laptops are required gear and no one walks around the class to see what students are doing on them. "We could be checking e-mail," said first-year student Kristina Rudd. "Many of us are."

But they do other things, too. The second an obscure term escapes the lecturer's lips, someone in the classroom will look it up in Wikipedia or medical journals, dig up a relevant article and send it to the class. Suddenly, the influence of the lecture no longer relies on the effectiveness of the lecturer.

That's empowerment.

And it can happen in high school.

At the private Lakeside School, 14-year-old Janelle Dy hands in almost all her work by e-mail. When she's allowed to use her laptop in class, she makes the most of it.

"When I took notes on paper, sometimes I'd have difficulty understanding what the teacher was talking about, due to vocabulary," she said. "But now I have a dictionary on my laptop I'm allowed to use at all times. Also I can get to other Web sites, like Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica."

Not everyone in her class is as dutiful. Some students find ways to distract themselves, and a few, making use of their tech savvy, bypass the school's Web filter and go where they shouldn't.

That will happen. But to base all students' technological access on the behavior of an irresponsible few is not only lazy, it denies them an opportunity to learn integrity.

Granted, many schools are not equipped for this. Besides the obvious financial barriers, too many teachers are unaware of all the ways technology can supplement their lessons and few schools have the technical prowess to keep Internet rebels in check.

But there's something else holding educators back: fear of losing control.

Clearly, teens have a fluency with the Internet most teachers can't match. Bring this technology to every desktop and teachers are put at a disadvantage. We can continue to play it safe, or we can take some risks and give teens some power. Who knows? They might surprise us.

And the nightmare scenario might be a dream come true.

P-I reporter Mónica Guzmán can be reached at 206-448-8381 or monicaguzman@seattlepi.com. (c) 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

and, also from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Ban Wikipedia? No Way!

My heart just about stopped when I saw the headline on today's Seattle Times site: "School officials unite in banning Wikipedia."

Surely not!

I am a Wikipedia junkie--it's my starting point for everything from determining what direction the Deep Fork River flows in Oklahoma, to keeping track of Kid Nation TV show developments, to figuring out what's up with a trend in some cities with kids using bicycles without brakes. I have a close friend who's using Wikipedia to learn about the potential new owners of the corporation where she works. On the Save Seattle Schools blog, contributers reportedly consulted Wikipedia to learn more about McKinsey & Co., the outside consulting firm that Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson is using to help craft a strategic plan.

Is Wikipedia the final, definitive source of all information? No. But I don't agree with those crotchety librarians in the Times article who complain that, "we don't see it as an authoritative source," and subsequently block the site from students.

With today's technology, information flow has become much more fluid and immediate. Just because it can't be found in a bound book doesn't necessarily mean that it ain't so. Indeed, there's a tremendous amount of subjectivity that goes into what is printed as the "truth." Of course, just because someone posted a statement online doesn't necessarily mean that it is true, either.

It's a shame that the teachers and librarians quoted in the article didn't take advantage of the situation--finding inaccurate information on Wikipedia--by having their students revise the Wikipedia site with their own research, or engage in broader discussions about how authority and truth will be staked out in new media (a battle that's raging right now between traditional journalists and bloggers).

Do you or your kids use Wikipedia? Do you think it has a place in schools?

Posted by Denise Gonzalez-Walker at November 26, 2007 5:45 p.m. (c) 2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Not fearing the future...

"Children, go where I send thee..." the Rev. Jennifer Browne of Grand Rapids' (Michigan) First United Methodist Church brings this hymn together with my column on mobile phones in schools (see below) to create a powerful sermon. I don't often ask you to join me in church, but if you like, you can watch the whole Sunday service from the ninth of December, 2007 here - the topic appears about 25 minutes in...

http://www.grandrapidsfumc.org/videos/2007/20071209.htm

not You-Tube - you must click on the image or the link
and the church's site will load and the video will play

No comments yet from any of the school "leaders" who ban these devices without understanding the damage they are doing. But then "Education Mayor" Bloomberg (of NYC) has never responded to any of my earlier posts.

- Ira Socol

Don’t Hang Up on Your Students’ Futures

In today's (8 December 2007) Grand Rapids (MI) Press I have an opinion piece protesting mobile phone bans in local schools. Well, not protesting, simply suggesting that if we cannot figure out how to teach with a tool this powerful we are surely failing as educators. Of course, in this topsy-turvy communications world, it is the print media which required a 1,300 word story be cut to 750, while here, on-line (or by feed to your mobile phone) you can read the whole thing...

In a classroom with sixty future teachers I tried an experiment. “Everybody have their mobile phones?” I asked. They looked surprised. “OK,” I told these Michigan State University students, “you have fifteen minutes to receive a text message. The message must say (1) where the person is, (2) what they ate for lunch today, and (c) what decade were they born in.” Then I offered extra credit if the text response came from outside the US, and more extra-credit if it was both from outside the country and in a language other than English. Instantly the room was filled fingers flying across tiny keypads, and within fifteen minutes we had far more responses than students. “What could we do with this information?” I asked. “Could we graph it? Map it? Analyze it for information on diet? Work on translating the French, German, Spanish, and Urdu messages we received?”

This wasn’t an original idea of mine. A friend had emailed me an online video on best practices in education and I had grabbed this assignment from that. But it was a powerful lesson. Just the week before another instructor in education at MSU had been quoted in a New York Times article complaining about cell phones in the classroom and I had forcefully argued that this was the wrong tack to take. Mobile phones are potentially the most powerful communication and information device ever created, I had suggested, and they are already everywhere. How blind, I asked, must we as educators be if we cannot use such a remarkable tool? If we cannot teach with such a remarkable tool? If we cannot help students see how this tool will impact their lives in amazing ways as they go forward? So I went into the class wanting to show future teachers one more way to embrace the technology of the 21^st Century rather than fearing it.

My ideas about mobile phones in education are not original either. Around the world educators are utilizing this technology. Phones deliver content via text, they allow intra-classroom communication (students using Bluetooth to text answers to their teachers), they provide sophisticated handheld calculators, they take photos which document experiments, they act as digital voice recorders, they play podcasts of pre-recorded lessons, they support second language acquisition, they support and encourage writing, and where the phones connect to the internet, they give students handheld access to the world’s greatest library. Researchers and teachers in Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Israel, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Singapore, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Korea, New Zealand, Kenya and dozens of other nations are developing and supporting “mobile learning” initiatives. In the United Kingdom the government just supported the publication of a remarkable book (available as a pdf download) from the Institute of Education at the University of London, Mobile Learning – towards a research agenda, which looks at the many cognitive interactive effects of this new educational context. TeachersTV in the UK – an online training tool, produced a half-hour video this fall on the power of mobile phones in the classroom.

Having excited my class with the phone lesson, and having met with them again to investigate all the ways that new technologies and electronic devices can support diverse learners – including the students they will mostly work with, those with learning, attention, and behavioral “disabilities,” I came home on Tuesday night, watched House, and then the local news. And on the local news I heard a top story about East Grand Rapids Schools blocking cell phone use and prohibiting iPod use. The story went on to say how this new policy was similar to those in Holland and other West Michigan cities, but less restrictive than the Grand Rapids Public Schools which, if the story was correct, prohibited all student electronic devices. Why? I asked myself, why, in a state so desperate to prepare our children for a new global economy, would we be so reluctant to actually begin to do that?

Educational researcher Alan November called American schools, “reality free zones” in the June 2007 issue of Technology and Learning magazine. “If we could get past our fear of the unknown and embrace the very tools we are blocking (which are also essential tools for the global economy),” he said, “then we could build much more motivating and rigorous learning environments. We also have an opportunity to teach the ethics and the social responsibility that accompany the use of such powerful tools.” He went on to discuss how today’s students have “information and communication containers” different than those of past generations – mobile phones, iPods, blogs, computers, instant messaging, video games. These technologies are certainly different than the 16^th through 19^th Century technologies comfortable for those who run the schools in West Michigan (pens, paper, printed books, notebooks, chalkboards), but they are no less valid, just as those old technologies are no less fraught with potential problems.

“Yes,” I have told teachers, phones in school can cause problems. Then I hold up my right hand, still scarred from where a friend stabbed me with a pencil in fifth grade. “The school, for some reason,” I say, “did not choose to ban pencils because of my injury.” I could point out that the school did not ban pencils (or paper either) when students were caught using them to write notes to friends, or to cheat, or to graffiti the boys’ room walls. Instead, the schools kept those technologies in place in the classroom, and taught both with them and the appropriate use of them.

For today’s students, who will graduate into a world dominated by digital technology and instant communication, the mobile phone (along with November’s other “containers”) will be at least as essential as all the technologies those who make school policy learned “back then” – pens and pencils, books and paper, card catalogs and library organization, typewriters and the old-style telephone. Right now students who are not experienced with their iPods will be at a disadvantage at many of our best universities (Duke and Stanford for example) and will likely be behind in language classes everywhere. Students who cannot search information quickly and effectively online will be unable to do college-level research or function at all in graduate school, or – and this is increasingly true throughout the economy – hold most jobs. Students who cannot communicate well with their employers by email and text-message will be in trouble in many ways. Yet with all that, our K-12 schools resist, using technology in the most limited ways – restricting the function to that of antique forms – the computer becomes little more than a typewriter or – with PowerPoint – a filmstrip projector.

The lesson I gave my students in instant text-message research is just one of many I try to provide. I encourage laptops in the classroom, and ask students to look things up for me, to check on the things I or other students say, and to communicate the results quickly to their classmates via email. I ask them to keep their mobile phones on their desks – that way – if they’ve forgotten to silence them and they do ring, we are all not listening while everyone searches their backpacks. I talk about the etiquette of taking important calls. I strongly encourage email conversation and debate. I expect use of Google, Google Scholar, Wiktionary, Wikipedia and talk about the best ways to use those essential tools. In the classrooms so equipped I use the Interactive White Boards (“SmartBoards”) not with PowerPoint but with on-line resources. I want these future teachers to know that they cannot fear these technologies in their classrooms, because their students must learn to use them.

New technologies scare and confuse people raised in the past. They scare and confuse schools. I recently found a series of articles from an 1842 educational journal explaining to teachers how to use the newest technology – the chalkboard – and reassuring them that “this new system” would not “replace books.” 2,500 years ago Plato feared literacy would destroy students' memorization skills and the quality of spoken language. So the fears we see around computers and mobile phones are simply part of a long pattern. But we cannot afford to simply train our students to be “just like us.” We must help them to navigate the world that is their future, and we cannot do that if we keep the technologies which will define that future out of our schools.

- Ira Socol

The essential iPod for college (The New York Times)
tshirtia - books for your mobile phone
Books in My Phone
Mobile Books
Japan: books written on, and delivered via, mobile phone.
Academic Papers
SMS in the Classroom - "Pls Turn Ur Mobile On" (Ireland - Open Access)
SMS in a Literature Course (Germany)
SMS messaging in microeconomics experiments (Australia - Open Access)
Testing using SMS messaging (New Zealand)
Cell Phones in the L2 Classroom (Korea)
Instantaneous Feedback in the Interactive Classroom (Singapore - Open Access)

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education in America" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com.

US $16.00 direct via lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

Where is the future?

Kansas State University's Digital Ethnography Project offers an array of thought-provoking videos, blogs, and more. If you have not been watching, you might learn exactly how different the world your students will graduate into is from the world you are teaching them to be prepared for.



- Ira Socol

What part of this world do you want to leave your students out of?

While still fighting his own bizarre little war against the mobile phone in school, New York's "Education Mayor" ("scare quotes" added) Michael Bloomberg nevertheless wants to give mobile phones to students so they can be used to encourage education. Certainly a bizarre moment even for an American politician. "...focus group research showed that cellphones were the primary means of communication for many teenagers, and that reaching them through a concerted campaign of text messages or through the Internet was far more likely to be effective...But Mr. Bloomberg...made it clear that the phones would not be allowed in schools," stated the article in the relentlessly anti-technology New York Times.

But making fun of these two powerful New York institutions can only get us so far. I can laugh at them, or I can watch Sergei Brinn and company (the company is Google) introduce the future.



Watching this, I find myself forced to ask: Exactly how bad an educator must you be if you...
(1) Do not want your students to have this technology?
(2) Cannot figure out how to use the unbelievable information and communications capability of this device educationally?
(3) Do not appreciate that one more legendary drop out from an American university is using a technology all your training dismisses (You Tube) to explain how the future will be delivered via another technology all your training dismisses (the mobile phone)?

What part of this world, I want to ask all the technology resistant educators out there, do you want your students left out of?

Enough asked...

But I'll close with a lecture on possibility, and risk, and living life well... the celebrated Randy Pausch "Last Lecture" at Carnegie-Mellon University... because it is important, even though it will take up well more than an hour of your time.



- Ira Socol

Fight the Future (Fight the Present)

About once a season The New York Times launches an attack on technology in education. That's expected. We'll open the paper and find one more reporter reporting that his or her old friends are constantly bothered by young people in the classroom, especially by young people who are presumptuous enough to carry with them the most common information and communication devices in the world today - computers and mobile phones.

So today's article - New Class(room) War: Teacher vs. Technology - by "old" Columbia University journalism prof Samuel G. Freedman could not rate as a surprise. As is usual in these pieces, the old stories about pornography web sites and the old complaints that "students want to be entertained" (in this case coming from another old journalism prof - Michael Bugeja of Iowa State University) are rehashed, "heroic" stands of faculty against the demon technology are celebrated (in this case Roanoke College's Dr. Ali Nazemi), and the fondest wish for the old days is expressed - oh, education before computers and telephones, aeroplanes and those new-fangled movies. But, in the midst of this nonsense I was forced to come face-to-face with my own institution:

"Scott Carlin, an instructor of teacher interns at Michigan State University, advises his charges to forbid personal use of tech devices in the classroom. Of course he occasionally has to pause in his own lesson to make one of his graduate students stop scrolling through text messages.

'"If the students actually found some creative way to use a cellphone or a BlackBerry in a class demonstration, I’d be all for that," Mr. Carlin said in a recent interview, recalling his own years as a middle school and high school teacher. "Or if they could demonstrate how a chat room or AOL instant messenger would help them present a project. But what I found in most cases is that it was just a fancy new way of passing notes."'

Here's what's frightening - Mr. Carlin is training new teacher interns - soon to be real teachers - and Mr. Carlin has no idea of how to help these new teachers use the ubiquitous technology of the present in their classrooms. This is frightening because it helps to explain why new teachers in the United States are rarely more "tech competent" in their classrooms than people who entered the profession thirty years ago. It is disappointing because if Mr. Carlin had simply entered into one of the many seminars and events held in his very own College of Education building, he might already be a very different kind of educator, and those who he is currently teaching might become different kind of educators.

The essential conservatism of American Education is a very powerful thing. In my years in higher education especially I have never seen any actual progressive bias. Oh sure, profs mouth support of socialism and equality, but that is all theory. Education in the United States is all about social reproduction - the intent is to make students as much like the teachers as possible - and this is carried out most aggressively through instructor behavior. In order to succeed students must learn to mimic the learning strategies which, and succeed in the learning environments that make their teachers comfortable. "I learned by reading big books and listening to boring lectures, so you must too."

The very idea that contemporary or future students might embrace other choices seems threatening not just to the pedagogy of instructors, but to their very understanding of the world - yet this seems odd to me. What we are really dealing with is a simple choice of what author Alan November calls "learning containers." In an article in Tech Learning this past summer he described his son's learning containers this way, "Dan has five basic tools, or digital containers, for managing his content, communicating with the world, and accessing his entertainment: blogs, his iPod, Instant Messenger, YouTube, and video games. Of course he also has a cell phone, which he often sneaks into school to text message me about how debate went that day. Otherwise, he has no access in school to the tools he loves to use. In fact, he has been taught that they have nothing to do with learning. At home he picks his applications and easily moves from one to another. He is self-taught, self-directed, and highly motivated. He is locally and globally connected."

Why can't students pick the "containers" most effective for them? Why can't teachers (be it Mr. Carlin, Dr. Freedman, or Dr. Bugeja) teach "container etiquette" for 21st Century technologies the way they do for 5th Century BC and 15th Century AD technologies? Why shouldn't we demand that anyone teaching in 2007 be able to successfully teach using the dominant technologies of the age?

Well, obviously... Mr. Carlin, Dr. Freedman, and Dr. Bugeja are all locked in the past - and whatever their personal merits they will likely be failed teachers - unable to truly prepare their students for the world into which they will graduate. Imagine a maths instructor who insisted on students using only sliderules - An English instructor insisting that students write with quill pens they had made themselves - A history instructor insisting on only memorization and verbal response (the old ancient Greek way) - we'd all say, "There are better ways! We've invented graphing calculators - factory-made pens - literacy!" Because, yes, if we are intelligent humans, and good teachers, we embrace the technology of the present and we anticipate the technology of the future. We use the tools which we, as humans, have created in order to learn better and do more.

We simply cannot accept anything less. We need to bring all these technologies into the schools and we must learn to use them effectively, to offer choices and opportunities - and thus, to offer true educational success to those not exactly like today's educators (for a great start, please download - free - Dr. Norbert Pachler's great research agenda on Mobile Learning - from the Institute of Education/University of London - pdf format).

Mr. Carlin is working in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the US, a state struggling to replace old-line manufacturing jobs with good jobs in the knowledge economy. Also a state with a 26% university completion rate, with an ugly high school drop out rate, with persistently troubling scores for minorities on standardized tests. Dr. Freedman is writing for a newspaper that has never quite figured out how to use the internet well and profitably. He teaches at a university far behind in offering its educational services to wider populations through technology. Perhaps the elitism behind their attitudes is not serving the cause of their employers well. Perhaps they should open their doors, head outside, and meet the world that is coming.

- Ira Socol

for a prior exchange between The Times and me on this issue, click here.

Dr. Freedman writes back to me simply saying "We'll just have to agree to disagree here." - I guess he is unable or unwilling to actually debate in the face of a challenge - or is it that I sent an email rather than a telegram?

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com.

US $16.00 direct via lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

Comprehending What New Technology Does

(Originally written as a response to a display of "favorite educational web sites" by graduate students - many of which were interesting, but most of which also seemed to simply reproduce what schools have 'always' done - the way PowerPoint simply mimics the old 'Film-Strip" projectors of the 1960s. I received little response from that audience to this challenge, so I thought I would offer it here...)

In January 1983 Apple Computer released the “Lisa” – the very first commercially available computer to use a “GUI” or mouse and to operate via on-screen “windows.” The Lisa allowed users to draw with the computer. It featured calculators that looked like calculators with buttons which could be pushed and word-processing via “LisaWrite Paper” or “LisaPad Paper,” which looked – for the first time – as if the user was typing on a sheet of paper.

For the first time a computer started without a “command prompt.” For the first time people were introduced to concepts such as “mouse,” “click,” “folder,” “drop-down menu,” “desktop,” and “multiple applications.” The Lisa could even produce graphical output, pushing the dot-matrix printers of the era beyond their limits.

The Lisa bombed in the marketplace. It was not just the cost, about 40% higher than the price of an IBM-PC of the time (or up to over $20,000 in 2007 money), but a simpler problem – the Lisa did things that no one had yet imagined doing. It shifted functions humans then did with pencils and rapidographs, early calculators and IBM Selectrics, Wite-Out and file folders, to the computer.[1] But in doing so, it changed how every one of these functions were understood, and it changed the nature of expertise in a hundred fields of human endeavor.

It is important to remember that personal computers were not new in 1984. Offices and even homes were filled with IBM PCs and Apple IIs. But these computers were simple improvements on already existing office machines. They might mimic mainframe systems in data management, or they might mimic the standard secretarial typewriter, or they might be the fastest adding machine around, but they did nothing really new, nor did they simplify anything. Only the most advanced, the most senior personnel, were granted the complex training required to move up to work on these machines. Essentially, they reinforced office and even educational hierarchies.

As I said, the Lisa failed. The very ideas were mocked. Why would someone want 16, or even four, applications open at the same time? (“Who could pay attention to that?”) Why would you want to type on this complicated computer and make changes with mouse clicks? (“It will encourage laziness, people will write before they think.”) And how would you use that “mouse-thing” anyway? You would have to take your right-hand away from the keyboard, which would slow down typing.

It was such a failure that when Apple introduced the Macintosh 18 months later a number of Lisa’s features had been pulled. Multi-tasking was gone, and keyboard “shortcuts” had been introduced to reduce mouse reliance.

This lack of ability to see change in function within future technology remains an issue a quarter century later. When technology is used in most American schools today, it only very occasionally looks toward new forms of cognition and learning – social networking implications for example, language learning sites which break through physical isolation. Far more often it simply reproduces what educators already believe –that IBM PC thought structure – the same, just a bit “better” and faster. So we see classroom quizzes, but better, and video libraries, but easier, and typing, but more efficient. In other words technology used to maintain power structures and cognitive processes as they are.

I would argue that when we use technology in these conservative forms we actually move our students backwards. Not only do we not teach them to find their way in the future, we teach them that the technological world of today and tomorrow will not help them. If I still fail on digital quizzes I am without hope. If all this technology can not help me read and process, I may as well give up right now.

“Lets imagine a country which we will call Foobar, where reading and writing don’t exist, but which despite this has managed to develop a sophisticated culture of science, the arts, philosophy and commerce. A bit of a stretch I know, but not entirely inconceivable. All cultural transmission in such a society would take place by oral means and a good memory would undoubtedly be an invaluable asset. Education would probably consist of much rote learning and place a high value on memory work. Now imagine what the impact on such a society and in particular on its education system might be when someone finally invents the pen. Well, undoubtedly a politician somewhere will pound a table and insist that we need a ‘pen in every classroom’. An education administrator will say ‘no, we should have a pen room where children can go once a week to learn how to use these pens’. So, eventually schools will all have pens and teachers will have to figure out how to make use of them. The Foobarian Department of Education will ponder the issue. They will eventually write a ‘pen’ curriculum and issue guidelines on how the ‘pen’ may be used to support memory work and rote-learning in schools.”[2] Ken Jennings of Trinity College wrote this in 2004, pointing out that the connection to computers “is obvious.” He goes on to say, “What doesn’t seem to make much sense is to try to incorporate computers into the education system in a way which does not allow for some change in either the ‘what we do’ or the ‘how we do it’.”

This, to me, is the challenge. If we do not understand that technology – every technology – has a fundamental impact on cognition and learning, we are missing the point entirely. Gutenberg’s 15^th Century technology changed how people learned and how they saw the world. So did the Edison/Lumiere film technology of the 19^th Century: once British audiences saw film of the Boer War they were never the same again – never thought in the same patterns, and never accepted learning in quite the same way. Marconi altered this again, providing a radical new idea of immediacy and authenticity. And this has proceeded with every technological leap.

Educators in particular have always struggled with this. In the late 19^th Century they worried that students would not be able to distinguish between “literature” and the stuff of “dime novels” (original paperback popular fiction). In the early 20^th Century they were sure their youngsters could not distinguish between reality and cinema. Then that radio was wasting their time and destroying their imagination. In 1984 multi-tasking on a computer was cognitive overload and editing on a computer made one lazy. And we hear all these threats, and more, today.

The goal, this, in my mind, is not in pandering to these future fears, but in learning to force schools and educators into a place where they stop restricting the potential of their students because of their own discomfort with the world as it exists.

- Ira Socol

---

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4BlmsN4q2I&mode=related&search=

[2] Jennings, K. Music Technology in Irish Second Level Education - A Foobarian Approach. Journal of Music in Ireland. (pages in press) July/August 2004

The Universally Designed Workplace

I will be speaking at the Dearborn Disability Awareness Day event this year - Pathways to Possibilities is being held on Thursday, 18 October 2007, at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, Michigan from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It is free, and there will be speakers, workshops, demonstrations, and displays. Below is an introduction to what I will be talking about at Noon.

Traveling in Ireland recently my companion and I were on our fourth city, and perhaps our fifth visit to a "Tesco," (the largest supermarket/superstore chain in the United Kingdom and Ireland) when she looked at me and said, "every cashier sits down in this country." I might have said something like, "of course," but then I realized what she was saying. In the US many, many people are kept out of cashiering jobs because they cannot stand on their feet all day long. The Irish cashiers almost universally had drinks and even snacks with them. In the US, we both knew, if an employee needed to have that for reasons of comfort or medical condition, it would often be a fight to get the accommodation.

So unlike most US retailers, Tesco, a stunningly successful business now beginning to invade the United States, has eliminated the need for numerous of the accommodations American employers need to make to meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements. In fact, they have eliminated the need for many of their employees to label themselves as "disabled." And they have done it through a simple concept called "Universal Design."

We all know "universal design". We can wheel our baby's strollers and our kids can ride their bicycles easily from sidewalk to street because curb cuts have made that possible, while allowing wheelchair users to make the same trip. When we sit down at our computer our spell-check makes up for the fact that most of us have not committed the dictionary to memory. And we are all thankful for that early bit of "UD" the elevator, which made high office floors accessible to wheelchair users, the elderly, the temporarily hurt, or if we just do not want to walk up ten flights of stairs. The car is another bit of universal design. Some of us in 1850 could have walked twenty miles to work each morning, but many of us could not, and many more would not want to. For some the car thus became a convenience, for others a life solution – allowing them to live more complete lives.

Adding adjustable stools to cashiers' positions is one way that American business could dramatically change the way we define ability and disability in the United States, and it would enable millions more people to see good jobs, but it is just one of hundreds of free or inexpensive ways that Universal Design can be embraced.

The keyboard is another obvious roadblock for many. Companies, and especially governments, continue to give pre-employment keyboarding tests for many jobs, and continue to use the antiquated keyboard design that comes standard in the computer box. These systems not only define many as "disabled" but go further, literally causing disabilities through horrid design. But there are hundreds of keyboard types to fit every hand shape, size, and capability, and dozens of alternative ways to get words and data into a computer. Big Keys and FrogPads, Left-Handed and "naturally" shaped keyboards. Speech Recognition and on-screen keyboards, even the keypad on a mobile phone can become an entry device. How the data reaches the computer does not matter, the best way is whatever way is best for the employee. Changing this attitude will make hundreds of millions comfortable, and less susceptible to carpal tunnel syndrome. For tens of millions it will make satisfying and rewarding work possible.

So much of our workplaces are standardized when they should not be. How often do corporate rules prevent the hiring of the best employees? The answer is very often. We know this because "the best" gravitate to "the best companies." There is a reason the corporations which cannot survive without hiring the best minds go out of their way to allow individualization, of offices, of the work schedule, of computers, of methods of production. But even if a firm is not a Google with flex work days and door-to-door mass transit and pets in the offices, or an IBM with the software "brains" most often working from home, businesses can make choices that make the many more comfortable, and the "disabled" part of the mainstream of life.

Sit or stand? How about leaving that to the worker. Type of keyboard? Buy a few different as examples and let employees choose. The same for office chairs, for computer mice, for desk heights (yes, you can adjust them, but how often do you?). Always allow employees to bring their own lights to their own offices. Encourage computer individualization – why would a company care if an employee "reads" or "listens" to their emails, or gets your most recent memo via paper or iPod? The bottom line is to get the job done, and done so that the customer is served. The methods of internal information exchange, or whether the office seating is from Steelcase or is an electric wheelchair, make no difference. The rule should always be flexibility unless it makes business impossible.

Universal Design is not really a new idea. If we are old enough we saw it in place consistently. The cashier at a local hardware store had the use of just one arm, an injured war veteran. When he worked a board was clamped to the counter to his left, giving him an extra surface from which he could sweep the purchased items into the bags. At the local beverage company a production worker whose leg had been injured sat on a specially constructed high stool and continued his job. The man at the counter at the neighborhood laundry was deaf, a large stack of scrap paper and some pencils sat right there, ready to enable communication. The short grocery clerk used a long-handled "grabber" to pull items down from the upper shelves of crowded urban stores. Even the President of the United States – back in the early 1960s – needed a special rocking chair in his office to ease the back pain from his war injury and allow himself to continue working.

But over the years management experts and efficiency experts have pushed us to pretend that we are all the same, that we should all work in identical environments, that we should all use the same tools, methods, and schedules.

That is not just silly, it is anti-human. It makes the days miserable for most, and impossible for too many. In an economy where we must use all the talents we have if we hope to be competitive, we must toss out this notion that human workers are exactly interchangeable parts. We must embrace Universal Design, and the full diversity of our potential workforce.

- Ira Socol

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com.

US $16.00 direct via lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

What Not to Do

Sometimes, it is most important not to do make students do things, especially when the norms of instruction work against the way many kids learn...

For example - countless hours are wasted in maths classes everywhere trying to get kids to remember formulas - that "stuff at the front of the book." This is a massive waste of cognitive effort and educational time. Students need to know how to find the appropriate formula and how to recognize that this is the right formula to use. But in the three millennia since literacy was invented, the need for this kind of nonsensical memorization has vanished. This is, obviously, particularly important for students who often fall into the dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, etc - because this group often struggles with the adaptation of short term memory to long-term memory and with fully accurate symbol recall (for many of these students a formula would have to be recalled as a precise picture for it to be of any use).

So, hand out a notebook insert listing all the formulas along with keywords to suggest use. You will then be using your educational time - and your students' cognitive effort - on real world tasks, the assembly of knowledge and the effective ability to work with data.

Likewise, the recall of dates remains the most worthless of academic pursuits. Again, in history classrooms worldwide so much time and effort is tossed away on this nonsense that it is no surprise that students know so little actual history. A former professor of mine used to say, "I don't care at all about dates, but I want you to understand which events preceeded which other events." In other words, the dates of the Austrian annexation of Bosnia, Franz-Ferdinand's assassination, and the start of The Great War are trivia, easily looked up via Google or Wikipedia. But it is vital to know that these events occured in sequence, or they don't make sense. If you waste your students' time forcing memorization of dates a student might get 2/3 of "that question" correct - answering (a - Austrian Annexation): 1919 - (b - Franz Ferdinand's assassination): June 1914 - (c - start of The Great War): August 1914. This would be "passing" in most schools and yet it would be completely wrong - a fundamental misunderstanding of history caused by focusing on numbers which have no value.

This kind of cognitive waste goes on in almost every subject. It goes along with a devotion to questions which can be answered on multiple-choice or short-answer tests. It goes along with panic about cheating. It goes along with the fallacy of "standards-based" education. And it not only severly damages students with certain cognitive, learning, or attentional issues - it limits the possibilities for learning by all students.

- Ira Socol

The Drool Room by Ira David Socol, a novel in stories that has - as at least one focus - life within "Special Education" - is now available from the River Foyle Press through lulu.com.

US $16.00 direct via lulu.com

Look Inside This Book

ADHD - Changing the School Environment

In ADHD Awareness Week, and inspired by blogger k8tthelate's posts one and two, a few possible ways to make those who lie at differing points on the attention spectrum feel more comfortable in school...

ONE: Take the first hour off. Getting the day started, and getting to school, can be a nightmare for those with ADHD. The organizational and attention requirements - getting up, eating, getting dressed, do I have everything? getting to the bus stop or driving, or getting in the car, do I have everything? collecting books, papers, notebooks, lunch, money, do I have everything? getting through the crowds of kids, the hallways, the lighting, finding my locker, do I have everything? getting to class... by the time the ADHD student gets to that first period class they are already worn to a frazzle by the assaults of the morning. Make them uncomfortable now by forcing them to sit still and listen, and you will lose them for the day. Make that first hour a simple "chill out" time. Put no demands on it outside of basic safety. That will let the student relax, and make the rest of the school day possible.

TWO: Wear a ballcap. Yes. A cap with a bill at the front - preferably a very curved bill - keeps the fluorescent lights out of the eyes and acts as a kind of "blinder" - minimizing visual distractions. This simple - very low-tech solution - can make a massive difference. Note, seems to work best if the underside of the bill is a dark color.

THREE: Carry a mobile phone. OK, if I haven't threatened your basic school administrator enough with the last thought, here we go! The mobile phone, with reminders and prompts either set into the phone's alarms feature or delivered from Google Calendar by text message, can keep the student on task in un-matched ways. It can also be used as a watch (without that disturbing thing on your wrist), as a verbal notetaker. And to confirm - via text message to parents and/or teachers, task completion.

FOUR: Make chairs and desks optional. Why force discomfort? If a student is uncomfortable the bulk of their cognitive capabilities become devoted to that discomfort, leaving precious little for knowledge processing. Who cares if they sit on the floor, or by the window, or stand in the back. You can surely negotiate limits, but be fair. After all, plenty of high-paid executives walk around as they work - sitting in a chair for hours on end is NOT career related.

FIVE: Allow escape. Have an escape plan. What does the student do if he/she needs to "get out"? I've negotiated various things for students. With one kid there was a tree outside that could be seen from the office. Another could go sit on the gym bleachers. For a third, the library was an option. In another case the boy just needed the time to walk down the corridor, get a drink, and come back. Whatever. Forcing them to stay when they cannot is insisting on behavioral issues, and thus becomes child abuse. Plus, if kids know that they can leave - that alone creates comfort - and usually means they will have less of a need to leave.

SIX: Use text-to-speech software. For reading, use multi-sensory solutions that engage in at least two ways. Software that says the word while visually highlighting it is more effective for holding attention than paper will ever be. (see previous posts for Literacy Technology)

SEVEN: Don't give extra-time on tests. Attention is a problem and you want me to spend twice as much time taking your stupid test?! How ridiculous. Instead, use literacy technology (see above) to enhance reading (WYNN and read-and-Write are great for this, but even Microsoft Reader will do) and break the test up into smaller segments.

EIGHT: Don't insist on homework right after school. This is horrible. After a school day what these kids need most is something completely different, totally disconnected. Give them free hours, and negotiate a slightly flexible "return to work" time.

- Ira Socol

The Classroom Mobile

Few things draw faster, angrier responses from American teachers than when I suggest that classrooms should actively include mobile phones. I couldn't possibly get more opposition if I suggested pornography or kick boxing.

"They'll cheat!" "They'll get stolen!" "They'll take nasty pictures!" "They'll be texting their friends all day!" And on and on... sort of, as if, before mobile phones students were not cheating, passing notes, stealing things, making nasty pictures...

But to me, and many others, the contemporary mobile is the invention we've been waiting for since Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy described the "indispensible guide" - that pocket-size electronic book/web browser. If you can put the world's greatest library and the fastest, most complete communication tool into a student's hands - why wouldn't you? If you cannot figure out how to leverage these capabilities - should you really be teaching 21st Century students.

This video from TeachersTV raises many of the questions and concerns, and displays a bit of the potential. It is well worth a half-hour of your time.

- Ira Socol