Three Great Resources To Help Students Fight Off Fake News

This post originally appeared on my EdWeek Blog

In my previous post on the topic of Fake News, I mentioned that Fake News is nothing new. There have always been individuals and organizations that have tried to influence people by presenting them with stories that stray from the truth. While these stories vary in the degree of factual information they contain, the more important question regards the ability of the reader to delve into these articles and blog posts and pull out where things veer from fact to fiction.  The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) highlights the following skills for students in its 21st Century Literacies Framework:

• Students in the 21st century must be able to take information from multiple places and in a variety of different formats, determine its reliability, and create new knowledge from that information.
• Students in the 21st century must be critical consumers and creators of multimedia texts.

In order to attain these skills, teachers are encouraged to reflect on the following questions:

• Do students analyze the credibility of information and its appropriateness in meeting their needs?
• Do students use information to make decisions as informed citizens?
• Do students strive to see limitations and overlaps between multiple streams of information?
• Do students analyze and evaluate the multimedia sources that they use?

While the bulleted items above are just an abridged look at the skills and questions that are outlined in NCTE's Framework 21st Century Literacies Framework, an equally important issue is in regards to the resources that are available for students to utilize to determine the credibility of sources of information that they come across. The resources below are a few of the ones that I have come across to help support students in this complicated task:

1. Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a "post-truth" world  - (A great post from Joyce Valenza on School Library Journal's Website)
2. How to Spot Fake News (and Teach Kids to Be Media-Savvy) - (From Common Sense Media)
3. FAKE NEWS vs. REAL NEWS: How to Determine the Reliability of Sources - (Website from Northern Essex Community College

Three Keys To Gaining Traction With #GoOpen This Year

This post first appeared on my EdWek Blog 

As we close in on the one-year anniversary of the launch of the #GoOpen Campaign by the team at the United States Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, it is time to reflect on the progress that has been made over the last year in this area. While the teachers and students in most schools are still unaware of the existence and purpose of this #GoOpen initiative, the number of resources to support this work has expanded dramatically over the last year. More importantly, there is a rapidly expanding group of educators ready to dive in and support one another as schools start to tackle this important work.  After leaving yesterday's #GoOpen Regional Summit in Boston, I have a renewed sense of optimism that schools will make better progress in the adoption of Openly licensed educational resources (OER) in the coming year and expand the work within and beyond the 17 #GoOpen States highlighted below.

Of course, the biggest question we have in the area of OER is the same one that we have with every initiative we undertake in schools - how do we build our capacity in this area? Here are my top three takeaways for districts to move forward with OER in the upcoming year.

1. Get support from the top - Make sure that your school and district leaders are on board with the #GoOpen Movement. Have your Superintendent sign on to become a #GoOpen District. District's just need to commit to replacing one textbook over the next year with openly-licensed educational materials. By signing on, you will be matched up with an ambassador district that will support your efforts and share materials they have already created.  In addition, you will join a cohort of other schools involved in the same work.
2. Connect locally - Superintendents and Principals need to reach out to local colleagues to see if they can pool resources to take on this work.  There is no doubt that every school out there is looking to update course-related materials in various subjects and grade levels. School leaders need to check in with their local/regional administrative groups to see what areas they might have in common with neighboring schools and districts. This work will go much faster if we share the load. Also, make sure that you are taking advantage of state support for this work if you are in one of the 17 #GoOpen states. In Massachusetts, we are fortunate to be supported at the state level by our Department of Education and our Director of Digital Learning Ken Klau. 
3. Use the resources from the Office of Ed Tech - The resources under the Office of Ed Tech's  #GoOpen Campaign provide a great foundation to undertaking this work.  The #GoOpen District Launch Packet provides a comprehensive outline for schools and districts to organize their efforts to infuse their curriculum with openly-licensed educational resources. In addition, there are 12 stories from #GoOpen districts that share best practices and provide some concrete steps that other districts can replicate as they move forward.

Thanks to Daniel Downs, Digital Learning Coordinator at North Reading Public Schools, for organizing yesterday's #GoOpen Summit. I feel fortunate to work in a state with so many forward-thinking educators.  Also thanks to the present and past Chief Open Education Advisors  from the Office of Ed Tech in Washington, D.C. (Kristina Peters and Andrew Marcinek) for their continued leadership in this area.

#Educolor Is A Critical Resource For School Leaders

This post first appeared on my Education Week Blog

photo via Educolor.org

With all that is happening in our world, I cannot think of a more important hashtag than #educolor at this. I am concerned that the most prevalent sound bytes that we hear are ignoring the voice of people of color and leading to an imbalanced perspective. Ironically, an impromptu Twitter chat took place on the #educolor hashtag last night after a one-hour #edchat on the topic of racism in schools lacked a significant representation of educators of color.

Thankfully,  Jose Vilson stepped up to the plate on the #educolor hashtag and asked the following critical questions for educators to reflect on to ensure that we are providing schools and classrooms that support our students of color:

It is imperative that all school leaders provide opportunities for conversations surrounding questions like these. This cannot be just an hour at the beginning of the school year or a one-time position statement.  There needs to be ongoing schoolwide and community-wide discourse and concrete action plans to ensure that we are not marginalizing students, parents, staff, or community members of color due to ingrained institutional traditions, rules, and/or mindsets.  The one thing I am sure of is that I have a very limited set of skills and experiences in navigating this discussion and that my good intentions and genuine concern for all leaves me well short of the much higher standard that needs to be met when it comes to ensuring equity within the school district in which I work.  

 

Fortunately, I have other educators who can enlighten and guide me beyond my shortcomings. The educators sharing personal perspectives on their experiences and work to ensure equity for students of color can be found on Twitter at #Educolor.  We all need to listen, engage, and act. 

How Many Educators Are Really Literate?

This post originally appeared on my Education Week Blog

Literacy is a broad term. The definition from Merriam-Webster defines literacy as "the ability to read and write or knowledge that relates to a specified subject." The struggle for me comes on the topic of specified subjects. Are these static or changing? Once prioritized, where do we find the most relevant and up-to-date information? Once we find the best source of information, how long does that remain the best resource and how long is that information up-to-date?

One of the words I have heard most often at a number of educational workshops over the past year regarding complicated topics like this is the word iterative. "It is an iterative process," they say in an effort to help those in the room process the complexity of the work ahead and also understand that this work cannot be expected to be completed overnight.  However, sometimes I get the feeling that this pronouncement is taken as a signal that significant progress is not really expected. Maybe we need to explain that you can't have an iterative process without making a first iteration? I do find it a bit ironic that the word inertia can be extracted from the word iteration.

One place where I feel this frustration is in the area of digital literacy. A couple of blog posts from Shaelynn Farnsworth and Steven Anderson following the recent ISTE Conference really got me wondering about how much has changed in regards to how we support our students in this area. We are more than eight years beyond the publication of the definition of 21st Century Literacies published by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), yet I question how many of our students are able to do the following by the time they graduate from high school:

• Develop proficiency and fluency with the tools of technology;
• Build intentional cross-cultural connections and relationships with others so to pose and solve problems collaboratively and strengthen independent thought;

• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes;

• Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information;

• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts;

• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments.

I don't see anything significant happening here until we accept the words in the title of Steven's post and ensure that all educators feel that We Are All Teachers of Literacy.  This will not be as much of a shift for elementary teachers as it will be for those in middle and high schools. For those districts looking for resources to help educators get started, Shaelynn's post provides the following:

Google Inside Search  - Understand how Google Search works, explore the interactive timeline highlighting the advancement of Google Search throughout the years, and view lesson plans for educators.

BrainPop - A video introduces students to search engines and how to use keywords and phrases to locate the information they want. This site also includes lesson plans which include multi-media ideas and also skills to promote with students for online research!

ReadWriteThink - A great lesson plan to help students focus their internet searching. This lesson not only supports skills need in the initial search, but also reading strategies to locate and evaluate information once it is found!

 As I make this statement, please be assured that I include myself in this group playing catch up in regards to how to best find quality information online.  Reading beyond clickbait headlines and titles is a challenge sometimes when I do not feel like I have the time to give due diligence to the source behind that headline.  But if we are committed to fulfilling our mission to develop responsible citizens, then we have to go all-in when it comes to developing responsible digital citizens.

In an area where the majority of our information is coming to us from digital media, can we really claim literacy without digital literacy?

Our Students Can't Be "Quiet" on Social Media in School

This post originally appeared on my EdWeek Blog

With summer here, as well as a less hectic schedule, it is a great opportunity to catch up and revisit some of the great education-related books  out there. My first read is a quick revisit of "Quiet" by Susan Cain, a must-read for any educator who has not yet had the chance to pick up this insightful look at introverts. There is so much for educators to consider regarding Cain's work and how we create learning opportunities that really reach all learners.

A particular aspect of the book that struck me my second time through was a portion discussing the role that social media can play in giving introverts a voice in discussions. With so many schools, classrooms, and educators still dealing with discomfort at the thought of providing and encouraging students to utilize online tools to share their thoughts, I have concerns that we are missing a critical opportunity to engage some of our students in meaningful discourse and connections.

Cain says the following on this topic in the second chapter of her book:

"The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice. The same person who finds it difficult to introduce himself to strangers might establish a presence online and then extend these relationships to the real world."

I know many educators who can identify with this and we owe it to our students to ensure the same opportunity. This does not mean that every student needs to have online interaction for every discussion, but it does mean that we need to provide chances for every student to have experiences with online conversations at some point. Heck, by the time our students hit middle school they are most likely already engaged in some type of online social media interaction. My feeling is that we have to engage the adult learners in our schools in utilizing these resources in order to allow every student access.

As Cain states, "Social media has made new forms of leadership possible for scores of people..."

Hopefully, we can count all of the students in our schools among these scores of people!

Are Digital Devices Paralyzing Your Productivity?

This post originally appeared on my Education Week Blog.

Back in January, I wrote a bit about Infomania, the state where an individual is so obsessed with the flow of information from technological devices that their ability to focus routine tasks is greatly inhibited.  We all need to have a sense of awareness of the hold that the constant stream of information coming through technological devices has on us. In many cases, today's technologically focused individuals have no idea just how inefficient they have become due to the unhealthy hold that their devices have on their attention.

The inspiration for my earlier post (and this one) is the Infomagical Project that was developed by the folks at Note to Self, a great podcast that looks at the impact that technology plays in our lives. The Infomagical project proposes daily challenges for people to undertake in order to recover some of the balance in their lives and reduce their preoccupation with technology.

As we head into the summer, it is a great time to revisit this topic and renew our commitment to finding a sense of equilibrium in this endless battle against the flow of digital information and stay present and productive in our personal and professional lives. Thankfully, this week's Note to Self podcast highlights the most important challenge from the one-week project back in January with its Infomagical Boot Camp focused on single tasking.

I challenge you all to focus for 20 minutes on this week's 20-minute podcast and think about the role technology plays in your life. Is it a healthy balance or are you jumping from one task to another without completing anything you started? Maybe some of you didn't get this far down in this post without interruptions due to email alerts or social media updates...

Good luck with the single-task challenge!

Technology Addiction, It's Not Just For Kids

This post originally appeared on my Education Week Blog

We saw another round of alarming headlines last week decreeing the downfall of our current crop of teenagers due to their addiction to mobile technology. These headlines were prompted by a new report from Common Sense Media about technology addiction and teenagers.  The report,  Technology Addiction: Concern, Controversy and Finding Balance, was all over the news with countless headlines like Smartphone Addiction Rampant and Half of All Teenagers Are Addicted to Their Smartphones. While the headlines are accurate, they do not tell the entire story.

These negative headlines are great if they are click-bait intended to get adults reading beyond the bad news and raise awareness about how we can constructively deal with concerns about technology-use and teens. Unfortunately, the general theme coming from the media reports over the past few years has been to sound alarms and not to focus on a more modern perspective and all of the possibilities that go along with it. Thankfully, Common Sense Media provides a balanced approach to this conversation in the report.

However, schools also need to step forward and be part of the movement to let families know that all screen time is not created equal. As school leaders strive to add more instructional technology resources to their classrooms, they also must ensure that parents are kept in the loop about what their students are doing with digital devices to support their learning. We must be clear that our goal is to choose the best instructional resources that fit the needs of the learner at a given moment. Sometimes the right choice may be a digital resource and sometimes it will not. More importantly, we need to talk about when and why certain digital resources are appropriate. We also need to encourage adults to do the same thing regarding the choices they make surrounding the use of technology for their children and themselves.

Despite the fact that it did not make the headlines, a quick look below at some of the research from the Common Sense Media study shows that the problems surrounding the constructive use of technology are just as significant for parents as they are for students. Then again, these stories are being written by adults. I wonder if the headlines would be different if thet were written in a student publication...

The bottom line is the following statement from the report:

"Embracing a balanced approach to media and technology, and supporting adult role-modeling, is recommended to prevent problematic media use."

For school leaders, this starts with us. Let's foster open and honest conversations about the struggles everyone in our school community is having keeping technology in its proper place.  Let's share strategies that are working for families who are finding success staying connected to the world both digitally and in-person. It is clear that there is a role for us in this conversation if we are willing to take it.  So let's look at the conclusion of the report and commit to discussing the following two recommendations as a starting point:

• Talk About It -  Connect with your kids and support learning by talking about what they're seeing, reading, and playing. Encourage kids to question and consider media messages to better understand the role media plays in their own lives. 
• Walk the Walk -  Lead by example by putting your own devices away while driving, at mealtimes, and during family time. Parent role-modeling shows kids the behavior and values you want in your home. Kids will be more open and willing participants when the house rules apply to you, too.

Let Students Veer From the Old Path

This post originally appeared on my Education Week Blog

I recently stumbled across a blog post from Jason Kottke titled The invention of the jump shot.  As someone who has both played and coached basketball, I was intrigued a bit about the fact that there was actually a time when people shot the basketball without their feet leaving the floor.  I couldn't help wondering what caused the change from the set shot to the jump shot.  

My curiosity led me to an article by Brad Botkin of CBS Sports titled, Birth of the Jump Shot.  Botkin detailed the story of Kenny Sailors, a guard from the University of Wyoming who took the first jump shot on record in a college basketball in 1942 during a game at Madison Square Garden. However, this trivial tidbit does not tell the story of why Sailors created the jump shot. This all happened a few years earlier when Kenny was just 13 and he was routinely getting his shots knocked back at him by his older brother Bud. Kenny, just 5-foot-8, needed a new plan to get a shot up over his 6-foot-5 brother.  What followed of course was the jump shot.

However, what interested me as much as the ingenuity of the 13-year old boy who orchestrated the jump shot was the reaction of his older brother upon seeing this new tactic used against him. Here is an excerpt from Botkin's article where Kenny describes Bud's reaction:

Bud said to me, 'Kenny, that's a pretty good shot. You ought to try to develop that.' So from that point forward, that's pretty much what I did. I worked on that shot every chance I got."

I can't help thinking that if Bud had laughed his little brother off the court or chastised him for trying something so outlandish that Kenny would never have taken that shot at Madison Square Garden some eight years later.  Where would the game of basketball be today?  Interestingly enough, the jump shot still took some time to take off as a mainstream basketball move. In 1963, over 20 years after Kenny's historic shot, Hall-of-Famer Bob Cousy said the following prior to his final game with the Boston Celtics:

"I think the jump shot is the worst thing that has happened to basketball in ten years." Cousy's objections? "Any time you can do something on the ground, it's better." 

As R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly echoes in my head, I have to smile at the irony in the fact that an innovative basketball player like Bob Cousy did not see the possibilities in the jump shot. What does this have to do with education?  Like young Kenny Sailors, we need to move past the traditional mindset that got us to this point. History is full of examples of talented people like Bob Cousy who did not see the changes that were on the horizon. Let me remind you a few:

"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." - Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946  

"There is no reason that anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson - the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

My final example is a bit of a challenge, fill in the blank on the following quote and then guess who said it...

 "_________ will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories." - ?

If you guessed the name of any 21st Century educator worrying about the impact of Google searches by his or her students then you are exactly...wrong. It was Socrates sometime around 400 BC worrying about the impact that writing was going to have on young scholars.

Of course this immediately brings to mind current disagreements about whether or not our students should be reading real books instead of digital books or whether they should take notes by hand instead of on a device.   Maybe these are bad exammples. However, the one point I want to make is that we need to allow our students to veer from the path that we have taken. We need to be cautious about holding onto outdated traditions with white knuckles because they are what we are most comfortable with or because it worked for us. The bottom line is that this type of thinking will be to the detriment of our students. Most importantly, when we see our students trying new things that may be a bit unorthodox, we need to consider saying what Bud Sailors said to his little brother Kenny - "That's pretty good. You should develop that."

Getting Our Schools Focused On The Right Things

This post originally appeared on my Edweek Blog

Nick Donohue, the President and CEO of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, was a speaker at a recent education conference that I attended. His summation of the state of educational discord in our country was right on point.  He mentioned a few of the mantras of those who want to overhaul our public schools. "We need to fix our broken schools" and "we need to go back to the basics" were two of the common chants that Donohue referenced. The problem with these proclamations, as Donohue acknowledged, is that while they are great at grabbing attention, they offer little substance in the area of solutions.

Even worse is the fact that these lines of thinking are usually followed by the vilification of one of following groups:

• Educators - Let's face it, if we just had better educators then everything would be different.  I mean, just look at the test scores.
• Parents - If we had more competent parents then these kids would be better prepared to learn. They just don't care about their child's education enough.
• Students - Gosh, if these kids just took school more seriously. They aren't as conscientious about school as students were in prior decades.

Anyway, you get the picture. Donohue continued with an important point regardinng the relationship between the teacher, the student, and the parent. He called this "the iron triad." I could not agree more in regards to the importance of these connectons. In fact, as I think about the public discourse surrounding education mentioned above, it seems that a key aspect of this movement is to break apart the iron triad to which Donohue referred.

As Donohue encouraged the educators in the room to make sure that their schools and communities are moving beyond the empty rhetoric that is fueled by blaming and bashing key stakeholders, he recommended a reframing of the issues with forward-thinking questions (i.e. What if we started by asking the adults in a school community to discuss something that was a significant learning in their lives?  How can we offer our students more personalized, relevant, and contextualized experiences? How can we provide more agency for the learner?)

The whole conversation immediately brought me back to a recent post I read from Will Richardson titled We're Trying To Do "The Wrong Thing Right" in Schools.  The excerpt below is filled with forward-thinking questions that need to be answered.

"Doing the right thing in schools starts with one fairly straightforward question: What do you believe about how kids learn most powerfully and deeply in their lives? Once you've answered that as an individual and as a school community, the question that follows is does your practice in classrooms with kids honor those beliefs? In other words, if you believe that kids learn best when they have authentic reasons for learning, when their work lives in the world in some real way, when they are pursuing answers to questions that they themselves find interesting, when they're not constrained by a schedule or a curriculum, when they are having fun, and when they can learn with other students and teachers, then are you giving priority to those conditions in the classroom?"

 I am fairly certain that if this happened that there would be a quick realization that the path we are on is not one that is in the best interest of our kids.  

School Leaders Are Tardy In Supporting Teens With Later Start Times

This post first appeared on my EdWeek Blog 

What would your perfect school or classroom look like? What are some of the age-old practices that you would revise or do away with?  I am struck by the fact that despite overwhelming research that the elimination of certain practices would benefit students, we continue on with these "traditional" approaches. Maybe it's just easier to maintain the status quo rather than spend the time and energy discussing changes to the way we have always done things.  The main question for me is what do we have to lose? Or even better, what could we gain?

Last week, I discussed homework and found little middle ground in the conversation surrounding whether or not homework helped students grow academically. Check out the comments beneath the post for the passionate responses from readers. Please add your point of view to the debate. In my opinion, the only wrong answer is one that is made with the idea that there is no room for discussion.  

Moving on from the homework debate, this week I want to look at the research on later start times for high school students discuss why so few schools have heeded the advice of experts on the health of teenagers.  It has been nearly 20 years since the decision was made at Edina High School in Minnesota to push the start of school back an hour. The following excerpt from Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explains the change at Edina High:

"The decision to change the Edina High School start time from 7:25 to 8:30 was made in the spring of 1996 and implemented in the 1996-97 school year. The decision was made in response to a request from the Minnesota Medical Association (to all superintendents in Minnesota) to start high schools later, and that was in response to definitive medical research on adolescent sleep patterns from Brown and Johns Hopkins Universities. USA Today states that Edina was the first district in the nation to change start times based on that research."

More recently, in August of 2014,  the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement titled Let Them Sleep: AAP Recommends Delaying Start Times of Middle and High Schools to Combat Teen Sleep Deprivation. The opening statement of the release read as follows:

"Studies show that adolescents who don't get enough sleep often suffer physical and mental health problems, an increased risk of automobile accidents and a decline in academic performance. But getting enough sleep each night can be hard for teens whose natural sleep cycles make it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11 p.m. - and who face a first-period class at 7:30 a.m. or earlier the next day."

Despite the fact that our healthcare professionals are imploring schools to consider starting later in an effort to allow our students to be safer and more productive, the movement on this matter is still minimal. A coalition of people at startschoollater.net has organized a number of resources to help schools that would like to allow their students to get more sleep.  The site lists schools in 44 states that have adopted later start times and also shares positive statistics that have occurred because of the time changes.  For instance, one school in my state of Massachusetts that made a change in start times is Nauset Regional High School. Startschoollater.net lists the following positive results that have come about since this change in 2012:

After the 2012 implementation of an hour later school start, preliminary analysis revealed:

• a 53 percent drop in the number of failing grades
• a 38 percent decline of D's and F's
• the number of days students were suspended for disciplinary reasons plummeted from 166 in the first two months last year to 19 days in September and October of this year.

*These findings have been confirmed over time, with an additional benefit of a reduction in tardiness (3/14/16)

Schools Are Slow to Learn That Sleep Deprivation Hits Teenagers Hardest was the title of an article in the written by Dr. Aaron Carroll for the New York Times last week. Dr. Carroll's closing line sums things up nicely in regards to changing school start times to support our teenagers. "Too few stories focus on those who are really at risk for sleep deprivation, namely teenagers. It's not their fault. We could fix this problem for them." Unfortunately it is school leaders who are tardy in this case.  I hope more school and district leaders will make later start times a priority for their teenage students. Fortunately, the local Supertintendents in my area have come together to write a joint statement to push this topic in each of their communities.  It is time for others to do the same. 

What's The Hold Up With Ditching Homework?

This article originally appeared on my Edweek Blog

What would your perfect school or classroom look like? What are some of the age-old practices that you would revise or do away with?  I am struck by the fact that despite overwhelming research that the elimination of certain practices would benefit students, we continue on with these "traditional" approaches. Maybe it's just easier to maintain the status quo rather than spend the time and energy discussing changes to the way we have always done things.  The main question for me is what do we have to lose? Or even better, what could we gain?

The first topic I would like to look at is homework. With close to 20 years of data telling us that there are no academic benefits to giving elementary students homework, there is no groundbreaking information here. A few articles over the last weeks have brought this topic back up in many school communities.

One of the pieces, Homework is wrecking our kids: The research is clear, let's ban elementary homework by Heather Shumaker, first appeared in Salon earlier in March. The article references the efforts of Duke University Researcher Harris Cooper to go back through over 100 studies on the impact of homework that were conducted from the late 1980's until 2006.

While the results of the research showed no impact on academic performance at the elementary level, the studies did find one area that homework impacted students in a significant way.  Unfortunately this is a reference to the negative impact that homework had on the attitude of students toward school.  Shumaker offers clear direction to school communities as to where we should focus our attention to best support the growth of the whole child.

"Non-academic priorities (good sleep, family relationships and active playtime) are vital for balance and well-being. They also directly impact a child's memory, focus, behavior and learning potential. Elementary lessons are reinforced every day in school. After-school time is precious for the rest of the child."

A School That Stopped Giving Homework

If you are looking for a concrete example of a school that has taken on the challenge of eliminating useless homework, look no further than the Cambridgeport School in Cambridge, MA.  The efforts of Cambridgeport Principal Katie Charner-Laird were outlined on the Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog in a post titled Principal: What happened when my school ended useless homework. After a review of Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth, Charnier-Ladd and her staff decided that they would step away from the old way of doing things and stop assigning nightly homework.  Amazingly enough, meaningful learning outside of school increased in ways that many would not have imagined.

"I heard repeatedly from students, teachers, and parents about the significant, meaningful work they are doing at home. A fourth grader begged to take home his writing notebook on the third day of school so he could keep working on the story he had started in class.  A class of fifth graders  requested additional practice problems to take home with them.  A father-daughter pair showed me the model they created of the setting of the book they were reading together...Our school may be giving less homework but we have more students engaged in more meaningful learning activities at home than ever before."

Like Charnier-Ladd's school, many of the schools that do away with traditional homework shift the focus to nightly reading for pleasure. While I know nightly reading for elementary students is not a new concept, I was struck by CNN segment last month that touched upon the impact that nightly reading had upon the brains of students.  This is your child's brain on reading discussed the following:

"The researchers saw that, when the young children were being told a story, a number of regions in the left part of the brain became active. These are the areas involved in understanding the meaning of words and concepts and also in memory."

I am hoping that CNN (or someone) will do a follow up segment and call it This is your child's brain on homework.  But seriously, if we cannot come to an agreement as an entire school or community on reducing homework, why can't we just have some classrooms pilot this practice? Let's try it for a year and see if students who do not get traditional homework suffer academically when compared to their grade-level peers who do get nightly homework. At the same time, let's be sure to document the types of learning/activities the students without traditional homework are doing outside of school. Really, what have we got to lose? More importantly, what will More importantly, what will we gain?!

Open Educational Resources Are About Much More Than Saving Money

This post first appeared on my Edweek Blog

I have been somewhat disingenuous about my rationale for the transition away from traditional textbooks. In my discussions about the importance of the move I always cite financial savings as the top reason to move away from textbooks. However, after spending a lot of time thinking about moving towards Open Educational Resources (OER) to replace textbooks , I have realized that saving money is not at the top of my list of reasons to move away from these items that have burdened the backs of students and the budgets of school districts for decades.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the economics involved here need to be discussed. For instance, a new social studies textbook could cost $100 or more. Multiply this times 250 students and you are quickly looking at a price tag of $25,000 for one set of textbooks. What if we spent half, three-quarters, or all of that amount to train and compensate our teachers to create resources to take the place of textbooks? In my opinion, this would give us higher quality resources that we could revise regularly and make them a sustainable resource.

But beyond the clear economic advantages, switching away from third-party content allows us to fulfill a much greater purpose.  This transition will help us make the cultural shift that is necessary in our schools to truly prepare our students for the rapidly changing landscape beyond K-12 education. Supporting our teachers in these efforts is a critical step for success here. A recent post about the #GoOpen initiative from Joseph South, Director of the  Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education, articulated this well:

"We now expect successful students to exhibit skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and digital literacy. We know without these skills they won't be fully prepared for the rigors of college or the day-to-day challenges of a fulfilling career...We have no doubt that the use of openly-licensed educational resources in schools, districts, and states will continue to grow. The question is: how quickly, how thoughtfully, how sustainably, and with how much rigor and support?"

The ball is clearly in the court of states and local districts to answer Director South's questions on how quickly this initiative will flourish. It is clearly easier to throw money at third-party content developers as we have always done and go about business as usual. However, the continued focus on these types of traditional resources as the major component for instruction across  curricular areas is likely to leave our students underwhelmed and underprepared. The road to the adoption of Open Educational Resources is bound to be bumpy, but it is a clear route to the creation of true communities of learners who understand the growth mindset necessary for success in the future.

Educators Shouldn't Act Differently On Social Media

This post originally appeared on my EdWeek Blog

As someone who is a big proponent of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. as tools to communicate, connect, and learn, I often get asked about the downside of social media use for educators.  My honest answer is that I really don't see a downside for educators in using social media tools for the purposes I mention above.  The two biggest reasons for educators to be using social media are as follows:

1. Educators need to model the use of these online communication resources in a responsible manner.
2. Social Media provides an avenue for educators to amplify their voices and share the great work happening in their classrooms at a time where teachers and schools are often viewed with disdain.

I was asked about this topic by Tanya Roscorla from the Center for Digital Education in her recent article How should educators act on social media? Here is my response:

"If people out themselves as intolerant, ignorant people on social media, I think it's a good thing, and they shouldn't be in those positions to begin with."

I really don't think the answer to the question about how educators should act on social media should be any different than the answer to the question - How should educators act?  We should not be partaking in illegal behavior period. While the headlines and the negative PR that may come back to school districts due to the inappropriate online behavior of their employees is certainly unfortunate, the unveiling of individuals who seek to do harm to others with their words and/or actions is an unintended benefit.

Finally, let us be clear on the most important part of this topic. Social Media is not the cause of inappropriate behavior, it is a vehicle for communication that can highlight both the positive and the negative actions and comments of inidividuals. All we can really control is our own actions. That is nothing new.

What Are You Doing About Infomania and FOMO?

This post originally appeared on my Edweek Blog

As someone who spends a lot of time utilizing technological resources and trying to support educators who are trying to integrate them in a meaningful way with students, I also spend a lot of time wondering about what the perfect balance might be between using technology and not using technology. To be even more specific, I wonder if there is any way to know for sure how much time people waste online versus how much of their time is productive. I know that I have had times where I have suffered from fear of missing out (FOMO) and I wonder how much others suffer from this and how much it might be distracting them from the task at hand.

Living in a time where Digital Literacy is a critical component of our work in schools, we need to ensure that we are raising student awareness of their own behaviors. Of course to do this, we need have an awareness of our own propensity to be sidetracked by FOMO.  Do you get anxious if you are away from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, email, or some game-based app for a short period of time?  If so, you may be suffering from Infomania which is defined by the Oxford dictionary as "the compulsive desire to check or accumulate news and information, typically via mobile phone or computer."

It this is ringing a bell with you, I encourage you to jump on board with the Infomagical project from Manoush Zomorodi and the Note to Self podcast team.  Check out the statistics below that the Note to Self team collected and take 25 minutes to listen to the podcast below on the Infomagical movement.  A discussion surrounding Infomania needs to be a healthy part of our digital literacy curriculum so that our students can lead a more productive and satisfying existence. 

In a survey of nearly 2,000 Note to Self listeners:  

• 60 percent said they feel like the amount of effort they must exert to stay up-to-date on a daily basis is "taxing." Another 15 percent said it's downright "impossible."
• 4 out of 5 said information overload affects their ability to learn.
• 1 out of 3 said information overload was affecting their close relationships. 

Don't Underestimate the Power of OER

This post originally appeared on my Edweek Blog

In my previous post, I discussed the importance of schools looking closely at Open Educational Resources (OER).  Recently, I have been reading with great interest some posts by Ryan Merkley, the CEO of Creative Commons,  which further highlight the significance of schools looking at OER.  Merkley's thoughts on the importance of the community collaborating to build something that can benefit all of us has important connections to the development of OER. There is a clear opportunity before us to work together for equity and access to high quality resources for all of our schools. In addition, Merkley's words echo some of the key expectations that we should have for students.

"Collaboration, sharing, and co-operation are in our nature -- building community, co-operating towards common goods, and creating shared benefits are at the heart of who we are."

The major stumbling block that I see for schools in achieving this has nothing to do with the technology that we will need to support educators who will choose to do this work. Instead, the major impediment is an outdated notion of what we as educators should be focusing on. In a system where standardized testing is king, educators and their students are left as consumers of standards and resources to support these standards which have been overly influenced by companies whose main focus is the mighty dollar and not building a shared community that puts learning and learners first.

The OER movement provides an opportunity to change this and put the power back in the hands of teachers and students.  We need schools who support staff members in becoming creators who not only collaborate with colleagues across classrooms but also across local, state, and national boundaries. By undertaking this work, we will also be supporting our students in modeling the skills and behaviors that they are going to need to be successful in "real life."

As I read Merkley's vision for Creative Commons below, I think it would be applied just as well as a focal point for what we would like to see in our schools.

"The Internet is real life. It's where we go to work. It's how we connect to the people we love. It's where we tell our stories. This is the society we're building together. If it is going to be fair, equal, diverse, vibrant, serendipitous, and safe for everyone, it will only be because we choose to make it that way. If it is going to be accessible, equitable, and full of innovation and opportunity, it will require our leadership to build the foundations that support these ideals."

I think the adoption of OER in our schools can be a big step on the way to help us achieve this important challenge.