…read all over?

Just when you least expect it, smile….

We’re on Summer Vacation in the USA, but I work most of the year to stay up with my responsibilities as a teacher at Hinsdale High School in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. I just completed planning two new courses from top-to-bottom: Conflict Resolution and Non-Violent Communication, and The Rhetoric of Science Fiction. My wife, Jan, the school nurse, almost always comes over to school with me: not only to offer sage advice, but to copy, edit, proofread, etc. I received a couple of e-mails from our Assistant Principal the day before, “needing to talk about something” so that was another reason to go to the office this fine Thursday morning. Jan and I chatted as we walked from the parking lot.

“Now, that you have your new courses planned and repreps done for your standing courses, you’re going to get a job offer”, she said, almost laughing out loud. Since earning an MS Ed in Integrating Technology in the Classroom, I had been looking for a job as either a teacher or integrator, especially along the coast in Maine or New Hampshire. She was referring to this effort.

I was invited, first, by the Assistant Superintendent, to sit down in the Assistant Principal’s office. “**** has accepted a new job at ****, so we know longer have a Comprehensive Educational Technology (CET) teacher. Would you be interested in the position, if you could qualify for it?” I would be minimizing my surprise by saying, I asked myself if I was on Candid Camera. This was such an ‘outside the box’ solution to this staffing dilemma, I was amazed.

For those of you who don’t know, CET is the 21st century progeny of Industrial Arts. The administrators in the district/building felt my training and abilities were being underutilized as a face-to-face English teacher, and they believe this job would allow everyone to benefit. “Qualify?”

The State of New Hampshire has various Alternatives, I to V, to qualify to be an educator in the state. We will submit my portfolio, if no qualified teacher answers the district’s ad for the position, to see if I could qualify under Alt IV, a pathway allowed because there is a ‘critical shortage’ of qualified candidates. The job was posted in the Saturday newspapers and online. So, now we wait. Well, not just wait.

In the meantime, the Administrators and the Superintendent were going to sit down to firm up a focus in the short and a vision for the long term of CET. I decided to do some investigating myself.

I trawled the search engines for a while and then I remembered that because of the several conversation I had with **** over the years I had already done some legwork trying to support him in this very process. I went back to visit some of those ‘old’ links and among them was Project Lead The Way.

I have been blogging for a while, and, over the last several months, I have been micro-blogging on Twitter and Plurk. I told the community on Plurk about the job possibility, and they were all supportive and excited without reserve. This is where the process takes a Twilight Zone turn.

I asked them about whether they knew of or had any experience with Project Lead The Way. My question was met with a resounding silence. I tried the out-of-the-blue question on Twitter, and I received no repsonses there, either.

This is a program has units in all fifty states, 3000 schools, 7000 teachers, 5000 counselors, and, currently, 250,000 students. I only have about 400 professionals I follow or are ‘friends’ with on Twitter and Plurk, so it’s not unexpected that no one may have heard of it or have it in their district or school. On the other hand, I may have stumbled against a significant and unnecessary bulkhead in our society: The difference between technology and technology.

The effort to integrate technology – Information and Communication Technology – in our educational institutions, communities, families, and individuals; As online education grows like mushrooms after the rain – even virtual Phys ed; that we’re still overlooking a significant group of people in our society.

Over the last generation, the percentage of people working on farms and in manufacturing has shrunk from 60% to 6%. That is almost 2 million people currently working and needing successors and helpers in farming and manufacturing. If we had a workforce that was enabled as 21st century citizens we might be able to regenerate some of our last capacity in these sectors-food imports have grown 78% since the year 2000, for instance.

I think those of us who are early adapters (I still consider this VERY early) in the Information/digital revolution have to take a very careful look at what we are about and how we can serve all the individuals, families and schools in our world and not even just the USA.

Just think, one of our School Committee members has been taking classes required by his company management to master digital machining equipment. Suppose our children were getting a jump on that in school?

Three Offerings from ISTE

ISTE has timed a good number of books for that magic time, Summer, when I can read ’til my heart’s content. I don’t have the the NET-T in my hot little hands yet, but anyone who’s interested has seem the megaphoned from NECC last week. No, the three I have in mind are Visual Arts: Units for All Levels by Mark Gura,  Database Magic by Sandra Dounce, and Tablet PCs: in K-12 Education edited by Mike van Mantgem.

Visual Arts: Units for All Levels

By Mark Gura (160 pages ISTE, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56484-242-8)

ISTE asserts that the audience is Grade K–12 teachers, preservice teachers, technology coordinators, school and district administrators, teacher educators.

This book is in the familiar format of curriculum series that ISTE publishes. It is synched with new NETS-S and with The National Standards for Art Education (Visual Arts). Typically it is divided into two sections. The first is Mark’s framework for the incorporation of technology in the visual arts classroom. It is very formal. I kept looking to get to know the author here. Well, I had to wait until Section 2. Seeding each subsection with a wonderful quotation and using illustrations carefully Mark provides twenty instructional units. Since I teach Lit on Film, and a suggested project in that course is the production of a claymation or stop-motion film,  I gravitated to Unit 17 “Transformation by Clay Animation”. It will provide so much for my students who choose this project, transforming he manner in which I look at the possibilities. All of the Units meet the standards set by this one, in my mind.

Database Magic

By Sandra Dounce (180 pages ISTE, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56484-245-9)

The author and the editors at ISTE are aiming for Grade 4–12 educators, curriculum specialists, teacher educators, professional development personnel, preservice teachers, school and district administrators.

A CD is included with A good many Microsoft Excel and Access files. If you are familiar with Neo-Office the Mac version of Open Office you will able to utilize the Access files if you are a Mac school.

The book is in the curriculm series structure and is synched with the new NET-S. Section 1 fills almost a third of the book. Though written in gentle terms, I believe it is recognized that the teachers are going to have rather steep learning curve with databases, especially true databases. Sandra uses the first five of six chapters in Section 1 exploring databases. The final chapter focuses on the database functions in Excel.

Section 2 has sixteen units iusing the Excel spreadsheets and the Access databases included on the accompanying CD.  The second section opens with some background and a look at the spreadsheets and databases included on the CD. Sandra has gone to great lengths to not only profile the units in detail but to create a number of worksheets for each lesson.

Understanding databases and being able to create and use them is a critical 21st century skill. The most popular apps on the WWW today could not exist without the creation and integration of databases – from vitual campus visits to Facebook.

Tablet PCs: in K-12 Education

Edited by Mike van Mantgem with Dave Berque, Edward Evans, Tracy Hammond, Kenrick Mack, Mark Payton, and David Sweeney (100 pages ISTE, 2007 ISBN 978-1-56484-241-1)

The audience for this book is the usual cast of characters: K–12 teachers, technology coordinators, library media specialists, instructional leaders, preservice education students, and faculty.

For those with no exposure to tablet PCs, this may seem like a niche concern. It is near and dear to my heart because one of the case studies presented is from Vermont Academy, well within biking distance in the village of Saxtons River Vermont.

The book, in a mere hundred pages, answers the the what, when, and how of the use of tablets. This includes technical facts and lesson plans.

If you are exploring being a 1:1 school or fortunate to have the funds to add a COW (Computers On Wheels), you might want to seriously consider tablets instead of ’simple’ laptops.