I have grown fond of saying "every company is a technology company." While we may tend to characterize different companies by the products they sell, the manufacturing, marketing, logistics, finance, security and corporate governance of any institution are now intimately connected to, and dependent on, technology.
What does that mean for our education system, and how we raise our kids? For starters, I think it means that a core requirement in middle and high school, along with English, history, math and science, needs to be computer science. We can't afford for the next generation to be dependent on technology, but to have no idea how it works. Not only that, but knowing how computers works can be enormously empowering--economically, politically, socially and intellectually. Given that native English speakers have a distinct advantage in learning computer science, because so much of the computer language is based on English vocabulary and syntax, it seems like a no-brainer investment to make in our core curriculum.
Secondly, the rapid technology revolution means we need to leverage new tools like cloud computing, tablets, smart phones, broadband wireless, web applications and wikipedia to make our schools more efficient, education more engaging and personalized, and the objectives of education more directly relevant to student lives. How should this look, managerially? As a staff composition? Schools should not only have designated "tech people" to maintain the network, or computer teachers teaching to type. Schools should have on site programmers building new applications, side-by-side with teachers, so that the "edtech" of the next generation is tech that is specified and customized to real needs of teacher from all subjects.
I have had the great experience of just completing the first version of my own web-based software application for world history classrooms. I worked with a designer, a UI/UX expert, a back-end engineer, and a programmer. We started with about a month of conversation about the requirements for the database schema and the front-end user interface. After building the database using PostgresQL and drawing mockups for the main user pages, our programmer got to coding the program using Django, a Python web framework.
This was my first experience managing a software development project, and I feel I grew more professionally and intellectually doing this than doing many other tasks over the past few years. Moreover, the product we created, because of careful planning and fluid communication, is a reflection of over five years of my work teaching and seeking solutions to easily assess students for the purpose of differentiation. Now anyone using this app can have an incredibly powerful set of data to inform instruction. I suspect, and our research will soon reveal, that it will transform the learning in classrooms that use it.
It's time to take the technology revolution to our schools; not to make money (though that will obviously happen), but to make a difference in students' lives.
Showing posts with label Data. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Data. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Fate of Civilizations: Glory is Now Available for Pre-Order!
The game-based learning program I have been working on since July, Fate of Civilizations, now has a project on Kickstarter. We are looking to crowd fund the first publication of the game Glory, which we will be ready to ship in September.
Gamers, teachers, parents and students: please pledge to help make Glory a reality for kids and gamers across the globe. Glory is fun and you learn while you play. It is based on AP, NYS Regents, and Common Core standards; it has mechanisms for continuous game play, so players can unlock new powers, track their progress and shape the game itself. We have developed a curriculum guide and online web application that accompany the game, making this a complete offering for a teacher looking to drive achievement and improve efficiency and engagement in the classroom.
Here is a link to the project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/970345467/fate-of-civilizations-presents-glory-a-history-boa
We'd love to have you as a backer!
Gamers, teachers, parents and students: please pledge to help make Glory a reality for kids and gamers across the globe. Glory is fun and you learn while you play. It is based on AP, NYS Regents, and Common Core standards; it has mechanisms for continuous game play, so players can unlock new powers, track their progress and shape the game itself. We have developed a curriculum guide and online web application that accompany the game, making this a complete offering for a teacher looking to drive achievement and improve efficiency and engagement in the classroom.
Here is a link to the project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/970345467/fate-of-civilizations-presents-glory-a-history-boa
We'd love to have you as a backer!
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Value Added Teacher Evaluation
In Tuesday's NYTimes, and article called "Formula to Grade Teachers' Skills Gains Acceptance, and Critics" calls attention to a new trend for teacher accountability that is taking place in various school districts across the US. This new trend involves using test data to determine how much a group of students has grown or improved between two standardized tests, and attributing a portion of these or all of this change to the teacher who taught them that year. This data can enable supervisors, districts and parents to get a new perspective on teacher effectiveness.
The biggest improvement this trend makes comes down to the fact that this "method can be more accurate for rating schools than the system now required by federal law, which compares test scores of succeeding classes, for instance this year’s fifth graders with last year’s fifth graders." This certainly seems like a more thoughtful approach to using test data to evaluate teachers, but there are still variables that are difficult to control, as the article describes:
"Millions of students change classes or schools each year, so teachers can be evaluated on the performance of students they have taught only briefly, after students’ records were linked to them in the fall.
In many schools, students receive instruction from multiple teachers, or from after-school tutors, making it difficult to attribute learning gains to a specific instructor. Another problem is known as the ceiling effect. Advanced students can score so highly one year that standardized state tests are not sensitive enough to measure their learning gains a year later."
Nevertheless, these difficulties should not blind us to the fact that value-added teacher evaluation makes a great deal of sense--we just need to control these variables, and make sure that evaluation involves a few other measures besides simply standardized test score data. What if we apply the value-added approach to student portfolios and school designed interim assessments, two of the student centered, results-oriented pieces of teacher evaluation that anti-data types lobby to be part of teacher evaluation?
Perhaps this calls up the bigger question of "How should teachers be evaluated?" Almost without question, teachers should have a transparent set of criteria they need to meet to be seen as "successful." What should the criteria include? Perhaps it ought to look something like this:
-Value added student scores: 20%
-Value added student portfolios: 20%
-Absolute student scores: 10%
-Student and parent survey data: 10%
-Teacher professionalism: 10%
-Teacher curriculum, unit, and lesson plan development: 10%
-Other contributions to school community, environment and programs: 20%
The biggest improvement this trend makes comes down to the fact that this "method can be more accurate for rating schools than the system now required by federal law, which compares test scores of succeeding classes, for instance this year’s fifth graders with last year’s fifth graders." This certainly seems like a more thoughtful approach to using test data to evaluate teachers, but there are still variables that are difficult to control, as the article describes:
"Millions of students change classes or schools each year, so teachers can be evaluated on the performance of students they have taught only briefly, after students’ records were linked to them in the fall.
In many schools, students receive instruction from multiple teachers, or from after-school tutors, making it difficult to attribute learning gains to a specific instructor. Another problem is known as the ceiling effect. Advanced students can score so highly one year that standardized state tests are not sensitive enough to measure their learning gains a year later."
Nevertheless, these difficulties should not blind us to the fact that value-added teacher evaluation makes a great deal of sense--we just need to control these variables, and make sure that evaluation involves a few other measures besides simply standardized test score data. What if we apply the value-added approach to student portfolios and school designed interim assessments, two of the student centered, results-oriented pieces of teacher evaluation that anti-data types lobby to be part of teacher evaluation?
Perhaps this calls up the bigger question of "How should teachers be evaluated?" Almost without question, teachers should have a transparent set of criteria they need to meet to be seen as "successful." What should the criteria include? Perhaps it ought to look something like this:
-Value added student scores: 20%
-Value added student portfolios: 20%
-Absolute student scores: 10%
-Student and parent survey data: 10%
-Teacher professionalism: 10%
-Teacher curriculum, unit, and lesson plan development: 10%
-Other contributions to school community, environment and programs: 20%
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