Tech Ideas for 21st Century Schools

Inspired by several of my edubloggers, here is my summer reading list - before I get started let me say that I was just introduced to Vince Flynn by a colleague and have been devouring his books:

Fiction:

• Memorial Day by Vince Flynn
• Consent to Kill by Vince Flynn
• Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn
• Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn
• Executive Power by Vince Flynn
• Separation of Power by Vince Flynn
• The Third Option by Vince Flynn
• Term Limits by Vince Flynn
• Act of Treason by Vince Flynn
• The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout
• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Non-Fiction

• Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen
• Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson
• The Minds of Boys by Michael Gurian

In addition I read Newsweek and Sports Illustrated weekly and Wired and PC World monthly.  I am looking forward to a great summer of reading!

I have just returned from spring break rejuvenated and ready to finish out the school year. Before leaving for my week long vacation I read a post by Chris Lehman and another by Will Richardson where they eloquently discussed Barack Obama’s speech on race in the US. These posts both challenge the reader to listen or watch Obama’s speech, so I took them up on their challenge. I downloaded his speech (audio / video / text) and listened to it on my iPod as I was driving through the mountains of West Virginia. To say I was blown away is putting it mildly. My wife (also a teacher) and I sat in stunned silence for several minutes after the speech had ended. It is a lot to digest and I had to listen to it again to even begin to wrap my mind around it.

The main thought that I have after hearing this speech is about Obama’s courage. He could have easily ducked this issue or given a surplus of political-speak around the issue. Instead he decided to take the tougher route and address the topic of race head on. After listening to the speech twice I went looking for reaction to it online. While the pundits hemmed and hawed about it (like usual), I found that the clearest critique of the speech is at the end of Jon Stewart’s analysis of it on The Daily Show (see clip below). Make sure to watch the end of the clip (the last 10 seconds) because that is where Jon Stewart actually gives us his own opinion of the speech: “at 11:00 on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race, as though they were adults.”

I would like to note that I think that the other two main candidates also possess a tremendous amount of personal courage.  John McCain’s POW experience is well documented.  In my opinion Hillary Clinton showed personal courage in staying married to Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky affair.  I just haven’t heard a speech from either of them during this political cycle that demonstrates political courage.  I hope that I will hear one from either or both of them before November.

I just found out about a new documentary that was produced, directed and written by a businessman and 2 former Teach for America educators. The name of the film is “Two Million Minutes” and is derived from this idea:

4 years in high school X 525,600 minutes in a year (thank you Rent) = 2 Million + minutes.

Their question is “What do students in China, India, and the US do with their 2 million minutes in high school?” They examine the lives of 6 students through their high school career to try to find an answer. I must admit that I have not seen the DVD yet, but I am looking forward to viewing it. As a disclaimer, I have no financial interest in the success (or lack thereof) of this video. I think that it is great that we finally have some moving visual images for those people who choose not to read “The World is Flat” and other books of its ilk.

Here is the movie preview:

UPDATE (2/21/08) - I have now seen the movie and am working on gathering my thoughts before posting about it.  I have received several e-mails asking where people can see this movie.  It was a direct to DVD movie, so if you are interested in seeing it I would suggest buying it by following this link.  I could not find this movie on Netflix yet.

My school is considering implementing a "Plus Block" for students who struggle academically. The process for this would be something like this: We are on the block schedule, so each class is roughly 90 minutes every day. The proposal is to take away 10 minutes from each class 4 days a week, which would open up a 40 minute hole in the middle of the day. Each day struggling students (those with a grade <85) would spend that 40 minutes in one of their classes per day (for example, Monday in 1st block, Tuesday in 2nd block, etc.) Students who have an 85 or above would be allowed to go to extra curricular offerings or intramurals during this time.

Some of the leadership at my school are trying to push this through. I made the claim that they had little to no research data to back up their claim that this is a good idea.  They countered that I also had no research data to back up my claims that this would not help anyone. 

I am now throwing myself at the mercy of the blogosphere to help me prove my position.  If you have something like this in place at your school or know of any data that would either help or hinder my cause, please help me out.  I have listed my major issues with this plan below:

1. Below average students are not taking advantage of the current help offered to them that is available before, during, and after school. All teachers offer tutoring before and after school at least twice a week and we also have an after school extra study block where transportation is provided. These sessions are poorly attended, if at all, by below average students.
2. Below average students are not motivated to do more than is necessary. Many teachers provide extra time in class for students to do make up work and correct tests.  The students typically just sit there and do not attempt to rectify their grade problems.
3. Honors and AP students routinely attend extra help time after school; they have no need for a Plus Block. The plus block would subtract 40 minutes from each day of school, or 10 minutes a day from each class. This would be 40 minutes a week per class (since we already lost 10 for Advisement.) This would be 720 minutes per class per semester (40 minutes times 18 weeks.) This is the same as eight 90-minute class periods lost for the Plus Block. Many of our AP and Honors teachers struggle to get through the state standards for their courses as the schedule is now. This would make the classes more difficult for struggling students in the upper-level courses due to the fact that the teacher would need to take the course at an even faster speed in order to cover the material.
   The alternative to this would be to require all AP and Honors students (not just the struggling ones) to attend the Plus Block instead of having them do extra curricular activities so that the class time would not be lost. This would seem to defeat the purpose of the Plus Block (to reward students who earn high academic marks.) In addition, this would require the teacher to plan for one more block per Honors/AP class.

Dr. Pausch is notable for his many accomplishments in the field of Computer Science.  First and foremost is the creation of the Alice programming language. He is 47 years old and is dying of pancreatic cancer. He recently gave his "Last Lecture" at CMU.  Thankfully somebody there videotaped it and has posted it online. Since it has been posted it has been viewed over a million times.  If you have not yet checked it out please do so. I will be recommending it to my students.  The link below will take you to a page about his last lecture.

Randy Pausch’s Home Page