Introit

News Flash: Online Learning is Mainstream

Can we please stop talking about online learning as if it's something new?

At this point (April 2012), online learning is not innovative, as a concept. There might be inventive ways of handling teaching and learning via the digital medium, but we've long since passed the stage where we could label it "innovative." The first online class for higher education was offered over twenty years ago (University of Phoenix), and public schools began using online coursework around fifteen years ago.

Online learning is decidedly mainstream. It is a viable option, there are quality providers (and those that lack quality), and there are different methods involved with the classes.

Independent schools are still trying to determine whether to award credit for online courses, whether to allow online courses when the same face-to-face courses exist already, whether the quality is as good as what an independent school would expect normally within its walls, and so forth.

But it's not innovative any longer. Rather, it's a question of to what degree a school will assimilate online coursework into its repertoire of course offerings.

Therefore, when we look at the "growth curve" for online learning, we need to understand that this curve shows the degree to which online options are offered and taken; it is not showing any degree of innovation. This is an adoption curve, not an innovation curve.

From this point on, any "growth" in the online learning market place is akin to "growth" in a mature industry. Consider Coca-Cola, IBM, 3M, and so forth: they are still trying to grow, but their growth is incremental because many of their products are already mature. To be sure, they put much time and money into their R&D departments in order to innovate, and these products do produce growth, but the "growth" of their core products tends to occur as a result of adoption in new markets.

Online learning--a core product of the world of teaching and learning--has a place in independent schools. That should be self-evident by this point, and we should stop saying "Wow! Look at the shine on that!" everytime we hear someone talk about it. We will spend (waste?) the next three to five years figuring this out, then realize that we've been smitten so much by online learning that we've forgotten to pay attention to other innovations. Schools won't have money to invest in creating/seeking innovative products that enhance teaching and learning because we will have been so busy implementing "innovative" online learning...that is now entering its third decade of existence.

Third decade?! That sounds as if we're behind the curve. Not in front of it; not riding the crest of the wave. Behind.

Social Media Explained

If social media are overwhelming, consider the following image (click here for source) as a tool for understanding them. Enjoy!

Informed Skeptics

The current issue of Harvard Business Review contains an article by Shvetank Shah, Andrew Horne, and Jaime Capella, entitled, "Good Data Won't Guarantee Good Decisions" (23-25). The authors argue that the era of Big Data is leading to a false sense of confidence in decision-making. "Investments in analytics can be useless, even harmful, unless employees can incorporate that data into complex decision making. Our research offers a succinct warning to managers. At this very moment, there's an odds-on chance that someone in your organization is making a poor decision on the basis of information that was enormously expensive to collect" (23).

So, who is making decisions in a given organization, and what is their ability "to find and analyze relevant information"? The authors evaluted 5,000 employees at 22 global companies and sorted them into three groups:

• unquestioning empiricists -- those who trust analysis over judgment
• visceral decision makers -- those who go with their gut, exclusively
• informed skeptics -- those who balance judgment and analysis, possess strong analytic skills, and listen to others' opinions but are willing to dissent

As they point out, the informed skeptics are the folks that companies (schools??!!) should be cultivating. However, as they discovered in their evaluation, only 38% of employees and 50% of senior managers fall into this group.

Interesting (to me, at any rate) also are the four problems they identify that "prevent organizations from realizing better returns on their investment in Big Data":

1. Analytic skills are concentrated in too few employees -- in other words, "too many companies [schools??!!] are stuck in the 'expert phase'; they have a handful of highly skilled analtyics professionals but have not begun to train everyone else to make use [of analytics].
2. IT needs to spend more time on the "I" and less time on the "T" -- so many departments have "diverse data demands or may need to use data in ways they can't clearly articulate. Meeting these challenges requires anthropological skills and behavioral understanding--traits that are often in short supply in IT departments."
3. Reliable information exists, but it's hard to locate. The analogy: a library with no card catalog (print or digital), or perhaps with books that lack covers. What is more, "the rise in social media [...] has made it even harder to manage analytic content. Fewer than 44% of employees say they know where to find the information they need for their day-to-day work."
4. Business executives don't manage information as well as they manage talent, capital, and brand. In short, they "consider themselves too inexpert to get deeply involved in how data is shared across the organization. Managers need to wake up to the fact that their data investments are providing limited returns because their organization is under-invested in understanding the information."

The obvious solution, of course, is to develop more informed skeptics. How might one do that, especially in independent schools? First, though, I would ask this: what data are we using? What data ought we to be using? Then we can deal with the question of how to develop informed skeptics. Regardless of the answer(s), though, we can move forward with one certainty: we do need to train our faculties and administrators to increase their data literacy, with school leadership showing the way. That data then needs to be brought into decision making, so that folks can see how data can inform decisions.

We all need to understand the factors and calculations behind the numbers, and we must learn to think critically about their accuracy, sample sizes, biases, and, of course, quality. (Statistics, anyone??) Coaching could play an important role here, as could project-based learning; we say that we want to see our students do these things, but why shouldn't we model it for them?

Rethinking School

Stacey Childress, who leads the Next Generation Learning group at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has a very timely piece in the current issue of Harvard Business Review. In "Rethinking School," Childress outlines the foundations that support the vision of a more effective and practical education in the United States.

As expected, Childress underscores the importance of technology in advancing this vision. She immediately touches the 'third rail' of education: teacher productivity. "U.S. public schools have been largely impervious to the productivity gains that other sectors have realized from technology, for two main reasons. First, until recently, they hadn't widely adopted technology: Education ranked dead last, a 2002 Commerce Department study reported, in deployment of technology relative to number of employees. Second, when technology was deployed, it wasn't being used to do anything differently--a problem many industries have long since confronted and resolved" (78-79).

Rather than berate anyone for not adopting more technology, she (happily) spells out exactly what technology can now offer the education sector. "A new generation of sophisticated adaptive courseware and schools that blend the best of teacher- and computer-delivered instruction are making personalized learning approaches feasible and affordable, not as a replacement for teachers but as a way to give them the tools they need to become dramatically more effective" (79).

She goes on, "Adaptive software makes personalized learning practical through a combination of data analysis and pattern recognition technology--something like a more sophisticated version of Netflix's recommendation engine--which tailors instruction by offering up different content and exercises depending on how students did on the previous one" (79).

We're just starting this phase in education, she points out. This writer has to wonder, however: how will independent schools respond to adaptive software? Will we take the typical "wait and see" route, or will we be bold in pursuing blended classrooms that take advantage of the best that face-to-face has to offer and the best that adaptive software has to offer?

Technology Changes Everything: Guest Blogger John Davies

The first books created by Gutenberg on his new invention were designed and printed to look like a handwritten manuscript.  When his financial partner, Joachim Furst, took a dozen copies of their Bible to Paris to sell, he received a very hostile reception from the book trade guild.  The guild hauled Furst and his newly-printed scriptures off to court, convinced that he was in consort with Satan.  Furst’s accusers argued that so many identical texts could have been created only with the assistance of the devil.  This story is but one of many anecdotes about the chilly reception that mechanically reproduced texts received in the aftermath of Gutenberg’s marvelous technology.  In many ways, the response to electronic texts today parallels those of the printing press.  Academic and religious institutions wasted little time in seeking censorship of books.  Critics argued that too many books lent themselves to superficial knowledge.   Authorities worried that works with illustrations with sexual content or erotic poetry would fall into the hands of the young.  Meanwhile, proponents of the handwritten manuscript, often beautiful works of art in and of themselves, denounced printed texts as vulgarizing intellectual life.  Academics, initially thrilled to find their works in publication, soon grew nervous.  The multiplication of texts meant greater access.  Greater access translated into their students becoming independent thinkers.  The history of the printed word reveals a concerted effort to limit access to reading.  Laws were passed to prevent texts from being printed in the vernacular.  Well into the eighteenth century, many European universities limited undergraduate students access to the library to a few hours per week.

The printing press, one of the most important technologies in the history of communication changed everything, including our understanding of education.   Digital technology is doing the same thing.  Today the pace is radically different.  Another  brief story as a point of comparison.  When Martin Luther posted his “Ninety-five Theses” on the church doors in Wittenberg, his ideas made their way around Germany in two weeks and spread across Europe in a few months.  This would have hardly been possible in the age of the handwritten manuscript.  Today, we can post an idea on the Internet, and it can make its way around the globe in a matter of seconds.  The availability of knowledge and information, without the constraints of time and distance, is changing everything, including how our students are learning.  The rapidity at which data moves around the globe is mirrored by accessibility.  A middle school student studying the history of slavery has access to historical sources that would have been available to only a handful of scholars a decade ago.  Now add to the equation that much of this knowledge and information is free.  And this is only the beginning.

What makes the change coming to education unprecedented is the dynamic way in which digital technology scales, i.e., faster, cheaper, better.  As heads, it may not feel like it’s cheaper when we look at technology as a line item in our budgets.  Tech budgets keep growing because our world (and our students)  find more and more ways to harness digital technology.  Bandwidth keeps getting cheaper while the demand grows exponentially.  In January of this year, you could find 300,000 iPhone apps.  It’s November, and that number is now  closer to 500,000.

I often reflect on author educator David Warlick’s comment, “For the first time in history our job as educators is to prepare our children for a future that we cannot describe.”  As a head of school, I find Warlick’s observation exciting, challenging, fascinating, and sobering.  It is because technology clearly changes everything that we stare head on into a future not yet known.  Finding ourselves at this historical moment presents interesting questions and challenges for heads of schools.  I would like to mention two.

Trying to manage change when one of its largest byproducts is uncertainty is a challenge.  It makes predicting enrollment seem easy.  I occasionally joke that, if I told people what I really believed will happen to education in the next five to ten years, I would be out of a job.  But I’m only half joking.  In the past, education has had the luxury of embracing change at a conservative  pace, especially in terms of technology.   For independent schools, a certain irony may be at work.  Our institutions sometimes evidence a built-in resistance to change because we are so successful at what we do.  Consider that a quarter of the schools in the  2011 NAIS survey on hybrid/blended learning do not offer or plan to offer online courses.  Ironically, it is this independence that should create opportunities to more readily embrace, if not create, change.  I am absolutely convinced that education will change dramatically, and it will come sooner than many independent schools expect.  Every aspect of our lives is being reinvented by technology, particularly how we learn.  If the way our students are learning is dramatically different, then I suggest that teaching should be as well.  We have already reached a point where our students live and learn in one type of culture, call it the electronic culture, while education continues to be practiced from a very traditional perspective.  So how do we manage an unprecedented wave of change?  The truth is that I don’t know.  What I do know is that it will require being open to a very different, perhaps radical, way of approaching education that will require us to question our favorite assumptions, to think counter intuitively, and to be willing to take risks in the face of uncertainty.  I predict discussions regarding the marvelous benefits of risk and failure in just about everything including education will become a national, if not global conversation.

Most of us have written somewhere in our job descriptions something about being the “instructional leader.”  The traditional title of “headmaster” is partially rooted in this idea.  And while that role has been marginalized by our ever growing list of responsibilities, we still need to be able to articulate a vision for teaching and learning to all our school’s constituencies.  This may present the greatest and perhaps most exciting challenge that technology presents for us as heads of school. Individualized education is a powerful example.  If we’re honest with ourselves, I think many of us will admit that our schools still have vestiges of the “one size fits all” approach to learning.  Mine certainly does.  Yet, in every corner of the marketplace, customization is the order of the day.  The new generation of independent school parents don’t just want this, they expect it.  And why shouldn’t they?  As the new NAIS Trendbook highlights, choice abounds in the educational marketplace.  Schools that continue with business as usual will cease to be competitive.  Again, technology is the culprit.  It creates a myriad of opportunities for independent school teachers to individualize instruction.  Pat Bassett wisely observes that in the ever expanding universe of educational choice, differentiated instruction is that one area where independent schools have huge opportunities not readily available to our public schools.

As instructional leaders, in order to create this vision we need to have an engaging dialogue within ourselves about where we believe education is going?  What do we really understand about what has changed in the teaching learning process?  What fears do we have regarding change in our schools?  (I would love to sit with a group of my colleagues and openly discuss this question.)  What things are truly worth knowing?  What skills are truly worth acquiring?  What is our understanding of literacy in a world that is becoming increasingly visual and iconic?  These are but a few of the questions that might shape part of that internal conversation.   What a daunting responsibility; creating and communicating an educational vision that will prepare young people for the future, but a future that is still very much unknown.

I conclude as I began, with a story.  The pencil had been around for nearly 300 years when the first pencil factory opened in the United States in 1861.  Around the same time, an enterprising pencil maker decided to add an eraser to the end of the pencil.  The fear that combining these two technologies into one writing implement would encourage students to make errors created quite a stir in education circles. The pencil with an eraser was attacked by teachers and even banned in some classrooms. Indeed, technology does change everything.

John Davies is Head of School at Miami Country Day School (FL) and can be reached at [email protected].

About to Take a Leap

I am about to take a leap into the unknown... one is a road travelled before by many (and many who read this blog) and another is one tread by few.

Most of my life, in one way or another, has been spent in independent schools.  I grew up going to a wonderful, small, community-based independent middle school; and then went off to boarding school for high school.  After college, graduate school, and some work at the university level, I came back to independent schools seven years ago to teach.  For the last seven years, I have tread on a path familiar to those who have worked in independent schools since the 1950s and before: teacher, coach, advisor, club advisor, and administrator.  So, after a series of progressive moves within the school, it is not an uncommon path (but still a personal leap) that I am taking to become the head of a school.

What is uncommon is that I am leaving to head an online school.

Most independent school educators have the notion that online education is a lesser brand of education that what we do in independent schools.  It is impersonal, cold, cheap, shallow, thoughtless, computer-based, and easy.  Whereas, they argue, what we do in independent schools is personal, warm, elite, deep, thoughtful, relationship-based, and challenging.  The words that those in the independent school community use about online education and independent school education are almost always the exact opposite of each other.

Independent school educators point to articles, like this one from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&src=tptw to document how online education is at best "not what we do" and at worst "ruining education in America."

And yet, online education is exploding in popularity.  Estimates from iNACOL, the international association for K-12 online learning, put the number of students taking online courses at the K-12 level at 1.5 million (http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/iNCL_NationalPrimerv22010-web.pdf).  A 2010 survey by Sloan-C, the higher education consortium for online learning, found that 5.6 million college students were taking courses online (http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/class_differences).

Two years ago, a few independent school educators got together to ask: "With that many students taking courses, is online education really as bad as we think that it is?"  The short answer: well, yes, a lot of what is out there is not that great, but it does not seem to have to be that way.

The group of educators built a theory that the construct "online education" did not have to be in opposition to the construct "independent school" education.  They focused on what they knew, girls schools, and began to build an organization that became the Online School for Girls.  In many senses, the path that they took was a well tread path for starting an independent school: decide on a mission and guiding philosophy, create a guiding pedagogical approach, register as a non-profit organization, hire teachers, and build a space for learning.  What was a little different was that they worked at hyper speed: ideas in February and March; bring together group of schools and individuals to work on the project in April and May; register as non-profit in June; and open doors in September.

In September of that year, the Online School for Girls opened its virtual doors for two semester-long courses, with the backing of four schools.  Two years later, the School will begin the 2011-2012 year with seven year-long courses, eight semester-long courses, five summer courses, and five professional development courses.  At some point this summer, the School will have educated more than 500 students and teachers; by later next year, that number will likely be doubled.  And, there are now forty-seven schools that are a part of the Online School for Girls: http://www.onlineschoolforgirls.org/community/our-schools

Why such growth and success?  The Online School for Girls thinks that is is because it has succeeded in bringing together the best of "online education" and "independent school education," in the process forging an independent school vision for online and blended learning.

From "independent school education," the School brought a mission-based approach to education, absolutely incredible teachers, an emphasis on personal and connected relationships, and small classes.

From "online education," the School brought a flexible learning approach of asynchronous courses, a greater emphasis on accountability and transparency, and the ability to meet students where they are in better ways.

What the Online School for Girls has shown is that "online education" and "independent school education" do not have to be in conflict with each other, even if they certainly can be.

That is why even though the path is not well tread from working in an independent school to heading an online school, I am proud to make that leap.

Brad Rathgeber is about to become the Director of the Online School for Girls in Bethesda, Maryand.  He can be reached at: [email protected].  Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brad_rathgeber or follow the Online School for Girls at http://twitter.com/os4g

What Do Outperformers Do?

In the recently-released IBM study on CIOs, one section covers what is termed the "expand mandate." In other words, IBM spoke with individuals whose strategy was to "focus on cross-enterprise growth," and "continuously tune business processes and internal collaboration." Why? The end result is more and better integration, from company culture to competencies in technologies.

Is your school operating with an "expand mandate"? Or something different?

What the IBM study highlights is that those businesses (schools?) with an Expand Mandate, in particular those that "outperform", do two things very, very well: collaborate and integrate.

The end result? Innovation.

Outperformers innovate.

The Essential CIO: New Report

IBM has released a new report entitled "The Essential CIO: Insights from the Global Chief Information Officer Study."  This 71-page report is based on face-to-face conversations with over 3,000 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from 71 countries and in 18 industries.

The principal message in the report is that CIOs are now aligning their work with the company's strategic priorities. I am wondering whether independent schools are doing the same. My guess is that a few are, but many are not. Many are still playing catch-up in terms of infrastructure and related.

Based on their research and conversations, IBM has identified a "CIO mandate" which comprises four charges:

1. Expand
2. Leverage
3. Transform
4. Pioneer

Expand

Refine business processes and enhance collaboration

Leverage

Streamline operations and increase organizational effectiveness

Transform

Change the industry value chain through improved relationships

Pioneer

Radically innovate products, markets, business models

Questions for Schools

Question: how might independent schools move in this direction?

Philosophical Question: Do we believe it to be necessary?

Live Blog (7): Open Source Software Overview

Open Educational Resources: providing open source software/educational solutions. (one example of many)

David Wiley: "Expertise is non-rivalrous."

Open source software:

• access to source code
• freedom to redistribute
• freedom to modify
• non-discriminatory licensing
• integrity of authorship
• redistribution in accordance with the Open Source License Agreement

Creative Commons License -- potentially simple, or, potentially complex. Be sure of what you're dealing with!

Why use Open Source Software?

• cost savings (no licensing fee)
• stability
• independence/no forced upgrades
• access and broad rights to source code
• access to skilled community of developers
• ability to define and expedite new development as the facilitator of creation
• global collaboration and social prudence

Why use it in schools?

• provides functionality you would not otherwise have (high acceptance)
• provides similar functionality that you already have, but saves you money, has better features, or gives you freedom from lock-in (medium acceptance)
• allows you to customize solutions (medium to low acceptance)
• allows you to reuse older computer hardware
• allows you to share programs with students
• you believe in it (or the value set, ie. you're concerned about corporate influence in education)
• provides real skills/tools for students (internet, networking, web)
• programming (Python)
• creativity (Audacity)
• collaborative software building (participate in an existing project; local application of tech)

Why NOT use Open Source Software in schools?

• it's confusing, due to great variety and potential legal issues
• it's "free," like a puppy...beware of what responsibilities might come with it!
• migration costs (i.e. from MS Office to Open Office)
• uncertainty about open development model (splinter groups, programs)
• uncertainty aout licensing
• uncertainty about support (blame?)

Possible Lessons in Adoption

• involve techs and staff in decision-making
• look for non-displacing opportunities
• recognize the importance of leadership buy-in
• don't oversell cost savings/benefits
• start with something that can succeeed and open the door
• be patient!

Thought:

"If, as schools, we don't allow students to bring in their own devices, we'll have to move to Linux/Open Source Software in order to be able to afford the computing costs that will be required to keep everyone "wired"."

Of interest/OSS:

ubuntu -- a community-developed, linux-based operating system. Has special version for education community (edubuntu.org). Special version for old computers (xubuntu.org)

moodle

libre office

scribus - desktop publishing

gimp - image manipulation program

Celestia - free space simulation (science: space)

Tux Paint - for youngsters in particular

Blender - 3D computer graphics, etc. Animation, rendering, post-production, etc.

The OpenDisc - CD that contains open source softwares, can copy and give to kids

Teaching - Thoughts

1. We must start teaching collaborative and creation-based tools, including Open Source Software

2. If we provide ubiquitous computing to our school communities, we will need Linux. However, we'll probably end up allowing students to bring own devices.

3. We must start providing real-world, authentic-audience environments for students

Live Blog (6): ADVIS Technology Workshop

A social networking site can become a form of personal portfolio. "Friending" can become a PLN (personal learning network). If we connect with others who have like-minded interests (educationally), we therefore promote a greater network which we can access: collegial relationships. Leveraging the power gained from colleague-friending.

Social networks need good forums in order to be educationally productive: ning allows for this piece, for example. Power of video is also important: ability to upload visuals that could work in a portfolio fashion. In other words, whereas use of video/visuals in social networking kind of scared us (think: inappropriate visuals), the same concept can be used positively in an educational networking space.

Groups hold much promise: think professional development, learning teams, and self-created communities. See PBL - Better with Practice by Jane Krauss.

Social networking + LMS (learning management systems) + live collaboration

Steve thinks the aforementioned will merge and become the "larger framework".

Benefits to educational/social networking:

1. allows authentic, peer-driven learning and professional development
2. provides emotional support and reduces isolation
3. allows visibility of practice within a community
4. facilitates networked and community learning
5. fosters creativity and perspective
6. provides for engagement, participation, and action
7. re-energizes personal learning (t-shirt idea: "personal cognitive revolution")
8. increases global connectivity (see globaleducationconference.com)
9. draws us into humanity's "great conversations"

Another benefit: education reform can be seen now as an internal, rather than external, reform

Lessons that Steve has learned with these networks:

• it's all about the users (valued activities: listening, testing, experimenting, looking for input, etc)
• facilitate and support the process, not the outcome (build a park, not a cafeteria). Don't mandate! Listen! Engagement trumps content!
• be authentic (act like a friend, and people respond)
• start with educators and administrators first (don't implement it in the classroom if you haven't used it with faculty)
• support and promote the early adopters (more important than you are!)
• allow for failure (including your own, as you look for real needs)
• build your culture and recognize the importance of interpersonal ("soft") skills