The Teacher is the Key

By Esther Wojcicki
Chair of the Board, Creative Commons, Journalism/English Teacher, Palo Alto High School

Here is a pretty shocking statistic.

More than 40% of teachers today are disheartened and disappointed in their jobs according to a study just released by Learning Points Associates. It is hard to be an inspirational, caring teacher if you don't want to be there.

The study showed that seven in 10 teachers cited testing as major drawback and 61 percent also cited lack of support from administrators and nearly 75% cited "discipline and behavior issues" in the classroom.

This is a very challenging situation for policy makers because the solution to the education crisis in our country is the teacher. Last week Michelle Obama wrote an article in US News and World Report that was entitled "Teachers are Key to a Successful Economy." I couldn't agree more.

The Gates Foundation also came to the same conclusion after spending years focusing on small schools. They are now focusing on teacher effectiveness.

As a long time teacher at Palo Alto High in Palo Alto, CA and someone who has seen multiple education fads come and go, I think thought leaders have finally come to the right focus -- the teacher is the key. No matter what books are provided, no matter what curriculum is required ... the key is how the teacher feels about what she is teaching and how she treats her students.

I am sure everyone can remember a teacher they liked, but they can also remember a teacher they disliked because the teacher seemed to dislike students. Students know when a teacher doesn't want to be there; they know it just by being in the classroom. It's not fun. At one point these teachers probably liked students and teaching, but they now somehow feel trapped in a job that no longer provides the same pleasures it once did. These teachers actually don't dislike students; they dislike what they are required to do-- teach to a test, like NCLB tests, year after year and work with ineffective administrators.

Over the past eight years teachers nationwide have been teaching to the NCLB test which is why many of them are disheartened and burned out.

No matter what policy makers dictate, when a teacher closes the door and is the classroom alone with the students, he/she is in charge. If the teacher is well-trained, then the students will learn more. If the teacher is happy to be there, then the students will be more content in the classroom. The teacher sets the tone; the teacher provides the activities; the teacher plans the day. Happy students work harder. Happy teachers teach more effectively and that is what we need---effective teachers.

It sounds like an old adage, but what we need to do as a nation is to support teachers in the classroom and modify the NCLB Act which is now up for Congressional renewal. Supporting teachers is key to our success as a nation. Support means supporting increases in teachers salaries, respecting the role of teachers in society, donating money to foundations that support teachers, volunteering to work in the classroom, and modifying the NCLB Act to so that teachers are not motivated to teach to the test.

This post is the first of a series by Ms. Wojcicki published in the Huffington Post.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-wojcicki/the-teacher-is-the-key_b_331257.html

The Promise of Games in The Public Interest

By Suzanne Seggerman

President, Co-Founder, Games for Change

Games can be used for A LOT of purposes - well beyond entertainment. And as they are a young medium, they are not often envisioned beyond their current contexts; we are all still just getting used to them. Some people though have caught on early, and are using games in almost everything they do. Here's a list I excerpted from an email I received earlier this year outlining just some of the ways this one contractor/developer is using games: (Do read through it - it will surprise you.)

Core Values, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Communication, Ethics, Drug Abuse Prevention, Alcohol Abuse Prevention, Personnel Readiness, Teamwork, Coaching and Counseling, Time Delegation, Organizational Skills, Contingency Contracting, Personal Advancement, Suicide Prevention, PTSD, Psychological Health, Adaptability, Sexual Harassment, Ethical Leadership, Family Responsibility, Cross Cultural Communications, Reasoning Under Fire, Deployment Preparation, Equipment Readiness and Maintenance, Command and Control, Support Operations, Command Supply Discipline, Development of Junior Officers, Value and Limitations of Doctrine, Force Protection, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Wounded Warrior Transition, Anti-terrorism, Surveillance Detection,

If you read through the end of the list, you will probably be able to guess who this developer is making games for - the military. So why is the military using games for so much of what they do? Because they can. Because they have the foresight - and the means - to use this incredible technology to address all sorts of challenges they face.

So why not us? Why don't we who work in the public interest sector - the educators, NGOs, philanthropists - use games this extensively? Some of the challenges we face are just as important as those of the military - Educating our children. Raising awareness about public health concerns. Addressing poverty - These all stack up quite robustly alongside protecting our country. Yet, we are WAY behind. The public interest sector is often the last to adopt new technologies. We need to understand and use these new tools as much as they do.

So what do we do about it?

First we need a more informed public discourse about the medium. Games are not the enemy; they are not the corrupting forces of evil they are painted in most mainstream (and congressional) portraits of them. Parents, the media and our representatives in Washington need to understand games in a much broader context. Games can and should be used for a wide variety of public interest causes.

We need public funds as well. We need a dedicated resource pool for expanding the uses of digital media to address and engage the public in the core issues facing our country: poverty, educational disparities, healthcare issues, lots more. Games for Change is calling on a number of thought leaders, including the Cooney Center, to join with us to think through what we need to harness the incredible power of games and digital media to address some of the core issues our country faces. If the military gets it, why shouldn't we?

+1 Learner: How personal learning networks can transform individual teacher practice

By Lucy Gray

Education Technology Specialist
Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education
University of Chicago

Imagine a learning community for educators, a place where teachers can connect to the world. Teachers can pose questions and receive just in time help and advice from virtual colleagues. Links to interesting web sites are exchanged. Practitioners connect with researchers at universities. Up to the minute news is disseminated and absorbed. Multimedia is viewed and critiqued by audiences beyond the walls of a single school.

Such a community isn't that far fetched. In fact, many do exist on the Internet today, thanks to the powerful digital technologies of the information age. Educators are also creating their own customized personalized learning networks using a variety of tools. To the detriment of their students, millions of educators worldwide are missing out because they don't embrace new media, haven't realized its potential, or are simply denied access to the Internet's riches for various reasons. How can we help teachers foster breakthrough learning? How do we guide teachers through a process that empowers them to take ownership of their own professional development and deepen their impact on their classrooms? Encouraging teachers to develop their own personal learning networks can be one part of the solution.

I can pinpoint two pivotal experiences that mark the start of my own personal learning network journey. The first came in 2005 when a fellow Apple Distinguished Educator introduced a term completely foreign to me: RSS or Real Simple Syndication. Because of RSS, I started following news sources and weblogs of experts, even venturing into blogging myself as a method of recording my professional ideas and resources. Information efficiently arrived in my newsreader; no longer did I have to chase it down by visiting individual sites.

A second defining moment happened a year later while on vacation. I was sitting in a Paris hotel room, uploading photos from my laptop computer to Flickr, a photo sharing site. I unexpectedly received an instant message from Portland, Oregon principal Tim Lauer. I had met Tim two years prior at a workshop he led at the National Educational Computing Conference . Tim indicated in his IM that he had noticed that I was in Paris as he saw my very recently uploaded photos on Flickr. In fact, he had just visited Paris himself and had wanted to visit a historic paint store, but had missed the opportunity. He sent me a link to an NPR piece on the Sennelier shop, and asked me to find it and take pictures if I had the chance. Fortuitously, the shop was only two blocks away from my hotel. I trotted over took a few pictures and emailed them to Tim. Thus, began our collegial friendship which continues on. Not only did I glean a bit about the rich history of this paint shop that day, but perhaps more importantly, I realized that communication, resource sharing and collegiality could extend way beyond my classroom walls in Chicago. I was no longer limited by traditional means.

Since then, I've continued to explore both informal and formal networked professional development opportunities. I've always been curious about getting ideas from those with different experiences and perspectives. My arsenal of learning tools has grown to include Web 2.0 applications such as Delicious and Diigo for sharing bookmarks, Google Docs for sharing and storing documents online, and Twitter for connecting to people from many education related fields.

Social networks also have supported my professional development. Facebook keeps me current with the work of organizations such as Edutopia, PBS Teachers, and Curriki . I often refer to Classroom 2.0, a web site developed using the Ning platform, when looking for concrete examples of technology infused projects, and for when I have questions related to educational technology. Inspired by the success of this site, I even created my own Ning on the topic of global education, bringing together educators interested in global projects.

Online meeting spaces are currently intriguing me. One network that has proven to be invaluable is EdTechTalk, a collaborative web casting community. Educators volunteer to host weekly live online interviews with a wide variety of guests. Listeners participate via a back channel chat room, asking questions, suggesting resources, and sharing experiences. All sessions are recorded and archived in a podcast format for those unable to attend. I am also interested in the delivery of online professional development and have recently started using a meeting tool called Elluminate while participating in webinars run by Steve Hargadon and sponsored by several entities at the Future of Education.

Note that none of the tools I've mentioned thus far costs me a cent. More importantly, I can engage with tools and content when my schedule allows. I choose to develop professionally using the tools that matter to me because I believe that educators must continue to evolve and refine their work. I must practice what I preach.

To demonstrate the power of a personal learning network, I recently used Twitter to post a link to a survey for my online colleagues on the potential of digital technologies to transform teaching and learning. If you're not quite convinced on these potential transformational effects, take a look at the stories submitted from over 60 educators around the world. Change is indeed happening; we just need to get more educators on board. Our next step in this area should be to contemplate how to effectively help educators to customize their own professional development on a large scale.

Here is the survey I created using a form in Google Docs and here are the results. (Also, check out this word cloud based on survey responses.) One comment in particular sums this up for me. In an excerpt of a survey comment, Keith Hamon of Macon, Georgia writes:

"Technology has enabled global networks which have put me at the center of my learning. This is one of the neat tricks of the shift from hierarchical structures to network structures. As a student in an old-school hierarchy, I was at the bottom of the food chain with all the other students, with teachers a bit higher up, and then department chairs, deans, and so on...but in a personal learning network, I am at the center...This gives me great power to pursue the learning that is important to me, to create my own educational program. I am my own universe - ity. But here's the real magic: so is everyone else. In a network, we are all in the center, all empowered to work the network—adding value and taking value—to meet our goals."

Now, if we can do this for ourselves, imagine how we can do this for our students.