Teacher Pay and Leave us Alone

Pensions have been a recent conversation on NPR this week. Pensions are crucial to guarantee we have quality public employees. A solid and good pension system is crucial to provide good teachers in any state. If the pension is neglected, that state will soon find a weak educational system. The pension system is our counter to outrageous salaries of some Americans and bonuses of other Americans. Pensions are equitable and reflect true value unlike astronomical salaries for a few and outrageous bonuses of the plutocrats.

Why shouldn't students be responsible for teacher pensions? (go to 11:15 of audio) Who was most responsible for the job that students will get one day? Have teachers received bonuses from those who are now making good money the way many of them get bonuses for their work? What is very ironic is that the very folks who have found success and criticize teachers got to where they are because of teachers, not all their teachers, but some of them and they should honor them with greater respect. The work of the teacher goes unrecognized because we are never sure of that teachers effect on us as we know the effect of a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a coach, a cook. How many times does something we learned from a teacher become cognizant to us years later and maybe after that teacher has died?

The teacher's pension is the most important business of all school boards and if the future generations are to be made responsible for those pensions, that seems appropriate.

On another note, Diana Senechal, please leave us alone. I was absolutely disgusted with her recent AFT submission. I was disgusted with the cry for maintaining the status quo, for the lack of sound pedagogy like differentiation, and for the lame attack on technology. Here we have a former elementary teacher of four years who has had an elitist edcuation of her own speak about something she has no knowledge, technology in the high school. I'm still wondering why the AFT published this maudlin piece. We really aren't paying attention. And when Diane Ravitch and ED Hirsch are key references, I know we are in for a one sided reactionary status quo type of article that will make me lose my last meal. Most daring reform of all, indeed, do nothing. Leave us alone Ms Senechal. At then we see a promising article, only to find it fall way short. It is sad to see the major teacher union publish backward looking articles about reform, obviously protecting someone from actually getting into the 21st century. Nothing about how technology can be used well and mentioned only when they bash technology. Another example of why we are so far behind and being bashed by everyone. Why do we consistently defend our practice by living in the past and forgo the present at the cost of the future. Keep in mind when we quote Socrates, we aren't quoting him because he was the first teacher, but because he was forced to kill himself because he corrupted the youth by looking forward. Quite obviously these authors don't know Socrates. Socrates wasn't in favor of the status quo. He would embrace technology as would Dewey.

I'm looking forward to the next two week vacation. Happy holidays to those who celebrate.

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Technology Counts, reviewed

When I began using technology in my classroom in the mid 80's, I came to realize the power of the new technology as a potential publishing tool, similar to the tool the information power brokers of the world used. Then came the World Wide Web and BANG, all of us were publishers. That required a new order for teaching. Classroom publishing became a reality and allowed the classroom teacher to do what school newspapers and yearbooks were doing, publish their scholars' work. This month sees an important publication, Classroom Publishing, a book that describes, outlines, and provides examples of classroom publishing being done in classrooms across the country. It is more than serendipitous that this book is released at the same time the US Department of Education released a new Technology Plan and ED Week published its annual Technology Counts. Publishing is what scholars do and I hope our educational leaders take this power of technology more seriously and do more with the technology than is now seen and even forecast.

Education Week has recently released its latest issue of Technology Counts. The opening editorial salvo outlines the major stumbling block in "Powering Up Change." There are many problems inherent in our current push to use technology in schools. Going mobile and using the more advanced tools seems to be the latest wave pushed either by the geeks or the manufacturers, while too many of the teachers are barely able to use email and are being left further behind. Why push and limit ourselves to "mobile." They are an elite technology. The articles in this issue bear this out. Why not start with technology which hasn't found its way into our schools to any level of how it is used in other areas of our lives. I'd suggest we keep it simple. I don't see the mention of webpages, but I see wikis, which are a real bad idea in education cause they don't work for classwork and blogs which are very limited. I say webpages because we use webpages every day. We should have our scholars make webpages. Then, maybe, these other tools can augment our webpages. It is suggested that these mobile devices are accessories. We don't even have the main wardrobe under any kind of control. We aren't ready to accessorize and this is not a place to start. Once again we have skipped over the basics and have widened the technology gulf between the geeks and the neophytes. No wonder education is floundering in the use of technology, it lacks pedagogy. How many teachers have their own webpage that provides everything their scholars need in their class? Not enough to make the leap to "mobile." Most teachers don't know how to use the basic technology in their classrooms. Everyone knows how to use webpages in their work except teachers, so let's start there before we explore "mobile." The biggest problem is stated near the end of the essay, "'Right now, we’re just focusing on what’s easy, what can be developed quickly, because it’s going to take a lot of trial and error to figure out what is the best practice for doing this,' says Joy Smith, the chief development officer for the Florida Virtual School, the largest state-sponsored online school." Obviously she hasn't considered webpage development. We need to understand why we want to use the technology, how to use it, and what we hope to get out of it. How are we going to make us more productive? Produce is the key and creating webpages is the how. Why? So we have a record of it, it is public, we can engage in peer review , and because it becomes the foundation for all the other technologies. Technology has to be more than multiple choice tests, flashcards, and polling. Come on folks, think outside the box.

Now the other real problem is what we call research. This is a bogus argument. There is no way we will get the research we need if we won't use technology in our schools which won't happen until the research informs us. We are like the dog chasing its tail. Another useful metaphor would be our first job. We can't get that job because we need experience, but we can't get experience unless someone hires us. The vicious circle or more affectionately called "Catch 22." Forget the research for a moment and look around you. The President of the United States is not the first politician to use technology in such a way as to get elected. We have seen very tech savvy campaigns run by the unlikeliest of candidates get elected to office because of their tech savviness. Consider how all professions now use technology to function. When we have natural disasters or other events around the world technology is how we communicate and get the information we need to react and act. Technology is the difference in all parts of our lives from getting tickets to an event, buying products online, communicating with everyone, and gleaning information before we visit the doctor. When we need information we "google" it. Come on folks, if we wait for the research we will never get it done in education as it is done in other parts of our lives. We know it works because we can't exist without it in our lives. What more research do we need? We need to learn how to use in our classrooms. Heck, we are hard pressed to see technology used well in these colleges that will do the research.

"Mobile" technology still is a consumer activity and does not create a producer environment as does making webpages to display the work of our scholars. The best place to do this is on the computer, be it desktop or laptop. Making technology accessories the key in education suggests we have a better handle on technology. We don't. Too few schools and far too few teachers use technology in their everyday work as compared to how they use technology away from their work. It is quite obvious we aren't getting anywhere with technology in education because we aren't thinking correctly as geeks or as teachers. We should be thinking as the Cybrarian.

I hope we get serious about technology in schools because the current trend is going in the wrong direction. We have to get beyond thinking of technology as a toy, a gimmick, an accessory. It is a very serious tool not being taken very seriously by the very people who have the most to gain. The key to improving education is by using technology correctly and that means by publishing our scholars' work and our work, then we can consider accessorizing. One last important use of the web not mentioned or rarely used or spoken about is the WebQuest, which would also be a great way to help develop a set of national standards. Technology is used badly in our schools and this report only highlights our shortcomings and dark future.

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Are We Paying Attention?

Three items in the Sunday New York Times' "Week in Review" got my attention.

First, the front page's "Identity Politics Leans Right" by Sam Tanenhaus discusses the impact of the Texas Board of Education on textbooks, a national curriculum, and the thinking in the rest of America is finally getting some national attention. I have written about this dilemma a couple of times in the past on Feb 15 and Mar 5. The constant battle is local and about private interests when it comes to recording history. I've always been of the mind that history is told by the victors. The crux of the matter comes when Tanenhaus says in his conclusion, "Today it is not regional or ethnic identity, but ideological commitment that threatens to submerge larger “national myths.” But one thing remains unchanged from 50 or 60 years ago. As Americans struggle to see where they are going, they continue to gaze fondly at the past — and to see in it what they like." History is viewed romantically and with one eye closed. I can only think of how the indigenous peoples of America are dealt with in our history books. The history of the history text is a painful one. The local battles in Texas are taking on a more national scope than should be allowed and no one seems to be paying attention.

The second important article is on the editorial page, "Who Grades the Graders." I don't think they took it far enough. It isn't enough to question the ability of the principals and superintendents and the method by which they evaluate teachers. What we need to do is evaluate the tests that are made by the testing companies and check their validity and worthiness. If the tests are going to have such an importance and impact on people's lives, then we need to have a better method in their evaluation.

The third noteworthy submission were the letters about "One Country, One School Yardstick?" So many realities being revealed. One that not all students will go to college, that the top and bottom scoring nations have national standards. Voices from all parts of the educational spectrum reveal our conundrum. Education is far more complex then we hear from educational leadership.

The point is that education will soon dominate our attention now that the health care bill is passed. Now is the time to pay attention to education.

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What my scholars have done

I'm very proud of what my scholars have done this year.

In 1974 my teaching career began in competitive private schools in New England. I moved to NYC and worked in a very good high school for 18 years where I began my work with technology. After a few years of working for a district as a technology staff developer, and then helped start a technology oriented high school. The scholars in these schools were high caliber. Four years ago I moved to teach in a transfer school. This is very different kind of school from those I have spent the past 30 years. We are constantly getting new scholars who have been forced out of another school, have returned to school after jail, pregnancy, travel, dropping out or any other anomaly which finds them in this difficult situation. They come to us with some high school credit, but not enough to graduate. We help them complete the credits they need to graduate. We don't have grades, we have classes. We are the last stop. That being said, teaching here can be a challenging endeavor, because these scholars have a varying degree of skills or not. The challenge I face is trying to get my scholars into a consistent college ready mode. They may have the skills to do that work, but they haven't demonstrated it in for a prolonged period. Starting to get them to school everyday is our first challenge. Then getting them to all their classes is the next challenge. Getting them to stay in class all period, to work bell to bell, and to produce are the challenges in each class every day. Our scholars have developed some very bad habits and we need to reverse that by helping them develop good habits. That is the purpose of a school like ours, we work with scholars that other schools have released or given up on. This is why working here is so rewarding, because when we see our scholars on graduation day, we know, they know they have overcome some incredible obstacles to get to graduation day.

The focus for me is to have them produce. I work with computers and the scholars make webpages. Using a different environment from which they are familiar is useful in creating good habits. It is a new environment and they have no experience with failure in this environment of technology. Last fall three scholars, Jessica, Seneya, and Edwin took it to another level. Not all scholars took advantage of this opportunity to display their skills. They are all at different levels in the same class. Some are amazed that they could do this much like Dekia, Francis, Raphael, Nelson while others start out well and then falter and fall back into old bad habits. This is not a class that does things in the same old same old way.

This spring has begun very strongly as the scholars worked very hard on a civil rights project. Their products were very good. Juliell, Brengi, Jubair, Dijana, Kremlys, Karyna, Kenrich, Stephanie, Seneya. These are the links of the scholars who got it. There are still those who struggle as you can see on the link to the scholars with the spring scholar and the fall scholars.

What my scholars have done was to develop better habits and to so some things that they haven't done in a long time or have ever done. In conversation with colleagues, we struggle over the need for a rigorous curriculum. I suggest we need to start at their level and then help them rise at their pace and in their time. The traditional schooling these scholars have had has failed them and hasn't worked. We know this because they are in our school. So using technology changes the entire environment of school. When they walk into the computer lab, many ask if this is an English class. It is sort of like starting with a clean slate. Our rigor has many different facets than does the rigorous classes I had in those previous schools I taught in. I am proud of what my scholars have done at this school.

All the teachers in this school should receive merit pay, because they do miraculous work with scholars other teachers couldn't, but our test scores wouldn't tell you that.

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Healthier Schools

Quietly our schools are getting healthier. When I was a young boy, my mom followed the edicts provided to her by Carlton Fredericks and Adelle Davis, especially the quote, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper." Not so easy to do especially today. We now live in too many single parent households and/or in a too much of a rushed lifestyle to follow this sage advice. One other difficulty has been the proliferation of fast food, especially around schools. I'm always amazed at how dirty the streets around schools are with all the discarded food wrappers and containers that litter the streets and sidewalks when every corner has a garbage can on each of the four corners. NYC is one of the dirtiest cities I've ever been in. When it rains heavily we are made even more aware of it as the street drains are quickly clogged with all the trash causing minor flooding. This is endemic of the state of the health of our scholars. They are overweight, out of shape, and too lazy to get their trash to the corner garbage bins. I wonder if there is a correlation between our trash and our unhealthy children poor academic performance in our schools.

Last year we had an interesting discussion about the number of scholars who are getting doctor's notes to be excused from physical education and the request for elevator passes. Obesity had become epidemic. This school year began with the addition of a Health Corps volunteer who joined our staff at school. She has begun many radical programs in our school to help our scholars learn more about their health just as I did when I overheard my mom listening to her health gurus and practicing what they espoused. It rubbed off on me, unbeknown to me then. She has begun to hand out healthy breakfasts to the scholars when they enter school, she has worked with the school kitchen to modify and provide healthier lunches. She has handed out healthy snacks after school. She conducts after school cooking classes that provide excellent hot snacks to us when we leave after our after school programs. She is changing the culture of the school as evidenced in the diminishing amount of food the scholars bring from the outside. I have noticed a marked, a very very big decrease in the amount of and even kinds of foods the scholars bring in with them. The other day we had a different discussion about the health of our scholars from the one a year ago. Our early morning before school and after school spinning classes (30 bikes) are full. Our physical education classes are getting fuller and our team sports better. We are becoming a healthier school, our attendance is improving and the grades of our scholars are too. Mom was right. I still try to follow her advice as she passed it on from her sages.

Just as the President and his Secretary of Education are fighting to improve schools from one direction, the First Lady is taking on the health issues by leading the charge to help our children with the "Let's Move" campaign to reverse obesity in our schools. She is using the tools of the children, software to reach them. Just as NETP is a plan to use their tools to help them academically, the First Lady is challenging the software industry to develop software that encourages our children to be more active. One category of software development asks for more family shared programs that have us move around like dance or play active games, instead of the sedentary ones we have now. Another category of software development asks for software to help parents design better meals. When shopping she is asking for apps on our cell phones that will better inform the shopper at the point of purchase. This is just the beginning.

Just as the White House has its own kitchen garden, more and more schools are growing their own food. In NYC, there is a push to get more schools to become more involved with the fallow grounds around their schools and to plant gardens that can be used in their cooking classes. Schools in more suitable climates like Florida will of course find great success in this area. Schools further north must figure out how to grow more food in their gardens. That is the educational challenge that makes this so much fun and healthy. The main idea is to teach them how to be healthier and eventually more successful scholars in the classroom.

Once we have grown the food and harvested it, we need to learn how to cook it and make sure it is healthy. Our scholars are learning this and so are scholars across the country, one school at a time. Scholars are enjoying cooking, much to their surprise. "After a student had taken a couple of bites of stir-fried brown rice with vegetables, he pronounced his verdict: 'I loved it at first and now I still love it!'" This is a happy healthy scholar who will be ready to learn after lunch.

The schools in NYC replaced all of their soda machines and junk food vending machines with juices and healthy choices. The bottom line for the soda companies has dropped which is bad news for them, but good news for us. Now the soda companies need to listen to us and create healthier drinks and snacks.

Will the fast food nation change its ways and become healthier and more conscious of their health. The continued reports about obesity and diabetes are alarming and sad. What will it take for us to forgo the fast food and to begin living healthier lives. I know smaller cars might help so as not to accommodate the larger inhabitants. Walk more, ride a bike, stand instead of sit on public transportation. I know more people could sit down on the subway or bus if people became thinner. There is nothing sadder than seeing a scholar on hir way to school taking up two subway seats and munching on some fast food breakfast while the discarded wrapper sits on the floor.

Once again it is on the shoulders of schools to help our citizens become more healthy and more happy. A healthy scholar will do better in school and eventually realize hir dreams.

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The Zen of NETP; Being the NETP

Let's explore some ways we are going to make the very aggressive tech savvy plan of the Office of Educational Technology a reality? We constantly hear how more tech savvy our scholars are than we are. So let's be zen about it. Use that power to help them not to fight them and we will see and have far more success and be less stressful. Let the force of their tech savviness be with you, not against you. Here are some schools in which we found promising uses of the technology as proposed by NETP.

At a recent morning session at the ASCD annual conference a speaker reiterated what has to happen in our schools. We need to embrace the Net Generation, not turn them away or off with our continued educational methods. We need to incorporate their tools, their websites, and their ways of learning into our schools and not continue with our last century ways. Those methods aren't working; we are seeing the dropout rise, not drop; and the Net Generation is learning without us. We need to embrace the technology, make our classes more project based, and be more collaborative on all levels. We need to pay more attention to how they learn, how they produce and how they use the technology to learn in our schools. The speaker was of course being zen. He was saying we need to use the force of each of our scholars to help them learn and not fight that force. They have their technology and we need to adapt to them, not the other way around because they are the future which is one of our pedagogical mantras. It is about choosing your battles and their technology is not a battle you want to fight, because you will lose. Mark Prensky and others have been writing about this for years as it pertains to gaming and letting the scholars go with the technology to see what happens. I can attest to the power of this from my years doing CyberEnglish.

In Rhode Island, middle schools are working with teachers to teach the tech in a program called Waytogo. It is a career path identifier and guide. The teachers acknowledge that the students are way more tech savvy and the first group to learn the software split up and go to other classes to teach other scholars who in turn help others. It is a good example of collaboration, peer teaching, and using the technology to disseminate the information more quickly and more efficiently. As the scholars said, they roam about in a series of pages to find their way to a goal. This cannot be accomplished in a class without the technology. It is a form of play, game oriented. The scholars have choice and they must make decisions and follow that path to a conclusion. This is vital in learning, choices made by the learner, by the scholar in order for learning and acceptance to happen. This is a good example of how NETP can be realized in a very zen way.

A model for the kind of schools we need to see in order to be NETP, is seen in the ASCD's Vision in Action award. The Iowa lab school collaborates with the University of Northern Iowa's College of Education. The whole child approach uses lots of choice. I didn't read about how technology is used, but that doesn't matter. The concept of the school is collaboration and that is important as we need to learn as teachers how to collaborate in our classrooms that once were our domain and will now have to be shared. It is the zen thing to do.

I'm interested in how the online tests in Hawaii will work and serve as an example of assessment for NETP. The use of technology is crucial because it is cost effective and provides the teachers with immediate feedback so that it will help inform them about instruction. Another interesting aspect is that the tests are adaptive. Will the test be only a part of final assessment as will happen in Florida? Will it be more than multiple choice and true/false? More needs to be researched, but the effort is good as a future possibility in NETP. The environment is certainly more scholar friendly and has zen aspects.

Yong Zhao has been writing about the use of technology in our schools from a more global perspective. He advocates the use of technology as a way to satisfy the needs of the curiosity aspect of our scholars. Let them wander, let them roam and eventually they will find their way. This is not available in the traditional classroom, but is in the technology rich classroom as seen in the above mentioned Rhode Island school and schools that are more zen.

Massachusetts has begun a plan to create Readiness Centers where teachers can go to learn how to collaborate. The uniqueness of these centers is that they are virtual and will be incorporating the very technology they will need in their work in schools. The program is part of the Race to the Top, but will be very useful in making NETP work for them and is very zen.

I'm still tickled by stories about how technology is not the teacher. I tap my forehead and chuckle. Of course the technology is not the teacher, but this is a huge stumbling block many teachers have to get over. The work in Oregon is a good example of how teachers have come to embrace the technology and not to shun it. I hope we get beyond this notion and realize that technology is our friend and it will make us better teachers and better humans. It is zen when we let the technology flow around us while we control what we can and let what we can't somehow work in unison with us.

Another school in Indiana hopes to be a model for other schools in the state as it incorporates many of the aspects of the NETP in its classrooms. The classes are using group work in project based lessons. They are incorporating the technology the scholars know. Again a key element is choice and letting go. This is another very zen approach.

An Alabama school has added technology to enhance learning.

Everywhere around us we see more zen approaches to using technology in our schools. Some common elements I see are choice by the scholars, letting go by the teachers, and the zen of scholar tech savviness. These elements are that paradigm shift.

The American Center for Educators at the National Constitution Center offers online resources to teachers to gain more knowledge about teaching tech savvy students as well as a plethora of online courses to advance teachers in the digital age.

A recent survey of teachers at the recent ASCD conference indicated they believe textbooks will be digital very soon. Teachers will find many of the resources they need are online already. My entire CyberEnglish curriculum is built from online resources. I have access to all the literature I need from public domain sites including audio readings of poems and short stories and videos. I also have digital access to current news from the news media that include newspapers, magazines, and journals. Digits are far easier to maintain than atoms and it is so zen.

Another trend is advancing the use of social media. This one may a bit more dicey as it could be dangerous and an application that may not be as useful in the classroom as we may think. It can be useful in some respects as it could augment other technology we use, but I'm not sure about its usefulness as a major technology. It does take a zen approach, but I'm still undecided about its need before other technologies, especially as getting off task is just too easy. Perhaps we leave the social networking stuff to the scholars on their own time and not poach this area. I've seen too many teachers get in trouble themselves on some of these social networks. Are they really for the classroom when we have so many other fine web tools?

We can't forget the need for leadership that understands collaborative efforts of the teachers and encourages them to be collaborative themselves. We will need to see more horizontal leadership and less vertical leadership in the school and the classroom, in order to see NETP work and thrive in our schools. The lone wolf, the dictatorial leader or teacher is a character of the past. Teaching is not cooking, too many teachers do not spoil the scholar, just the opposite, the more the better. There is no "i" in team, unless we spell it "teim." The new teacher is more zen.

The rewriting of NCLB is next.

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NETP: Learning Powered by Technology Part II

This is the conclusion to my observation about the recent plan issued by The Office of Educational Technology called the The National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) 2010. I began the other day with a review of the overview of the plan and the first major area of the plan, Learning. Today, I will conclude with a discussion of the last four major areas of concentration: Assessment, Teaching, Infrastructure, and Productivity.

Assessment

The model of 21st century learning requires new and better ways to measure what matters, diagnose strengths and weaknesses in the course of learning when there is still time to improve student performance, and involve multiple stakeholders in the process of designing, conducting, and using assessment. In all these activities, technology-based assessments can provide data to drive decisions on the basis of what is best for each and every student and that in aggregate will lead to continuous improvement across our entire education system. (page vii)

This is a lofty and admirable way to begin the section on Assessment. What I am hearing in this section is that we need to move beyond existing forms of assessment and to find and use assessment that is more aligned to what our learners are doing and to mirror our pedagogy of differentiation and Universal Design. In other words the current multiple choice, true/false tests aren't enough to do what we need to do in the areas of assessment. Methods of assessment that will emerge will be mean more thrashing during the creating process of the scholars, not just drafts but conferencing during the process. Technology is easy for this, especially in a networked lab. In my lab I can sit at my station and view the scholar working, editing, creating. I am not in close proximity so as to inhibit the scholar. Observing and intervening when necessary makes assessment more reliable and useful. When our scholars make their work public via the Internet they can engage in peer review and share their work with telementors who are near or far, but have access via the Internet to the scholar's work. When we make the scholars' work public assessment is universal and more available to all concerned. Another aspect of using technology, as elicited from this document is the need to archive our scholars' work so we have benchmarks to show growth and for future teachers to have samples of work so the next teacher is more informed about the scholar. What I heard was the need for technology to do more than crunch numbers and collect numbers as forms of data. We need more, we need the work of the scholar to make better assessment. It becomes clear that we need to understand what is to be assessed and how we do it in a new and better way. Conferencing, self assessment, peer review are some ways this may be achieved. Archiving all work becomes the data. What the scholars do has to be more project oriented and less multiple choice and true/false. The curriculum needs to be project oriented, inter disciplinary, collaborative, and it must show learning has occurred. In addition for the need for webpages, I see a need for the old CAI, Computer Assisted/Aided Instruction so instruction can be more differentiated while incorporating the universal design elements. Games can serve a useful purpose in this area. One area of assessment we seem to be neglecting when it comes to using technology more efficiently is telementoring. Telementors can come from schools of education. If every school of education had each of its scholars telementor a scholar not only would our future teachers become more familiar with technology they would be providing further instruction for our scholars. Finally I understand the need for a consistent and universal data collection source so we have access to the work of the scholars as well as some of the numbers from tests. Getting the results of assessment to everyone is crucial in making technology more effective in schools. Something like the WayBack Machine is a good model.

Teaching

Just as leveraging technology can help us improve learning and assessment, the model of 21st century learning calls for using technology to help build the capacity of educators by enabling a shift to a model of connected teaching. In such a teaching model, teams of connected educators replace solo practitioners and classrooms are fully connected to provide educators with 24/7 access to data and analytic tools as well as to resources that help them act on the insights the data provide.(page viii)

Changing the teacher paradigm is the most important aspect of powering learning with technology. We must change how schools operate and to free teachers from isolation. Teachers are the only profession that works in isolation. That will change with this plan. Connected teachers collaborate, professional development becomes professional learning, and schools of education need to be more proactive about teaching future teachers how to use the technology. Of course I love this, since I have been advocating these changes in our profession for years. I have advocated a school where the scholars work at their desks and the teachers working together move from bullpen to bullpen working with the different groups of scholars. Too much time is lost in class changing, start up of class and ending of each class. The principles of the connected teacher remind me of being a Cybrarian. Teachers work in collaborative groups, publish online, and use online resources with more peer review. Teachers will find when working in a technology rich room, more time can be spent conferencing, overseeing what each scholar is doing is simpler, and teaching actually happens. In addition teachers will be able to create their own online digital lessons that are more comprehensive, universal, and differentiated. Connecting to experts will be a greater possibility. One facet of the plan I really applaud is that schools of education have to be more active in the training of future teachers. In addition we need more professional learning. I know in the business world, workers take the whole week off and are trained to use applications during that week. Teachers have professional learning an hour at a time, not sustained time. This is not enough time. I'm happy to read this section about changing the teacher paradigm. The most difficult part of this will to get teachers to actually learn how to work as a team and in collaboration since they have been the only teacher in the room at a time. Sharing the stage, acquiescing, and collaborating in a class will have to be taught.

Infrastructure

An essential component of the 21st century learning model is a comprehensive infrastructure for learning that provides every student, educator, and level of our education system with the resources they need when and where they are needed. The underlying principle is that infrastructure includes people, processes, learning resources, policies, and sustainable models for continuous improvement in addition to broadband connectivity, servers, software, management systems, and administration tools. Building this infrastructure is a far-reaching project that will demand concerted and coordinated effort. (page ix)

Technology hasn't been used well because we have simply replaced traditional information delivery and documenting creating tasks with the computer. We still have classrooms and not "working bullpens." Education is still an industrial model and not digital model as evidenced in the real world of politics, finance, medicine, transportation, and every person's daily life. The tools we use are restricted, in that we ban scholar technology, we block the Internet with filters, and we don't have project based lessons because the test is still the means of assessment. The plan suggests the alterations we will need to see in the cyberinfrastructure will include a more sophisticated use of cloud computing on a more community oriented basis. To bridge the gap between the haves and the have nots, cloud computing will be necessary and the need for digital devices to access and produce the information has to be addressed. The plan is well aware of these facts. It further acknowledges that classrooms need to be altered, computer capacity, and access from home are going to be important and necessary improvements. These will be the ways schools will be able to capture and share resources. Cybraries will be the norm in the new Open Educational Resources (OER) library. These OER's will be both commercial, public domain, and teacher generated. By altering and modifying the cyberinfrastructure, we will be saving money on redundancy of resources. Digits will be replacing the atoms.

Productivity

To achieve our goal of transforming American education, we must rethink basic assumptions and redesign our education system. We must apply technology to implement personalized learning and ensure that students are making appropriate progress through our K-16 system so they graduate. These and other initiatives require investment, but tight economic times and basic fiscal responsibility demand that we get more out of each dollar we spend. We must leverage technology to plan, manage, monitor, and report spending to provide decision-makers with a reliable, accurate, and complete view of the financial performance of our education system at all levels. Such visibility is essential to meeting our goals for educational attainment within the budgets we can afford. (page x)

The key is to be sure our scholars are producers of knowledge, not just consumers. The overarching concern is that schools be more productive at all levels from leadership to teachers to the scholars. The business metaphor emerged, and that could be scary in some respects. The business model has some strong points such as training, the "bullpen," and cloud computing. Some of the other notions are best left alone. Money is not necessarily the answer, but money wisely spent is and we need to incorporate more ways to spend the money wisely is sage advise from the plan. In the end it is about the bottom line and productivity is the bottom line. By making our scholars producers, we will achieve the lofty goals set out in this plan.

The Office of Educational Technology has presented a very comprehensive and thoughtful plan for education in America. Much of what I read I agree with, have written about, and have practiced for nearly 20 years in CyberEnglish. I can only say it is about time and I hope they can pull it off. It is a revolutionary plan and will require total participation by all of us at all levels of education.

I'm jazzed.

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