MTA Eliminates 19th Century Technology from Students
The MTA has announced budget cuts that will eliminate the free metro-pass for students, requiring families to fork over $80+ dollars per child per month (think $240 dollars for a family of three) to go to school! Is this a pre- Brown vs Board of Education policy or what? Choice in schools is a fundamental part of the New York City education deal. Students apply to middle and high schools and travel long distances to get opportunities not available to them locally. The MTA’s mission is not education. Why then do they have control over this mission-critical educational budget item?The impact on poor students is devastating. I, for one, would pay double for a metro card to see this cut taken off the table. In fact, the first student that reads this blog and proves that he or she can no longer afford to get to a school of choice because he or she can’t afford it … can get the metro card on me… at least until they change this beyond idiotic, short-sighted education disaster of a policy. And if this is just politics… and scare tactics… it worked on me. Raise my taxes.
Google Wave and SchoolsGoogle Wave and Schools Google's New Assessment Tool
Fusion Tables takes a standard data table either imported from excel, or shared from Google Apps and allows you to visualize the data without any technical complexity. So, imagine you're a middle school looking to improve your students in ELA. You've bought into the data movement, you get that there will always be standardized tests and measures, but that periodic assessments are also important. You even have your teachers on board, have setup data teams to meet and look at the data and have worked hard to standardize your rubrics. But you don't have any money for a fancy system, the ones your district provide you only work with the standardized data, and everything else is either paper-based or on individual spreadsheets / gradebooks. So how will Google help? First, setup Google Apps for education, it's free, and allows your teachers to collaborate on documents / spreadsheets. Next, create a wiki-spreadsheet for your school that has a column for the student, grade, teacher, class, and then any and every evaluative point throughout the year. That's it - no formulas or charts. All your teachers easily enter in the data, letting Google handle the work flow. Then, whenever you, or your teachers, or your data teams want, you fire up Fusion Tables and visualize the data. Want to look at the 8th grade? Or maybe the lowest performing students in the 8th grade? Or maybe the lowest performing students in writing conversions in the 8th grade? Or, maybe it's a specific teacher or student's trending that your curious about. It's all right there within a couple of clicks. See for yourself: Make sure to checkout the visualize menu. I suggest line charts for this data. If you're interested in learning more about Google Apps and Fusion Tables, get in touch with us, we're helping schools get setup. School of OneNot an Integrated Learning System: A New Vision for Teacher Collaboration and SpecializationThis week I went to see School of One, declared a futuristic, 21st century classroom (NYTIMES, GOTHAMSCHOOLS). And it has taken me a while to process. I met with architect of the system, Joel Rose, last year. He described a vision of a learning environment that met students exactly at their levels with lessons adjusted to their individualized learning styles. As he spoke, I thought to myself, this sounds just like an integrated learning system (ILS), except it is more complicated. Trying to be helpful, I even sent him a link to an ILS system after our meeting. For those who don’t know what an Integrated Learning System is, this was the first cut at computer-aided instruction designed to let children learn at their own pace, be constantly assessed, and move up at their own levels. More sophisticated ILS systems started to aggregate content from a number of different content providers to offer students the best of breed content and meet their specific needs. Can you see how I might have been confused? Joel’s vision went beyond the traditional ILS, because he was talking not only about computerized individualized instruction, but live-online tutoring, and teachers delivering their favorite lesson plans. Still, I knew one of the main challenges of these systems is that teachers usually do not align their instruction to take advantage of the technology-delivered content or assessment data they offer. (Maybe for good reason, but that is why these systems often fail.) When I visited the School of One prototype in the redesigned library of PS 131, I saw four teachers, four assistant teachers, three online tutors, high school students, and a back end team of data analysts (in the most impressive educational control room I have ever seen). Each educator was focused on teaching or assessing a different skill in a different way. And I still didn’t get it. All I could think about was reducing the educator-student ratio (1 to 10 - not including the online tutors) so that this could be scalable. But the more I reduced the ratio, the more it felt like a traditional ILS system. You can ignore a computer (even when it can help you), but it is a lot harder to ignore eight colleagues all working at a level of collaboration enabled by technology. Teachers will change practice for each other. In fact, the end of teacher isolation is one of the best promises of the model. Imagine the naturally occurring modeling and mentoring opportunities that could occur when new and experienced teachers work together in these classrooms that offer varied roles for teachers. 2009 Innovative Principal Forum
We launched our Rubric for School Innovation and simple self assessment checklist, designed to outline a set of critical questions to guide school leaders assess themselves on a continuum of school innovation in a set of critical areas. A short explanation of terms and ideas behind the document are useful background. Leaders who presented at the session included:
Realizing the Promise of the 21st Century School: Leadership Forum
We are pleased to invite school leaders to our Annual School Leadership Forum 2009! We have a fantastic group of principals and other school leaders presenting on: Realizing the Promise of the 21st Century School: A Roadmap for Innovation Wednesday, July 15, 2009 More information on the program is included below. Please let your school leaders know! What is a 21st century school? Technology is radically changing every sector of our society, yet schools remain largely unchanged. Or do they? Hear from a panel of innovative NYC school leaders on the vanguard of rethinking urban education. They will speak about their experiences regarding what is important, the challenges and what's possible! • Alisa Berger: Principal, NYC iSchool Teaching Matters will also provide a new and simple assessment tool for gauging where your school lies on a continuum of the 21st century school outcomes. It will help you evaluate your school's readiness and offer a roadmap of ideas for innovation in those areas you deem most critical. Wine & cheese will be served! All principals who attend will be eligible to enter a raffle to jump-start a 21st century classroom with: Let your principal or school leader know today!! Please RSVP to our Annual Forum for School Leaders by Wednesday July 8th to LMorris@teachingmatters.org or 212.870.3505 PS 5 Students in the Bronx Document the Impact of the XOCheck out the students at PS 5 in the Port Morris section of the Bronx and their amazing documentary about the history and impact of Nicholas Negroponte’s ground breaking XO pilot project in their school. The video speaks for itself.. I don’t want to give anything away.
Twitter and Facebook - Your First Source for Current Events in Social Studies?
So I was thinking about the teaching opportunity presented by the Iran election. What a way to see democracy in action… Yet, until a few minutes ago, where would my students get their news? Not old media. I just spent an hour searching facebook (search IRAN) and twitter #iranelection and couldn’t believe the video and posts I was finding. For one, I found out I should wear green to show my support for the protestors and then watched a whole bunch of videos of riots and marches. Yet, hours later, CNN finally got with the story. Tear Gas and Twitter: Iranians Take their Protest Online http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=92330174188&h=CHHYj&u=KAJNK&ref=nf The Middle has Spoken!Over 250 students from 25 New York City middle schools performed their own original poetry to an audience of their peers at Teaching Matters' 3rd Annual Spoken Word Event ! Students performed in breakout rooms and finalists took the stage at the 92nd Street Y (see photos!). Follow the journey of one of our finalists Aline, thanks to the quick video skills of our high school event volunteers.
Civic Activists for a Digital AgeHUNDREDS of New York students made their voices heard on critical social issues of the day spanning child labor to racial profiling as part of the Voices and Choices program with Teaching Matters!
Speaker Quinn Presenting to Students AND Students Workshopping Social Justice Campaigns with Real NYC Social Activitists With over 50 schools participating, students met with policy makers, the business community, and civic activists to present and improve their campaigns for social justice! Speaker Quinn urged hundreds of 8th graders and their teachers to continue their work in social justice just as she has been doing in the council for years. The students, who researched and prepared unique web-campaigns on civil rights movements presented them to activitists from the NYCLU, Lambda Legal, The Anti-Defamation League, The National Organization for Women, Ensaaf, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and other organizations focused on social change.
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Chancellor Klein has announced a series of initiatives acknowledging that schools need to retool and innovate to prepare students for the 21st century. So while the school system is now seriously exploring the role of technology to advance education, (something I care deeply about) the MTA is effectively eliminating the19th century technology that makes it possible for poor students to get to schools of choice…(the train) 
Google's next big thing in education might not be Google Wave or Google Apps for education, but a new data-analysis tool they've been working on, Google Fusion Tables. Google's long been known for making the hard to do simple, and Fusion Tables is no different. It makes looking at data simple - if you've ever struggled with a pivot table in excel, you'll appreciate immediately what it does. 
At our Innovative Principal Forum 2009, we invited three principals of schools experimenting extensively with technology as well as the Director of New Schools to speak with 65 of their peers about following questions:
Students based their web-campaigns on a six-week study of historical Civil Rights Movements and then applied what they learned to advocate for a current day issue learning that history will and does repeat itself UNLESS YOU WORK FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE.