Nick's Education Spot

'Family' Dinner

2010-03-24T09:51:00.003-06:00

While I haven't verified this claim, I feel safe in assuming that most family experts agree that families that have regular family dinners together tend to have a better family dynamic, which in turn positively impacts most other aspects of their lives. If you disagree with this claim, good for you. My question is, if preparing and dining together is good for the family, it probably would also have a positive impact on the culture of an advisory.

At MNCS, most advisors have some type of dining rituals for their advisory. One advisor frequently takes their troops to the local pizza place for lunch together. Another has made an annual tradition out of having the students prepare a large Thanksgiving meal. Today, I had my crew put together a wonderful breakfast off pancakes, eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, toast, smoothies, and did I say bacon? It was delicious.

Obviously this type of activity promotes group cohesion, ala the family dinner hypothesis, but does it teach anything else? I think the potential exists in this situation for tons of beneficial knowledge creation. For one, I like to delegate some responsibility and put students in charge of the whole operation. Typically this is a Jr or Sr, who is responsible for determining the menu, creating an ingredient list, assigning people to bring certain ingredients, and coordinating the cooking situation. Other students learn basic cooking skills, which are always beneficial. If I put some more time into thinking about this, but in the long run my major goals from these meals are advisory bonding, teaching leadership through experience, and some basic kitchen smarts.

Oh yeah, the food is awesome. Be sure to invite the help staff, they always appreciate it.

Planning an Advisory, Part 2

2009-08-22T07:17:00.003-06:00

As the school year gets alarmingly close to starting, I feel I'm starting to really wrap my head around this whole advisory thing. I've spent an enormous amount of time this summer wrestling with how I want to approach my advisory this year. I detailed some of that struggle in my previous post on advisory planning, where I debated the idea of thinking of an advisory as a team, and how else to best approach them. All of this debating and ruminating has finally given me the insight that I am not a teacher. I am an advisor, which is the combination of student leader and manager. Pretty simple, right?

Of course, if I'm their leader, which way do they go? At first I thought, '10 Credits'. That's how many MNCS credits students are expected to earn each year, so it seemed like a reasonable direction in which to lead. After some reflection, I think this goal is too small. Some of these kids will hopefully be in my advisory for years to come. It would be a waste of time to just help them hammer out 10 credits a year. They might eventually compile the 70 needed to graduate, but that would not indicate that they've actually gone anywhere meaningful on their educational journey. Clearly, a bigger goal is needed.

I remember in my early years of college, I was obsessed by getting A's. This made sense, since A's were good. Unfortunately, after a few years I realized I was getting plenty of A's, but I wasn't always learning a whole lot. Seems that in todays university, it's pretty easy to slide through with good grades and not really learn anything. This revelation helped me chage my focus. I stopped giving a rat's ass about my grades. Instead, I made it my goal to learn as much as I could from every class. I don't think I missed out on any A's after switching that focus. Plus, I actually got smarter for my dollars. It seems that if you are learning as much as you can in a course, the A will inevitably follow. This is how school should work, is how it was designed to work, but somewhere along the line we took a crap on that idea.

So what is it that I want students to learn? Even more than just learn, where do I want them to be when they are ready to graduate? I suspect that if this end goal is clearly spelled out, and myself and all of my students are on board with said goal, 10 credits will come year in and year out with ease. We will be so busy working together to achieve our goal that they won't even have to think about credit. So what is the goal?

Most people know I'm a bit of an amatuer Rand scholar. While much can be said of the role of family and society on the succes of an individual (see Gladwell's Outliers), I still think effective accountability and succes need to come from the individual level. One of the cornerstones of Randian ethics are the three concepts of Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem. Rand believed that these three things were the key ingredients to the highest virtue of human life. While I could spill nonsense about these ideas all day long, to make this long story short, Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem are a great goal for an advisory to be working towards.

I want all of my students to have some mastery of their power of reason. They need to be able to think about life, about how they relate to it, where they are going in it, what they want out of it. Most importanlty they need their Reason as their best tool to navigate life.

They also need Purpose. Reason is great, but like a GPS without a destination, Reason is useless if it's not being put towards something. Whether it's family, college, the military, or any other hobby or career, I want my students to have a good idea of where their interests and passions lie, and to have as many options as possible open to explore them.

Reason and Purpose are awesome, but without Self-esteem, or the belief and conviction that their life has value, and that they are worthy of pursuing it, they will go nowhere. Many people have great hopes and dreams, but lack the self-worth to pursue them, feeling that theirs are somehow less important than others.

Think what you want about Rand, I think that these are reasonable virtues to focus on for all students. If I can get my advisory focused on this objective, I think it will take us places. We'll see. In my next session, I'll back off of this leadership tact and talk a little bit more about advisory and student management.

An Industry's View on Project Based Learning

2009-08-22T07:12:00.002-06:00

Here's a link to a brief article that highlights the relationship of west-coast technology companies to Cal-Poly, one of the top engineering schools in the world. Cal-Poly is renowned for using interdisciplinary project based learning, and it seems that industry leaders thin this gives Cal-Poly grads a leg up on their competition. And I think they stole the 'learn by doing' motto from MNCS. Or maybe it was the other way around...

http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/564532

Some Interesting Reads...

2009-08-18T14:41:00.003-06:00

I'm in the middle of studying two suprisingly related books that deal a lot with education issues that I've yet to hear addressed in other circles. The first, Boys Adrift, addresses some of the issues that young men in our current culture are facing which result in a large number of lazy, unmotivated male members of society. The author, Leonard Sax, cites a number of reasons for the 'failure to launch' syndrome. The most education-relevant reasons involve boys starting kindergarten too soon, and medications for ADHD and depression. Sax cites evidence that ADHD is A.) Mis-diagnosed in numerous instances and B.) Stimulant-based medications for ADHD have been shown to permanently alter ther brain structure in young males, which could have a negative, life-long impact on a person's disposition.

The issue of starting school too early deals with the possibilty that many boys are not mentally ready for structured, academic learning at 5 or 6 years of age. If they are forced into this type of schooling too soon, it can severely damage their perception of schools and teachers. Once they've got it in their heads that school sucks, the damage is done, and the delays in their schooling only compound as the years go on while teachers and parents struggle to get them to accept schooling. Often, by starting boys in school a year later, they are mentally ready for academic work, and will hopefully retain a more positive attitude towards school.

This actually relates somewhat to my other current book of interest, Malcom Gladwell's Outliers. In this book, Gladwell challenges the assertion that succesfull people have special individual traits and attributes that seperate them from their peers. Instead, Gladwell argues that many other societal, personal, or family variables lead indirectly to a person being succesful. I haven't finished the book yet; in fact I just finished chapter one, where Gladwell demonstrates that in high level hockey, being born in the first four months of the year have a greater impact on a player's level of perceived success than individual talent. In most hockey systems, players all born in the same calendar year become a cohort by age. Players born in January, Feb., or March have a significant developmental advantage over their peers born later in the year when it comes time to pick who gets to advance to the higher-level teams, and who stays with the regular cohort. Ten or eleven months of a developmental head start have more to do with a young player's superior skill versus those of his cohort peers who were born later in the year than inborn talent. Hopefully you're following this.

While an advantage in developmental time is the primary means to succes for these young 'all-stars', the fact that they are more likely to be selected over those born in later months eventually turns into a true advantage in skill, as the 'all-star' players recieve better coaching, more playing time, and more practice time. This is relevant to educators in that students are grouped in similar fashion in the traditional school system. A student born in September has a developmental adavantage over grade-level peers who were born in March or April. Come the end of the school year, the September birthdays are mentally more mature, and are more likely to display better academic skills and abililty than those born later in the school year. This leads them to be more likely selected for gifted and talented programs, etc. What starts out as a simple advantage in developmental growth eventually turns into an actual intellectual superiority as these students recieve access to better teachers, curriculum, etc. Two students of otherwise identical starting ability might in the end recieve two totally different educations, and experience two totally different lives as a result of the fact that one was simply born earlier than the other.

Just food for thought, this kind of stuff is interesting too me, and I think it's worth checking out.

Are 'Comments' Killing America?

2009-08-06T18:14:00.002-06:00

While I try to keep this blog education-centered, this posting will delve into a serious bone I have to pick. I've railed on people who comment on this blog anonymously on a couple of occasions. This is the result of a pent-up frustration I have with reader comments and the new, interactive internet in general. Today I shall vent my anguish with 'comments' at large, and perhaps contribute some insight into how they are contributing to the decline of our country. The particular editorial that spawned this diatribe is acutally education related and can be found here: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/52551702.html?page=1&c=y

1. Comments Are Anonymous
If you have something to say, and think it's something meaningful that other people might benefit from, then have the confidence to put your name on it. Unfortunately, most of us well-meaning citizens who would like to benefit from the insights that others might offer are no longer able to read comments on blogs and other internet media because so many spineless nitwits who would not have the guts to spill their senseless drivel in real-time, face-to-face public forum have no problem publishing them on the internet anonymously. Think of the hay-day the KKK would've had with your online news source's comment section in the 1950's. Anonymous comments are the modern day equivalent to a white sheet and pointy hood.

2. Comments Contribute Nothing to Society
Comments are political action for two kinds of people: A.) People who know what they're saying is wrong, but say it anyway because it's anonymous. See the above heading 'Comments Are Anonymous'. B.) People who have good ideas, are willing to put their name on them, but mistake a comment on the local news site for actual action. It takes little effort to post a comment. It takes hardly any more effort to write or call your local political representatives and share the same thoughts with them. For some reason, most people are unwilling to take this second step. It might be directly tied to the whole anonymous situation described above, or it might be due to a simple mistaken belief that someone who has the power to change something might actually read your comment, be swayed by it, and do something about it. They won't. C.) People who just like to tick people off. While I have great respect for a contrarian mindset, typically these people haven't put any real thought into their statements, they just repeat the garbage that successful and wealthy contrarians like Rush Limbaugh get paid big money to spew. Newsflash: Rush Limbaugh does not actually believe that any of his ideas are helpful or effective, he just understands that people who don't like to think for themselves will pay big money to read and listen to his garbage, and has made a ton of money through this understanding. As a fairly libertarian dude, I should agree with at least some of Rush's insights, but for some reason, none of what he says makes any sense to me.

3. It's All the Government's Fault
This relates directly to section 2:B above. Once upon a time, people in this country who thought something was wrong with the way things were being done would acutally meet somewhere (the proverbial 'Town Hall' for example) and do something about it. If citizens were that concerned about the way their local schools operate, they would all get together and force meaningful change. Somewhere, somehow along the way, we've all been led to believe that this thing called 'government' is a magical system, that will solve all of our problems, while at the same time causing them. I'm not sure where exactly this perception came from, but I'm sure plenty of democrats would love to comment on here about how it's all the replubicans fault, and the republicans would love to scream that them darn socialist democrats caused all of our problems. Newsflash #2: Whining about who's at fault for all of our problems never gets us anywhere. Doing things to solve our problems gets us somewhere. Stop wasting your time with comments, and start working together to solve your problems. Everybody seems to think that their brand of legislator is going to fix everything. They're not. They're working on behalf of the special interests that paid to have them elected. If you want meaningful solutions, you'd better come up with some yourselves. Oh yeah, you'll probably have to stop watching TV for a little while if this strategy is going to work.

Anyway, I feel better. People need to stop believing that comments on news article, blogs, whatever, are meaningful contributions to the political landscape of our country. I value comments when people are willing to share things that they have put some thought into, articles germane to the discussion, helpful links or contacts to follow up on, etc. When people use comments to blindly spew rhetorical political filth and mindless trash about republican this, democrat that onto a website, they degrade the quality and utility of comment-based discussion for us all. Rather than commenting, these people need to band together and put their energy into trying to equalize the will of the populace against the will of the corporations. But that's the topic of another post, I'm sure.

Feel free to post hateful, politically biased comments here. If you leave your name, I might just publish them.

Planning An Advisory: Part 1

2009-08-03T13:02:00.005-06:00

This fall, I will be embarking on my first journey as a full-time advisor with 12+ live, in school students. I've had some smaller groups in the past, and been an unoffical sub over the past three years, but I'm hitting the big-time on August 29th. While I greet this opportunity with excitement, I am also experiencing some moments of sheer terror: how will I effectively manage these students so that all of us achieve success? I am using this here blog to record the process I am going through to help create some sort of plan to approach the school year with, since everything feels a little less terrifying if you have a plan. Writing will help me process my thoughts, and I figure it could help some PBL newbies out there, and hopefully provide a good journal of do's and don'ts for myself in the future.

Part One: The approach

How to approach the challenge of creating a quality advisory? I suppose it's good to step back and begin with the end in mind, as all the Zen masters say. Ideally, my advisory provides the framework for myself and the 12 to 15 students that dwell within it to succeed in school and in life this year. This means that each student earns a good chunk of credit, is in a good emotional place most of the time, has fun learning, and that their basic skills grow from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. For me, it means I haven't torn all of my hair out by next June.

It's hard to describe a quality advisory on paper, but I can brainstorm some terms that might help define it: welcoming, organized, warm, buzzing, productive, teamwork, successful, interesting, challenging, fluid, structured, respectful, honest, cooperative, enlightening.

I could probably go on, but that's a good start. I've also taken some time to visualize what a good advisory looks like. This sounds crazy, but it does work, sort of. I'm sitting at my desk while doing this, which seems to help. Students are coming and going. They are generally working on projects, although the occasional distraction is normal. Students talk and laugh, although they generally focus on projects, and the volume level is tolerable. If a student needs help with something, they don't hesitate to seek out another student, and students are willing to give help when asked in return. Some desks are empty, because a lot of projects happen outside of the physical advisory area.

Not sure if that activity is helping me a lot. Let's try another approach: In many ways, an advisory is like a team: A group of people working together to achieve a common goal. This is kind of an odd approach, since their common goal is not really common, but they all are working to succeed in the same areas. Some are all-stars, and might at times feel burdened by the lower performers. The lower performers might be a little intimidated by the all-stars. Ideally though, the whole group might commit to the idea that together they all can perform better than they would individually. By mutually supporting each other, they can fill in gaps in strengths and weaknesses, help each other stay focused, and provide backup in times of trouble. I like that approach; not sure if it's a reallistic or effective way to view an advisory, but I'll run with it for a while. If it falls apart, I can try something else. I'll ponder this approach, and see where it goes in the next installment.

Project Foundry in Janesville

2009-07-22T12:28:00.002-06:00

I've spent the last day and a half living large at the first ever Project Foundry user's conference. I've extolled the virtues of using Project Foundry to manage a PBL system in previous posts, and my convictions only grow as the list of features and options that the people at PF keep adding to the program. Much thanks is owed to Shane Krukowski for all the hard work he has put into developing the program, and for being patient with us end users when we can't get things to do what we want them to.

In addition to learning a lot about PF, I've gotten to meet and network with a variety of forward thinking, PBL fans and educators. Peter Pappas of Copy & Paste blog fame (http://peterpappas.blogs.com/) provided some entertaining and thought-provoking insights on the nature of education, and where we are heading in the future. I was also able to check out the awesome TAGOS Leadership Academy facilities in Janesville. The folks at TAGOS are working off of the MNCS PBL model and are doing some really impressive things with it, so it was fun to do some mind-melding with them.

On the heels of one EdVisions Summer Institute and heading into the second one, it is great to get to spend so much time with passionate, forward-thinking educators. They always get my brain humming with possibilty.

Cha Cha Chalgebra

2009-07-09T11:09:00.003-06:00

One of my students just solved an algebra problem with the help of Cha Cha. You text a question to 242242, and they send you the answer. They apparently include the steps as well, although it makes keeping cell phones out of testing locations that much more important. It just helped me find out that zero is in fact a real number. Once again, knowledge at your fingertips. If you could pass an algebra test in a reasonable amount of time with the help of a smart phone, is that a bad thing? I'm not sure, but it's interesting how our relationship to knowledge keeps changing as access grows easier.

Revamping the Tech Team?

2009-04-22T08:30:00.002-06:00

Evey school has it. Most of us remember it as the 'A/V Club' from back in the day: the geeky kids that help wheel out and set up the tech equipment that schools use to put a little extra color into an otherwise bleak day of factory education. Teachers often joked about how 'those kids' knew more about the technology than they did.

Times haven't changed a whole lot. While MNCS might not look like your high school (okay, I guarantee it doesn't) we still have that same group of kids, who still know more about the technology than the staff does. For the few years I've been here, several of these students have been losely organized into what we call the Tech Team. Mainly this small group helps me repair and maintain our supply of PC's, as well as help set up thing like projectors and our audio system for school functions. They are also quite adept at turning the art room into an arcade for school parties.

This system functions OK; specifically it's helped me identify and train the three or four kids who are really into fixing PC's. It's a win/win - I get some much needed assistance, and they learn some valuable career skills. Unfortunately, it has limited what our students can do and share with each other in terms of overall access to and knowledge of all aspects of technology. I have a number of students who are interested in learning new software applications, developing new uses for experimental hardware (have you ever seen a Wii remote used as a DIY smartboard component?), programming, and other interesting aspects of technology. The 'Tech Team' paradigm has not done enough to develop and foster these interests over the past few years, so I'm looking for a new approach.

My idea that I'm putting into place at the end of this year and rolling into next year stems from a meeting I had with the Boy Scouts America about starting a Venturing program at MNCS. Venturing is an offshoot of the scouts, and is open to boys and girls, ages 12-20 (I think). Basically, an organization forms a Venturing club based upon the interests of the members involved. If people want to do extreme sports, they could form a local extreme sports venturing club, and recieve some organizational and logistical assistance from the BSA. While I'm not dead-set on starting an offical Venturing unit, I think this concept would work well for developing a new approach to the Tech Team. Instead of focusing on doing comp repairs and A/V support, the new tech club (working name: super awesome tech club - we need to do some brainstorming there) will organize and meet twice a month to celebrate anything tech related.

Meetings can be a brainstorming session, a bitch session, whatever. I am hoping we can plan a bi-monthly field trip to anyplace the techeis want to go. Hopefully, being organized will also give us some fundraising power, so that we can establish a tech project grant fund that students who want to purchase tech-related items for projects can apply to. Geeky fun will also likely emerge from this organization; I see a future LAN party as an inevitable consequence of a tech club. Not that I mind, I love FPS as much as the teenagers do. Probably more.

It's Testing Season!

2009-04-15T14:55:00.003-06:00

Hooray! Standardized testing is awn!

Someone shared this gem with me today:

'You can't fatten a pig by putting it on a scale.'

Nuff said. Let my students get back to what really matters.

The Cost of Accountability

2009-03-03T12:30:00.003-06:00

After weeks of trying, I finally managed to find a starting figure in my quest to discover how much taxpayer money is being spent on accountability measurements (aka 'standardized testing') in Minnesota. It took a little more digging than I expected, but I'm thinking that my expectations that MN DOE would readily handout such information probably only reveals my political naivety.

Multiple calls to the DOE only put me in touch with a DOE press agent, who politely informed me that MN DOE does not and cannot compile the costs associated with their NCLB accountability programs, due to some intricacies of their financial management systems. A call to the MN Taxpayers association put me in touch with a member of the financial management department at the MN House of Representatives, who quickly assured me that MN DOE does in fact tabulate said figures, and had just recently presented them at a House committee meeting. The gentleman from the House financial office sent me a PowerPoint and a document that breaks down costs for NCLB accountability measurements.

According to the DOE's figures, the state of Minnesota will spend roughly $25,000,000 to administer their standardized testing programs for 2009. That's a lot; it equates to roughly $10 a student, or almost 600 educators hired at a rate of $42,000 a year. That's enough cash to staff an additional 50 Minnesota New Country Schools; or to outright fund another 25 MNCS's. While this number is pretty impressive for it's size, the more impressive feat is MN DOE's shady accounting the covers up the true cost of this testing.

To get an accurate picture of the costs of these assessments, any college freshman taking Microeconomics 101 will tell you that you need to figure in things such as opportunity costs, externalities, etc. To start adding this all up, you need to figure out how much time our students are losing per year to lost time spent testing; a local district high school all but shuts down for three days a year to accomadate these assessments, and spends a significant portion of another two weeks taking tests. I'm not sure what it costs to run a high school for three days, but I bet it easily approaches my annual salary. On top of spending their resources to administer the test on test days, districts must also staff a full or half time position solely dedicated to the purpose of administering standardized tests. I think these costs are considered a negative externality in economic terms; the decisions are made by the state and federal government, and the results of said decisions impose a direct and substantial cost on schools and districts that they did not ask for.

As for opportunity costs, it's hard to value all of the time lost to meeting testing requirements. A recent survey of MN school principals conducted by Minnesota 2020 found that 71% of the schools in MN are spending more time and resources each year to meet NCLB testing requirements. 40% of the schools say they have cut classes and spending on arts and electives in order to avoid the stigma of not meeting Annual Year Progress benchmarks. How do you put a price on what's lost from an education if you remove arts, humanities, and other electives that are not a part of the NCLB framework? I can't say, but I will tell you for sure that testing profficiency in any subject has almost no correlation to any real-world application of the concept 'educated'.

As the hardest to measure or quantify in any meaningful term, it's difficult to grasp what the cost to our society is in lost opportunities for quality education. America is the land of opportunity after all, but the concept of equal opportunity is being replaced by the concept of equality of outcome. Any kid who shows up at just about any school in America and is willing to put in time and effort into earning an education will come out just fine. Children and their families are the true center of accountability in any young person's life. By eroding opportunity for the cause of ensuring an equal outcome of our education system, we're probably lowering the overall quality of our educational system. But I digress...

By combining the $25 million in cold hard cash that the MN DOE spends yearly to put their testing program together with the cold hard costs imposed on local districts, and factoring in the squandered educational opportunities that are being spent by NCLB assessment demands, my fuzzy math figures we're probably spending at least $50 million a year in current funds. Plus, God only knows how much in future GDP we're sacrificing by dumbing our society down through the costs of NCLB assessments, so the main question that needs to be asked (among many other important questions) is, is it all worth it for the $100 million a year the MN pulls in in federal education funding?

Congrats to Young Scientists

2009-02-23T21:18:00.002-06:00

Congratulations to the 10 or so MNCS students who participated in a regional science fair competition in Mankato last weekend. Several of the very creative projects won honors in the fair; a few of them even won some cold hard cash prizes, and Emily's Earthquake Machine that tested the foundations of different types of building construction won a trip to the state meet. For first time project fair goers, they all did very well. Some of their projects are featured under spotlight projects on the MNCS website.

For the record, none of these students have ever been in a traditional science classroom, or have spent hours studying fact after fact from a science textbook. What they do have, or are working on, is a good grasp of the fundamental concepts of science. Content is cheap and easy to acquire in today's age; knowing how to ask questions, hypothesize, design, conduct experiments and reflect on the results are difficult skills that are not so easily grasped.

Lobby Day at the Capitol, Part 3

2009-02-18T16:11:00.004-06:00

For the third time in as many years, I was recently able to take a small insurgency of MNCS students to St. Paul for the annual Charter School Lobby Day at the Capitol. This is one of my favorite events of the year; as a social studies dude it's a fine way to bring social studies out of the abstract and into the now. Drawing influence from my current concern about the direction our country is heading (I've got my big red hammer and sickle flag on order in case the KGB coming knocking...a little over dramatic, but you get my drift) I believe that it's more imortant than ever to help teach students that they do have a say in what happens in our government, and in fact they need to be willing to make their presence felt at the capitol if anything positive is ever going to happen up there.

The day was a succes, we met with a number of different legislators from our surrounding districts, all of whom seemed to be on board with the message we were sending: Charters need some reform, but are essentially functioning well; and please don't hack our funding in a disproportionate amount from the cuts that are being made to traditional schools. We acknowledge money is tight and we will see cuts, but we're concerned that charters may end up sharing a larger burden due to their unpopularity with a number of key legislators.

Assuming said cuts don't eliminate my job, I look forward to going back next year. Heck, I'll be up there lobbying against something either way.

Photo: Students and I with Senator Kevin Dahl. Senator Dahl is a former educator and has visited MNCS several times; he even volunteered to spend time talking elections with our kids for an hour early last fall.

Research Project Cont. (Again)

2009-01-28T19:49:00.003-06:00

I really need to come up with a better way to title these continuing posts...

Anyway, I recieved a reply from another person in the MN DOE finance department today; she actually left me a voicemail yesterday. She informed me that the DOE financial management system was unable to tell me how much the State of Minnnesota spends on standardized assessments every year, and that nobody compiles or tracks that data. Nice. Because it would be wrong to tell taxpayers how much money the state has blown on questionable exams over the years? I'm a tad bit cheesed off about this; few thinkgs irk my irk worse than unaccountable public officials. I have no problems paying taxes as needed, and am actually occasionally proud to be able to contribute to a government that when run well can improve all of our lots in life, but the reckless waste of my hard-earned contribution to our society really gets my goat. I'd prefer to be the one that gets to flush my own money down my own toilet, thank you very much.

I still find it hard to believe that nobody knows this information, so I will keep digging.

Research Project Cont.

2009-01-27T10:45:00.002-06:00

I followed the message I left with the finance department at the DOE with a phone call today. I spoke with a pleasant lady who was some sort of finance director. She was very nice, although I was a little dumbfounded by her statement that the Minnesota DOE did not compile the costs of their assessment programs per student. Wouldn't that make good sense? If you were running a business or just practicing good financial management, wouldn't you want to be aware of the operating costs? How are Minnesota taxpayers and legislators supposed to make informed decisions about education if basic information like this isn't available? Am I seriously the first person that's ever wondered this? I find that impossible to believe.

Anyway, she's supposed to do some digging and call me back.

Halo 3 Revisited

2009-01-26T14:51:00.002-06:00

So, after an anxious few weeks, the First Annual MNCS Halo 3 Tournament was held on Friday night the 23rd with much fanfare. Well, not much fanfare, but with a wild barrage of teenage smack talk. For the most part the tourney was a success; there was some confusion about the brackets and who actually won the tournament, but the fact that the two hunyucks in charge of organizing it managed to pull it off is impressive.

Throughout the process, the two planners learned about organizational skills, pubilc advocacy, and technical problem solving. To organize the event, the pair had to collect names of participants, organize brackets, create rules, coordinate who was bringing what, and manage a parental consent process for students who are under sixteen. They also had to fight a PR battle with a majority of the staff, who were opposed to the content of the game, first person shooters, charging money for a tournament, and to the idea of the two students working together on a fun project in general. In addition to all that, they had to figure out how to link up three xbox 360s on a small LAN, and hook it all up to three ancient tvs.

All in all, a good learning experience that was fun and rewarding for the two main students involved, and for the other participants as well. Hopefully this can be the first in a long series of these types of events. I think it's going to be Guitar Hero next..

My Latest Research Project...

2009-01-23T17:24:00.003-06:00

I am currently in the processing of taking over District Assesement Coordinator responsibilities at MNCS. For those who aren't in the know, that basically means I have the joy of coordinating and administrating the battery of state tests that our students must take every spring.

While sitting through an amazing conference on state assessments yesterday, I was occupying my mind by pondering the question, 'How many taxpayer dollars are spent per student in Minnesota to administer these tests?' It's not that I am planning some wild crusade to expose and oust the various assessments that frustrate educators everywhere (okay, maybe I am), but I do want some reassurance that somewhere, high upon the DOE mountain, somebody is at least aware of how many of our tax dollars are spent to administer these tests, the benefits of which are suspect at best.

There's a lot about the situation that I don't really know, such as just how many students are in Minnesota, but when I started compiling a list of all the materials, overhead, and opportunity costs involved in the whole operation, I figure the number is probably astounding.

My initial call today to the MN DOE put me in touch with a nice gentleman in the finance department, who immediately appreciated my interest in finding some accountability for the DOE's 'accountability' program. He didn't know the answer I was seeking, but was admittedly curious himself. He gave me the nummber of another lady at the DOE who might hold the answer, and promised he was going to follow up on the question himself out of curiousity.

My latest contact lady has not returned my call at this point, but it's Friday. I'll let you know what I find out.

Experience Friday: Animation Workshop

2009-01-23T11:25:00.003-06:00

Today is another experience Friday: A day for students to try new and interesting things. I was approached by a student a couple of weeks ago about helping him run an animation workshop. So far it's been a success; myself and 12 students have managed to make chicken ride a cow across a field of grass. The program we are using is ALICE, a free 3D animation and modeling program sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University, with some help from EA games. It's pretty fun once you get the hang of it, and it teaches some basic scripting principles. I'll try and upload an animation later if it's possible. For now I'm engrossed in trying to make a samurai chop the head off of my cow; apparently spending the day with teenage boys brings the old habbits of glorifying senseless violence right back to the forefront of the imagination.

Sizer's Seven Questions - Updated

2009-01-14T11:33:00.005-06:00

For the past week I've been engrossed in reading Ted & Nancy Sizer's The Students Are Watching during quiet reading time at school. While Sizer is a giant in school reform principles and philosophy, and his influence is deeply felt at MNCS, this is the first time I've read any of his work.

So far I've been deeply impressed with what I've read from The Students are Watching. The focus of the book is an examination of what schools as institutions are teaching children. Sizer takes a much wider approach to this question than the typical review of standards and content materials, criticizing instead the values that schools are ingraining in students through their daily interaction with the school as an institution. Sizer questions everything from the yearly, daily, and hourly schedule of a typical school, to the attitudes, approaches, and demands that are placed on both the student and the teacher. The institution itself is teaching our students more about life than the actual classroom materials, and the lessons they are learning are largely negative.

An interesting element of this book that Sizer includes early are seven individual questions that a school should ask itself when examining the values that a school institution is impressing upon its students. I would list those seven questions here if it weren't for the fact that my copy of the book is at school, and I am at home due to a school cancellation, graciously provided by our -20 temperatures here in the Twin Cities this week.

Anyway, I feel it would be a useful intellectual exercise to examine my role in the lives of my students, as well as the role that MNCS plays in their lives, by investigating our daily actions through the lens of Sizer's seven questions. Hopefully this will shed some insight on where I am doing things right, where I am doing them wrong, and what things about our institution are functioning well for our students, and vice versa. I will dedicate subsequent postings to this task.

Update:
I made it in to school today, so I figured I will list the seven questions here, so I have them handy:
1. Is more expected of both students and teachers than it is possible for most to do well?
2. Do conditions in the school allow each student to be known well?
3. How does the school pace itself? Is there time to work, time to rest, and time to reflect?
4. Are the expectations for students and teachers clear?
5. Is there time during the school day for relfection and quiet work?
6. Are the incentives and opportunities for clearly demonstrated work clear and pervasive within the school?
7. In its presentation and recommendation of students for college admissions and job placements, does the school absolutely insist on accuracy as well as advocacy?

I will start reflecting on these questions over the next week or so.

Project Foundry for Project Management

2009-01-13T12:48:00.004-06:00

One of the major challenges that PBL produces for all participants is the matter of project management. As any business professional will tell you, any given project that a person engages in produces a large papertrail covering the project proposal, estimates, logs for tracking time and materials, communications regarding the project between personnel and management, etc. This reality of a project applies to PBL schools as well.

For the first ten years of MNCS existence, all aspects of project management were done on paper and in traditional filing systems. While this was before my time at MNCS, one can only imagine the amount of project paperwork that 120 students could produce in a year's worth of project-based education, not to mention the time and resources that each student, advisor, and project manager would spend organizing and tracking all of these materials.

Thanks to the miracle of digital storage and communication, we now use one basic website to manage all aspects of a student's project based learning, from individual and group projects to cumulative academic transcripts. The website we use is called Project Foundry, and was designed by a small firm in Wisconsin with the needs of project based learning in mind. What was once contained in an endless array of binders and file cabinets is now contained on a simple array of hard drives in some IT complex, located just off of the information superhighway at www.projectfoundry.org.

While project foundry has become a central aspect of our school system as a project based school, I could easily see where this tool could benefit more traditional districts that are looking to incorporate more authentic forms of learning and assessment into the curriculum. Managing the projects of 17 students is challenging; for a traditional teacher trying to incorporate projects into their curriculum, trying to manage 150-200 student projects would be a Herculean task. With a management tool like Project Foundry, authentic assessments like projects could be transformed from the side dish of a traditional classroom to the main course, and still be manageable for a single teacher.

Senior Projects 2008-09

2009-01-09T11:39:00.006-06:00

One of the highlights of my job at MNCS is being a member of the senior project development and assessment team. That title is much fancier than whatever the actual title is, but I think it sounds cool so I went with it. Anyway, as a senior team member I get the responsibility of helping MNCS seniors to devise, plan, and execute their senior projeccts, and then help them with the evaluation process in the spring.

I've covered the requirements that an MNCS senior project must fulfill in previous posts, but I will rehash them again briefly. Each project must be mutlidisciplinary, it must incorporate at least 300 hours of work, which equates to approximately 3 MNCS credits. It must incorporate the wisdom of at least one community expert from outside of the school and outside of the student's family. It must be evaluated on a rubric created by the student. It must include a five page research paper. It must be challenging, and drawn upon the student's knowledge, creativity, and resourcefulness. A senior project should reflect a student's passion for a particular topic, but should also challenge them to do and experience things outside of their comfort zone. Lastly, a senior project should give something back to either the MNCs community, or the student's greater outside community.

This year we have a large number of interesting projects proposed. One student, interested in pursuing a career in welding, is exploring the vocational requirements of a welding career, the costs and opportunity of owning their own shop, and is developing welding skills by creating a piece of metallic sculpture to sit outside of the school entrance. Another student is exploring the implications of a family's reading habits on early childhood education and student reading ability, and is using the results from her study to plan a community reading program for the city she lives in.

Another student is passionate about early childhood education, and is exploring career opportunities through volunteering and exploring internships, as well as developing a binder of teaching resources she can use in her career. Another student who lives in a rural community is starting and running a small business doing custom hay bailing in the surrounding farm community. Another student is exploring a future in farming by learning the ins and outs of living and working on various farms throughtout the community.

A couple of more artistic-minded students are exploring and developing careers in the recording arts by creating and promoting their own albums and planning a charity concert to raise money for local non-profit organizations. One student is interested in collectin and restoring vintage tractors, has purchase an old tractor, created a resotration workshop in the family barn, and plans on teaching an experience class on tractor restoration to a group of interested classmates.

One of my personal favorites, another student is really passionate about good meat. He is exploring the art of smoking meat, and is building a custom smoker at home, while refining his smoking skills during Friday sessions at school. He is also learn about butchering and food safety, and is planning to tour a sew local meat markets to interview their butchers. He is also planning a experience-based 'carnivore Friday' to teach classmates about the meat smoking process. Needless to say, one of our resident vegetarians who is doing her project on rescuing abused farm animals is oppsed to this project.

These projects will culminate in a half-hour public presentation where they demonstrate their learning to the community. These projects are the keystone of the MNCS project-process, and for many students represent years of hard working in mastering the skills needed to complete them.

A PBL Dilemma

2009-01-07T18:19:00.003-06:00

Today I faced another instance in an ongoing series of PBL dilemmas: to let students proceed with projects that are probably doomed to implosion, or to head the crisis off at the pass and dash their hopes immediately. This is an issue that PBL educators face regularly, especially when teenage males are involved.

Typically the problem occurs when a student, typically male, proposes a project that is borderline dangerous, yet very awesome. For instance, building something to blow up a desk, building something that fires a high-speed projectile at a car, or attempting to disassemble a microwave oven, then reassemble it in a manner that allows you to radiate things outside of the oven. While these are projects that I would definitely like to see, for obvious liability reasons, I have to file the suggestions into my Retirement Plans folder.

Today I had two students approach me with the suggestion of organizing a Halo 3 tournament. This idea was bad in multiple ways: video game projects fail 90% of the time, group projects fail 50% of the time, and the two students in question have done nothing but create mischief 100% of their time at school this year. All that being said, I decided to go against my better judgement and green-light the project for the following reasons: 1.) These two students waste time and cause problems all day long, so if they waste time and the tournament never happens, I haven't really lost anything. 2.) The tournament might be able to generate some funds for other projects. 3.) If it totally bombs, then I won't have to entertain the idea of holding a video game tourney for another two years at least. 4.) They might let me play Halo 3. 5.) They might actually surprise the entire school community by pulling off a totally kick-ass tournament, which would go a long way towards boosting their self-esteem (egos as well, but I'm not sure those can go any higher), earning them credit, and teaching them some valuable lessons in logistics, organization, and planning.

In this case the risk probably outweighs the reward, and at the least we will all be wiser for our failings if it bombs. I think with the right boundaries and guidance, the two in questions could surprise everyone, including themselves. The tourney is schedule for a student event night on the 23rd of this month; I'll keep posted on what happens.

Health Benefits of Social Networking Programs?

2009-01-06T08:45:00.002-06:00

As a passing thought, I am curious if anyone has any studied the effects of an active electronic social network on a user's health. I was on Facebook for a while way back when it was a college-only application, and just started playing with it again recently. I do feel more in touch with some of my friends and family as a result. Seeing how close family and social ties tend to be beneficial to a persons health, I wonder if anyone has done a study on the impact of a few minutes of daily Facebooking on a person's health.

A New Take on the PDA

2009-01-05T14:48:00.002-06:00

Or maybe it's an old take. Organization is something I constantly struggle with, especially in the high-paced, multi-tasking multi-sensory environment I work in. I've tried all types of different systems for taking notes and trying to organize myself, but usually I give up on said attempts when the battery dies, program crashes, calendar is too big to cart around, etc. Here's a link to an interesting new approach I'm trying: http://www.pocketmod.com/. PocketMod has a program where you can create a small, custom built organizer that you create by using a flash program to design an organizer, print the organizer off on a standard sheet of office paper, then fold it up into a small booklet. Hopefully I can sync this new cheap pocket organizer with a more sturdy desk based system to keep myself on track. I'll let you know how it goes.

In Defense of Standardized Testing

2009-01-05T13:21:00.002-06:00

Just Kidding. But I needed to find an excuse to start writing here again. I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I'll call it a soft goal for the new year or something. I'm trying for three posts a week. By the law of averages, most of the posts will be average, but hopefully I can hit a homer or score a hat trick here and there.

Intersting Think Piece on College Degrees

2008-08-29T18:00:00.002-06:00

Here's a link to an interesting op-ed that recently ran in the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121858688764535107.html

In it, writer Charles Murphy argues that the college degree system we have is out-of-touch and over-inflated in value. In place of said B.A. degrees, we should institute certification tests such as C.P.A's and Lawyers face, that tell an employer whether or not an applicant is competent in a way that a simple degree cannot.

I agree with Murphy's views on college degrees, as my old roommate used to say, C's get degrees, and employers are none the wiser. In my experience, a degree counts for little in today's employment world; experience is the only thing that gets you through the door in most occupations today.

I'm not sure the certification testing system is the best approach to solving this problem, but I do think that colleges should be aligned less with in-class lectures and theory, and do more to provide experiential, hands-on learning that truly prepares students for real world work.

The Mojave Experiment

2008-08-22T20:59:00.002-06:00

I just watched an interesting ad for Windows Vista, wherein a group of avowed Vista haters (who somehow hate it without having used it) are given a chance to play around with the next version of Windows, code-named Mojave, which is actually Vista in disguise. Of course, to nobodys surprise, they all love it. I too thought Vista was cool for about 20 minutes, until I repeatedly had issues establishing user credentials after joining it to our school domain.

After three days of fighting with a multitude of Vista issue and annoyances, I 'downgraded' all of the new Vistas laptops to XP. I bet the suckers in the 'Mojave Experiment' did the exact same thing.

Getting Students Together From Far and Wide...From School

2008-08-14T06:58:00.000-06:00

I'm currently working on a project with some educators from the Milwaukee area that will hopefully allow our students to do some interactive research and general interacting and learning via the internet. The focus of our project is to answer the question 'How does where you live affect the quality of your life?" We're looking to incorporate some science and social studies into the project. We are hoping to use Moodle via the Milwaukee public school system, but those details are still up in the air. I will keep things posted as they develop.

Steger Institute

2008-08-13T07:55:00.002-06:00

I've spent the past few days at the Will Steger Foundation's summer institute for educators. It's been a mixed bag, I've taken out some interesting project ideas, but most of the classroom stuff is geared toward the classroom, which doesn't help us out much. We did get to meet Mr. Steger himself, which was cool. The Steger website, globalwarming101.com, does contain some pretty cool resources and information for students studying climate change.

What Does it Mean to Be Educated?

2008-08-02T17:43:00.003-06:00

I've been wrestling with that question for a while now, although it had slipped to the back of my mind. One of the folks who works at school just turned me onto to an Alfie Kohn book titled What Does it Mean to be Well Educated, I can't wait to read it and think it over. This is a central question our society needs to consider in depth before it can even begin to fix our struggling school systems. Any good leader will tell you that an organization needs a mission before it can accomplish anything. I'm pretty much convinced that the mission of our schools is to educate people, ideally to educate people well, so we might want to figure out what that really looks like.

1:1 - Is it truly the golden ratio?

2008-07-24T10:37:00.002-06:00

Here at MNCS, we have what's perceived as the golden ratio of students to computers: 1 to 1, with a few extra comps thrown in for good measure. It's a wonderful thing. Or is it? Lately I've been pondering the time wasted, the money spent, and space occupied by this fleet of PC's. Is it really all that 1:1 is meant to be?
For starters, students spend all day on their computers. Working diligently on projects? Maybe 50% of the time. The rest is spent scanning gossip, and trying to bypass content filters so that they can read anime cartoons, or worse. Do I have numbers to back up my claims of frivolous time spent on the computer? Not yet, but I can get.
Also, it costs a good chunk of change to place a PC on every student's desk. Every four years they need to be replaced. Donations help, grants help, but it still costs. Also, every year they need to be cleaned (both the hard and soft sides of them). We need to take them down and move them so we can clean the building. We then have to set them all back up. Everyday, at least one of them breaks; more often we have a backlog of computer repairs to do. 130 machines is a lot for myself and two students to maintain. Not to mention all the peripherals that seem to wander off or be abused.
Another item that this 1:1 ratio occupies is space. We've got big student workstations to hold all of this technology. Newer flat panel monitors help, but space is a premium in our building; our enrollment is limited by the number of seats we can fill. Cutting down on PC's could potentially increase our enrollment by a nice little percentage.
Enough ranting. It's become clear to me after doing some brainstorming, and conversing with others in the industry that maybe a 1:1 isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Perhaps a 2:1 would be better in terms of students being more purposeful about their computer time due to the need to share access. It would also free up some possibly misspent dollars to do other cool things with technology. We could use our budget to move beyond the basic bare-bones PC, and be able to purchase some higher end stations for video editing, better software, and better tech tools to supplement everything else we do. I need to do some more research and data gathering; clearly a huge culture shift involving taking away PC's from addicted teens needs to be a well-thought out and Data-driven process.

Victory for the Nerdry

2008-07-23T11:27:00.002-06:00

I scored another tech victory today, hooray. I wanted to increase our wireless network performance by adding another access point to our network. Being a total noob, I had no clue that there was a difference between a wireless router and a wireless access point, so of course I ordered us up a Linksys WRT54GL router. A student turned me on to the idea of Tomato, free wireless router firmware that can really up your router's ante from the default linksys firmware. I succesfully completed the somewhat frightening firmware flash (if you mess this up, your router is a big piece of trash). Tomato installed, I had to fiddle for some time to get the AP up and running. Thanks to some help from the information superhighway, I managed to successfully get the new AP running without disrupting wireless service to the 45 conference participants that are attending our Summer Institute we hold at MNCS every summer. Yee-haw.
I learned a whole lot about wireless networking thanks to this project. I still have much to learn, but my nerdy quotient is slowly on the rise. I will spare you the W00T, since that is so 2008.

Are Today's Kids Really Technology Literate?

2008-07-22T14:15:00.001-06:00

Thought: I'm thinking of reclaiming the Tech Literate label for those who truly are tech literate. Knowing how to send a text message or use Skype, MySpace, or write a blog does not constitute technological literacy, it means you can read and write, just like any other literate person. If you can write in C++, Java script, Python, or HTML you are Tech Literate. If you know what DNS does, or can set up a VPN, decipher NAT, and secure a wireless network, then you too are tech literate. I'm hardly tech literate, but I'm working on it. Being Tech Literate means something along the lines of having the ability to set up and manipulate technological tools into useful functions. Murky working definition, I know. Give me some time. Tomorrow's kids should have a basic understanding of programming concepts for sure. That would be true technological literacy.

Anti-TV Crusade Update

2008-07-21T21:27:00.002-06:00

So far, all is well on the no T.V. front, although as football and hockey season approach, I get more nervous about it. Plenty of work to do at school and at home, so I'm not finding myself with a lot of free time to miss it. When we do, Netflix fills in gaps. If you haven't seen The Office yet, get on it. Hillarious.

Mid-Summer Updates

2008-07-15T17:35:00.003-06:00

Hola! It's mid-summer. I took some weeks off from the high tech school life to take a low-tech venture into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. You know you've made it when the highest-tech pieces of equipment you have are an open-reel and a coffee percolator. It was nice. Now I'm back in the swing of things at school. Two weeks ago I rebuilt our Windows 2003 64x Server; we killed the 64x version and reduced it back to a more typical 32x installation: Money! AVOID 64-bit software: even Microsoft does not support this crap, it was way unstable and gave us nothing but headaches, hopefully once everything is up and running again, things will fly real propper like.
That's about it for now, I'm in the middle of creating a tech-infused 'book report' centered on Krakauer's Into the Wild, hopefully I will be able to post it to one of my site so y'all can use it to inspire some students to do bigger and better things. Hopefully I will be able to use it to inspire students as well, they can be some finicky folk.

Another MNCS Video Project: Fastball

2008-05-22T11:12:00.003-06:00

Follow this link to enjoy the first in a hopefully long series of regular news spots on the MNCS website. Fastball is a news program that was created by a group of 4 mncs students with my guidance. Obviously, my video editing skills are not so gut, hence the rough style of this segment. The good news is that the cast, crew, and editors learned a great deal about assembling a newscast, including that you should save your work frequently and in multiple locations, in case a computer mishap erases all of your work (said case occuring on Friday, May 16 at about 2:05 pm). I think I've managed to develop one or two devoted video geeks that are interested in pursuing these types of opportunity in the future, so hopefully you will have the chance to watch more in the future.
The biggest challenge I had during this experience was how to organize a newscast. I played executive editor, and with input from the students we chose a story from each of the following categories: Conflict (itunes debate), Economics (gas prices and supermileage car), Arts (guitars and stained glass), and Human Interest stories (senior projects). We also included community happenings in the original plans, but were forced to cut that story due to time constraints. The students decided that the conflict should come first, since most newscasts begin with something dramatic. From there we went willy nilly. We tackled the conflict story as one big crew using a single camera, so that I could walk them through the process of interviewing and capturing footage. After that we split into teams. Due to major quality differences between the two cameras, we ended up trashing the footage from one team during the editing process. Once I got them rolling on the stories, the student in the group who was more experienced at using imovie took over editing, making sure that the newbies had an opportunity to try their hand at the editing process.

Using the Web to Create a Project Portfolio

2008-05-09T12:16:00.004-06:00

One of things that MNCS used to do, but has gotten out the practice of doing is to require students to create portfolios of their project work. I am currently investigating some options we could use to revive the practice at MNCS. Portfolios are a great way for students to be able to demonstrate their intellectual and personal growth over time, and could also provide a way for us to assess what our school and students do in a more holistic way than testing ever could.

I have one student who is currently assembling a lot of his project work into a personal website, which is forming the basis for a pretty cool portfolio of some of his work. He's big into the fashion industry, so a lot of projects revolve around the world of high fashion. Check out his site at: http://www.felmlee.tk/

Debate, Anyone?

2008-05-05T20:47:00.002-06:00

So I was all giddy this evening thinking I had a great idea to solve one of the problems that we share as a staff at MNCS: no good way to quickly and easily discuss the myriad of various problems, issues, and ideas that we are constantly having as a school. It's a shame that so many bright educators have so little opportunity at school to put their heads together and solve some problems.

This is where my great idea came along: use Google Site to create a simple discussion forum for staff members to use.

This is where my great idea has stalled: Google Sites has no widget or gadget to make a simple threaded discussion. At least none that I was able to find. So far, Sites has proven pretty worthless as far as my life is concerned. I was all excited about it, only to realize that it's less useful than a basic Wiki. Here I thought I had something to redeem Sites with, but I'm again back to worthless.

If anyone knows of a way to use Sites as a basic discussion forum, please let me know.

Life Beyond the Idiot Box: Week One Report

2008-05-05T20:09:00.002-06:00

My wife and I recently moved into our first home in Shakopee. While this is proving to be quite the interesting challenge in many ways, the biggest challenge we are facing is life without TV. We decided that Cable TV is too much cash for too little value, and we don't have an antenna for our little set, so we are striving to make a go at life without out it. While I have embraced the challenge enthusiastically (Three new posts, two books, a garage door opener, mailbox, blinds all installed in four days, anyone?), my wife is less than thrilled by the change. We (By 'we', I mean 'I') hope to at least survive the summer. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thank You, Minnesota Department of Education

2008-05-05T20:03:00.003-06:00

Today, I send out a big heartfelt thanks to the Minnesota Department of Education. Not. (Sorry, I watched Wayne's World for the 376th time last week.) The reason for the big thanks: I've spent roughly 30 hours in the past five days working to construct a temporary computer lab so that our 8th and 11th grade students can take the MCA II Science tests. While most people praise our school for maintaining a 1-to-1 computer ratio, wherein every student has a workstation on their desk for doing, well, work, MN DOE actually punishes us by forcing us to spend valuable time and resources constructing a computer lab so that our 45 of our students can take 1 test. If we had a permanent lab, these test would've been no big deal. Instead, they are a huge pain in the rear.

And I thought my hatred of standardized testing peaked in 6th grade when I first took them.

Kiva.org

2008-05-03T15:20:00.002-06:00

The highlight of my day today: lending $25 to some fine folks in Cambodia in order to help them purchase a new horse and cart for their business. Thanks to Kiva.org, people such as myself can make small loans to entrepreneurs in far off places. I'm just getting in on the action, I'll let you know how it goes. I'm hoping to start lending out a little each month, and see what kind of portfolio I can develop. Check it out for yourself at www.kiva.org.

Huh.

2008-04-14T12:24:00.003-06:00

So you wake up one day, blink, and realize it's been a month since you stuck anything insightful up on the blog. I blame it on two jobs and my recently acquired Wii (which my wife plays more than I do, it's great for family togetherness!), and we recently bought a house, so my fingers hurt from signing papers. Plus, Wild in the playoffs, major bonus. It's senior project finalization time at MNCS. We've had some pretty cool projects come through the system this year, including an electric scooter, an art exhibit, a chemistry class, a documentary film, and an interesting youtube video on how to make a hologram in your basement, brought to you by our mad scientist in residence:

Lobby Day at the Capitol, Part 2

2008-03-13T07:39:00.003-06:00

Tuesday, March 11th was the annual Minnesota Association of Charter Schools 'Lobby Day at the Capitol'. Students from charter schools around the state converged at the the State Office Building to lobby their legislators to continue and to increase support for charter schools. The existence of our schools has always been contentious, so it is an important event for our school to participate in. We had six students attend; four of them got to meet briefly with their legislators. We also learned a bit about the legislative process, and spent some time exploring the capital building. All in all, it was a fun, productive, and educational day for all. Hopefully the large number of charter school supports that turned out helped make a difference in the minds of policy makers. Special thanks to Margaret at MACS for organizing the event.

Sweet

2008-03-04T11:24:00.003-06:00

A new nomination for the best project ever.

What are my chances at getting a grant for something like this?

Linux Server Building Update

2008-03-04T11:05:00.003-06:00

This is an update to my previous post on an experience Friday activity I was working on doing for students who are interested in working with Linux. I had about 8 students participate in the class. We had some mixed results, and did not totally succeed in our task at hand.
We were attempting to address a real world problem in that our school needs a server to store editing media from our Macs that our Windows server will not store due to the filing system that the hard drives are written in. We wanted to build a prototype server that would link up to the rest of the network that we could ultimately put a big hard drive in in order to store the video editing projects that we always have several students working on.
The students succeed in getting a few different Linux distros installed on some older PC's we had laying around. We used a Kubuntu distro as the main server, and attempted to set it up so that our mini network of other distros would be able to store files on it. We had to mess around for a while the various updates and the installation of the Linux Samba file server stuff, but in the end we did finally make it so that others could store and retrieve data on the server. The students also discovered that the Linux distros often come with some video games, so they were happy about that. One student also discovered the joys of using a purely text-based internet. I'm not sure about that, but he thought it was pretty sweet.
Out next goal is to get the samba server working on our full-fledge network, but that's another Friday.

Apologies for the Drought

2008-03-04T11:03:00.001-06:00

Sorry, y'all. I've been a miserable slacker with the blogging of late. I will add some posts in the next few days that will update some of the projects I started addressing in earlier posts.

MNCS Education: International Style

2008-01-27T20:43:00.000-06:00

I'm officially throwing the MNCS hat in the international education ring. It seems odd to me when I reflect on it that as far as I know, none of our students are connecting with students from other countries or working with them on projects. I think this would be beneficial to our students and our school in so many ways, I'm not going to list them. I just finished creating a profile in ePals; if anybody has any experiences working with international student collaborations through ePals or any other medium I would really like to chat with you. Respond to this post or shoot me an email at nryan@newcountryschool.com; I know from my handy stat tracker device that people from other nations do stop by here every now and then. Our students have the ability to communicate via email, chat, web conferencing, and of course, snail mail. Let me know if you are interested.

What it Means to be Educated, Part 3

2008-01-20T10:08:00.000-06:00

There's supposedly some sort of graph that describes the up-and-down journey of the typical first year teacher. Right now I think I'm coming off of a major pre-Holiday break low, which is nice, because that period sucked. I feel like I've passed through a lot of the "Holy crap what's going on? phase", and am now a little more into the "Hey, I can do this phase", which means I can step back a little from the daily chaos and actually reflect a bit on what I am doing.
It's been a while since I've dwelt upon what it means to be educated. I haven't made a lot (ok, I haven't made any) progress on the readings I am going to tackle, so no new insights there. What has gotten me thinking lately about what education means is my struggle to explain to interested people just what it is that I do at my job. I realized I need to develop an effective 'elevator speech' on MNCS and project-based learning in particular so that I can quickly and concisely explain to people what MNCS is all about.
Of course, there's really nothing quick and concise about understanding project-based learning. I think I'm just starting to get it myself, after 18 months of time at MNCS. One of the first questions people always ask about our school after I explain that there are no classes, and that students learn through individual projects, is "Do they have to meet the standards?" Referring of course, to the amazing, wonderful educational standards that the MN DOE has assembled for us, so that we know exactly what our students need to know. I always answer that it is my job to make sure that the students cover the standards through the projects that they do, which is true. Unfortunately, this answer has nothing to do with the essence of project-based learning. In reality, I could give two rips if the students do projects that meet state standards. With a few exceptions, there is nothing in the state science or social studies standards that are going to have anything to do with a student's life success and well-being. Most of the standards revolve around knowing concrete facts, or being able to regurgitate a string of pre-canned scientific or historical logic.
What I do give two rips about is the ability of a student to be able to take a general problem or a topic that they are interested in, break the problem or topic down into sensible and manageable chunks, research the problem or topic, generate sensible solutions or organize their research in a meaningful way, and then use or apply what they've learned to their own situation, and then be able to explain and display this process publicly. If a student can do this effectively, the sky is the limit as far as what they can accomplish in life. If they learn some academic content while doing this it's a double bonus, but if they're not working on topics that motivate them, the learning is not going to be as deep or as meaningful.
Compare the learning objectives of the project based approach to the learning objectives of the state standards. It's great if a student can explain the contributions of British Mercantilist thought to the causes of the American Revolution, but if they didn't research those causes on their own, and draw their own conclusions about it through research, than all they are doing is coughing up something they memorized for a test. Granted, modern social studies teachers are better at coming up with ways for students to reach a pre-determined conclusion by digging through teacher-provided research materials and drawing their own ties between different historical events and evidence, but this type of project based learning is not done enough in most schools, and I think the difference between what we do at MNCS and what happens in a traditional school is the relevance and authenticity of the projects we encourage students to pursue. We want students to learn and to develop an intrinsic passion for learning, and I believe that this will only happen for most students if they are given the freedom to explore topics that are personally engaging for them. When was the last time you got excited about the British East India Company and the price of tea in 18th century China?
Hopefully reading this will shed a little light on the project based learning approach for those who are not familiar with it. I am still struggling with it myself. It takes time and patience to watch a student develop through a project based system; the clear but misleading symbolism of A's, B's, and GPA's is not available for us to use to rapidly define student success. Often a student will struggle for years before blossoming through our program. I think I need to see this firsthand in more students before I will fully appreciate it myself. In the meantime, I'll keep working on my elevator speech.

BrainHoney

2008-01-20T09:43:00.000-06:00

One of the challenges that I've made it my duty to tackle is to find new ways for students to organize and display information they gather for project, and to also present the learning that they've done on any given project. BrainHoney is an internet site where people can share their knowledge and experience with each other by creating simple multimedia slide shows. It's free to register and use, at least for now. Here is a link to a well-constructed lesson on playing the guitar(Comes complete with samples of the beatles and some skynyrd, bonus!).

Here's a lesson I made on the wisdom of Ben Franklin. It only took about 20 minutes for me to learn the system and put this together, so go nuts with it. BrainHoney is really nothing more than a simplistic powerpoint, but the fact that it allows students to publicly display their work might provide some motivation for quality that a powerpoint doesn't.

MNCS Virtual Tour

2008-01-16T11:31:00.000-06:00

I ran a video editing workshop last Friday. The goal for the day was to post a student-created video tour of MNCS on the school website. Out of four groups, one created a good video that met the qualifications we laid out at the start of the day. After much horsing around, they produced this video. It's not perfect and misses a few important elements of the school, but it was a good learning experience, and hopefully they will try for an improved version 2 soon.

I make a few appearances, of course. I'm accumulating my 15 minutes of fame a few frames at a time.

Experience Fridays: Linux Home Server Edition

2008-01-13T11:21:00.000-06:00

Most Fridays during the MNCS school year are what we call 'experience fridays': we take a break from the typical school day to offer some in-depth learning opportunities and experiences for the sake of student and staff learning and sanity. This block I'm working with a group of MNCS tech-interested students to build a linux home server. I am currently planning the class with a sophmore student who is doing a larger 1-credit linux project for his sophmore project. We are going to hold the class on either the 25th of January or the 1st of February. My interests in doing linux learning are many; here are some highlights:
1. I have several students specifically interested in linux, and numerous others who want to play with computers in any fashion. Getting them engaged in learning is fun for them and for me, so I try to provide opportunities that make it happen.
2. I want to make a linux server for myself at home. If I'm going to learn how to do it, I might as well find some students who are interested in learning with me.
3. My ultimate motivation is to save some serious ching for school. Every student in our school has their own PC on their desk. This is awesome, but can be quite pricey to maintain. I am exploring making the switch in 2 years to a linux based thin-client/server structure. We never seem to run out of dated PC's that we either purchased ourselves some years ago, or that companies donated to us when they upgrade to newer models. From what I understand of thin-client architecture, we can turn these crappy PC's into capable workstations by placing the bulk of the processing on one or two high powered servers. I would rather maintain one server than 130 desktop PC's, which is a pain. We can also save a load of cash by better utilizing freeware software options. I don't entirely know how to execute this plan at this time, and have just started learning how this system would work. I've heard of several other schools that have had great success with this type of system. But it's a long-term scenario, so I am taking the first steps now by familiarizing myself with the operation of linux computers.
I think after we master the linux home server, I will start working with students to build a thin-client test environment. If anybody in the Twin Cities area reads this and is interested in working with us on this project, feel free to get in touch with me.

The Grill Scouts Are Back

2008-01-08T12:38:00.000-06:00

I am stoked to announce the launch of the new Grill Scouts of America website. For those who don't know, the GS of A is the inbred brain-child of myself and a couple of friends of mine. Our organization is dedicated to providing us with an excuse to hang out and eat meat. We welcome any others who are interested in a legitimate excuse to do the same. Please check out the new site at www.grillscoutsofamerica.com.
This is the third incarnation of our site. The first two were very instructive for me (I not only preach project based learning, I live it, too!), and taught me some of the basics about launching a web site, and I also learned quite a bit about using Dreamweaver web design software. I have managed to incorporate this learning into my work at MNCS, which is always a plus. Also, I credit the second version of the GS of A site with helping me land my student teaching placement at MNCS, and my subsequent job here. It also sparked a lot of personal curiosity in social organizations and the concept of social capital, a concept which pays huge dividends in terms of meat consumption. This third edition has been created using google apps. It gives us less flexibility in terms of overall site design (hence the somewhat-cheesy page designs and layouts), but it offers us a much greater ease of use, which means we can keep the good times coming at a much greater rate.
Overall lesson: you never know what happens. Your idiotic idea for a social club could land you your next job as well; you never know until you put yourself out there.
We are constantly working to add new content to the site, and we currently are in the pre-pre-production phase (aka, the "stand around the Weber and talk about it" phase.) of several motion picture products, including the much-anticipated film "Ribpocalypse Now". Tune in as the grill season heats up for more wacky fun.

Quick Review: New Macbook w/Leopard

2008-01-07T08:29:00.000-06:00

So I've been rocking a new Macbook since October, complete with the new Leopard OS. In quick review, Leopard is cool, not too much different than Tiger. I haven't had the opportunity to play with the Time Machine yet, so no input there, but the Spaces feature that lets you run several different desktops at once has become a pretty useful tool. The inclusion of some little tab-a-ma-bobs on the Dock bar thing that allow you to instantly see a list of recent downloads is also cool. Other than that, not too many changes than I appreciate with my daily usage.
On the down side, iMovie 08 or whatever they are calling the new version is a piece of garbage; it looks cool, but lacks half of the versatility that the previous version had. Fortunately, the old iMovie HD is available as a free download from the apple website if you search for it. Rock on.

Technology and Progress

2007-12-17T10:05:00.000-06:00

So my faithful 1992 Saturn SL rolled over 219,000 miles last week. As the 220,000 milestone approaches, I find myself pondering what life was like in 1992 when the Saturn rolled off of the line. The Internet was still the domain of the hard-core nerdry, nobody had an AOL account, Bush the Elder was President, people were rioting in LA, Johnny Carson retired, and the MOA was built (that's the Mall of America, for you who are shopping-impaired). Commodore was still in business, the Pentium Processor was unheard of, and Windows 3.1 was released. It's hard to believe all the changes that have happened since then, when I was in all of 7th or 8th grade; time flies.
After boggling my mind thinking of all that has changed since, I took some time to relax and watch some TV. While dozing through the commercials, I had a flash of insight that really blew my hair back:

2008 Chevrolet Aveo (The fuel-efficient member of the Chevy fleet) = EPA tested 34 MPG.

1992 Saturn SL (with a measly 220,000 miles on it) = 39 MPG, as tested by me on a weekly basis.

I'm sure a manual five-speed Aveo would probably get better than 34 mpg, but it's still odd to me that in fifteen years of technological advancement, we've gone almost nowhere in terms of fuel efficiency. I'm curious if this is due to limitations of physics as it relates to cost-effective fuel economy, or if it's merely a lack of will on behalf of the automotive community. A few years ago I became convinced that Americans don't really vote at polls, they vote with their dollars. I see evidence of this in the sudden explosion of green products and fuel-efficient hybrids on the market. Of course this sucks if your poor, but I ramble...

5 Things I'm Jazzed About at MNCS

2007-12-12T15:25:00.000-06:00

We've always got some interesting things going on at our school, I thought I would take a moment to share some (but not all) of the interesting things going on right now at MNCS.
1. The Bloodmobile - I put this at the top of the list because I'm watching a large number of staff, students, and community members donate blood as I write this. The bloodmobile rolls through MNCS about four times a year. It's an impressive operation, transforming our school from a school to a clinic and back in a matter of hours, all for a good cause. I can't at this time donate due to my honeymoon to Mexico, which is a bummer.
2. Hawaii 08' - Our school is sending some students and staff on a charter exchange to Hawaii in February. The school has been doing this every two years for some time now. This year I am working with a student who will be posting and updating a virtual trip on our website so everyone can follow along with them.
3. Foreign Languages - We recently started working with Rosetta Stone software to provide our students with German, Spanish, French, and Chinese language learning options. We're still getting the hang of the program, but we do have a core group of students who seem to be progressing through the program nicely.
4. Multimedia Projects - There is a slow-growing number of students who are become more engaged in doing video editing, web, and graphic design as a part of their projects. I'm currently working on getting updated computers and software for students to take advantages of the cool stuff out there.
5. Polar Hawaii 08' - Myself and a few other staff members are taking students on a winter expedition to Ely, MN in February. We will be working with students and staff from the Edvisions Off Campus High School to create projects about the northwoods, as well as learning winter survival skills, cross country skiing and snowshoeing, and hopefully visiting the National Wolf Center. Brrrr.

Hello, World.

2007-12-07T15:40:00.000-06:00

So it's been fairly chaotic in my world, so my bloggage has been disappointingly thin. I'm going to try and make a strong effort to post twice a week. I like posting, it's good therapy to spin some thoughts on paper. First year teaching is exhausting, that's where I'm at right now. Everyday is a constant barrage of decision after decision that I've never made before, and never thought I would have to. Case in point: On a week-long field trip to another charter school in Warba, MN. I found myself in a YMCA locker room with five teenage boys, staring at the group shower and wondering if it's legal for me to take my clothes off in front students. I played it safe and kept my boxers on, but I'm still curious why they didn't cover that in my methods class.
I'm spending a lot of time trying to get my head around the tech issues here at MNCS. I'm making progress thanks to some timely PC donations from some friendly local companies. My plan is to know what's going on and have all key pieces of technology up to date and functioning well by the start of next year. The process is part upgrading some equipment, part me learning how things work. By the end of the year, I'll finally understand DNS, NAT, port forwarding, and all that jazz. Maybe.

Things I've been Up To

2007-10-28T10:46:00.000-06:00

Yet gain, another busy month has flown by. We're already a week deep into block 2 of the MNCS school year, and the new block has found me working to make improvements to some of the flaws in my 'eLearning' program I am working on at school. First block was mainly spent getting over some tech hurdles, and getting myself, my students, and the MNCS staff used to the idea of students who exist in a weird 'bricks and clicks' state which allows them to be off doing their own thing most of time, but allows them to come into the building as needed.
For the most part things are going well. One of the main issues I am addressing now that hurt my advisory's performance for the first block was a low student work output. Since I tend to see myself as more of a student manager than a 'teacher', I am now looking at some changes to our work environment that are conducive to more student productivity. The major change I've implemented so far is a Daily Attendance Contract that I work out with students every morning.
Attendance was somewhat of an issue first block. I had most of my students checking in with me online via the Adobe Connect platform we purchased to facilitate online communication. I would then try to get an idea as to what the students would be working on for the day, and then look for their journal and project time logs every night as the other portion of their attendance. Unfortunately, most students would not ever do their time logs or journals, so attendance became an issue, and I also felt like after advisory in the morning, I had no idea what my students were working on for the day.
With the Daily Attendance Contract, I now sit down with each student briefly in the morning, and ask them what I can expect to see from them every day in terms of work output. We then have a little give-and-take about this expectation, which results in a document that basically says, 'today I will work on this'. The product or output that I see can be a variety of things, but are usually either a completed draft or project product, or journal and time logs if they have no specific product to send me. Either way, I now have an 'accountability list' that I can pull out the next day and say "student so-and-so, you said you were going to do this, you did not do it, what's the story?" Students who neglect to live up to the contract get 1/2 of an unexcused absence for the day, unless they can produce some legitimate reason, verified by parents, as to why they didn't get their work done.
Even this system still needs some tweaking, but early results on student productivity are much better for this block than they were last block.

Yes, I'm Still Alive.

2007-10-02T18:36:00.000-06:00

So, it's October already. My blog output has been less than spectacular, primarily because I've been busy. My first month of teaching has been a long string of survival mode, but as block one winds down, I'm finally getting enough of a grip on things to stick my head above the trench and take a look at what's going.
The bricks-and-clicks hybrid has been slowly getting going; due to the level of technological mumbo jumbo that needed to be worked out in the first month of school, I haven't had the chance to get out on the road and see online students as much as I would like, but I have recently been able to make some house calls. I really enjoy getting to meet and work with students in their homes, I feel like I get to know them and their families on a better level. I have had some success with students who are working from home, while still coming into school for activities and help as needed. As part of my long-term designs, I would like to develop some relationships with businesses in surrounding communities as a fourth pillar of an online/inhouse/family/community educational experience. I would like to see students be able to take advantage of their freedom from the brick house to spend time emerged in more job shadowing/leadership/enrichment opportunities.
Perhaps when I get my feet under me a little more, I can begin exploring that possibility at greater depth. As for now, I am still struggling to create an attendance policy for online students that works. We are also working out some kinks in how proposal team works for online students. Proposal team is a meeting between at least two advisers, school support staff, and students. It is where students present their projects for final evaluation and awarding of credit. Right now between technical hang-ups, and the time crunch that constantly surrounds MNCS, it has been a struggle to organize these meetings, but we are making progress.
When I have the time I am also still exploring ideas about what it means to be educated; I've gained some good insights from Dewey and Gardner. Hopefully I will have some time in the next few weeks to write more about them in detail. I really miss the way that blogging and writing helps me to explore and clarify ideas; I am really going to make an effort to keep blogging on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Yee-haw!

2007-09-06T16:12:00.000-06:00

It's been a wild and crazy first few days of school here at MNCS. Between getting computers set-up (a true 1-to-1 ratio doesn't make me happy all of the time), trying to create and establish acceptable routines and expectations for a new portion of the MNCS school model, helping new students get in the flow of things, and helping the old ones get back into the flow of things, I haven't had much time to write. I'll hopefully be able to take some time out of the weekend to reflect on my first week of teaching, and how the online edition of MNCS is coming along.

What Does it Mean to Be Educated, Part 2

2007-08-29T17:45:00.000-06:00

I've spent a lot of my free time over the past week exploring the idea of what it means to be educated. I decided to start searching for what this means by dwelling on my own experience, reading some philosophy, and trying to draw some conclusions. So far, my exploration has been quite fruitful, and enjoyable as well.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about my own life experience in trying to reach some conclusions on this issue. I guess by both my own standards and the standards of society, I am fairly well educated. I have a B.A. from a fairly reputable institution of higher learning in a fairly heavy field (philosophy, of course). I nearly have a M.A. in teaching, and am currently a professional educator. By these credentialed social cues I am comfortable in making the assumption that I am educated.
But what's been sticking in my craw, so to speak, is the fact that despite being 'educated', I am continually learning new things every day for a number of reasons. For one thing, my job seems to require a constant stream of learning. Also, I just plain enjoy learning and exploring new things, such as 'what does it mean to be educated'? From this I feel I can conclude that being educated doesn't mean you've learned everything there is to know, so 'educated' does not signify some achieved state of learning fullness.
I then wondered if maybe being educated meant that I had attained a state wherein I've become an expert at learning. I no longer necessarily need to pursue things like academic degrees in order to learn; I am now able to do it on my own, with my own experience to guide me. The problem with this line of thought is that babies come in this world ripe for learning; basically all an infant does is learn, without any expert guidance. Clearly, if being able to learn on your own is what it means to be educated, than everybody who was ever born (hint: everybody) is educated.
This is a weird topic, any definite conclusion to which has manged to evade me to this point. I am starting to lean on the idea that the concept of 'educated' is fairly empty or, at least void of anything but a surface-deep social meaning indicating someone who holds a degree. I've moved a little ways into Dewey's Democracy and Education, and so far I am very taken with what old Johnny D. has to say, but I haven't gone far enough to draw any meaningful conclusions. I'll spout some more on the topic as my thoughts develop.

?

2007-08-27T07:14:00.000-06:00

From CNN:

A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration's stated goals of the war.

But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been.

"Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future," said Brig. Gen. John "Mick" Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war's major battlegrounds.

Will somebody please remind me why it was a good idea to invade Iraq?

Also from CNN:

-- President Bush drew parallels between the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the potential costs of pulling out of Iraq in a speech Wednesday.

"Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left," Bush told members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at their convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

"Whatever your position in that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens, whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields,' " the president said.

Perhaps Bush should have studied the lessons of Vietnam before invading Iraq. Apparently that wasn't part of his C-average degree plan. Of course, it also would be helpful if the average American knew more about the history of the Vietnam war than they do about Paris Hilton. I'm not sure who to blame on that one, I'll think about it.

Orientation Week 2007

2007-08-25T09:59:00.000-06:00

This past wild and crazy week was new student orientation at MNCS. The purposes of orientation week are many, including introducing staff to the new crop of students, introducing the new crop to some old hands, introducing new students to each other, and to start getting the transition from classroom learning to project based learning underway.
The week went smoothly (more or less), and it seems like everyone had a good time. This year brings in a an awesome group of new students; the future looks bright at MNCS, as always.
As part of the orientation process, students participate in a couple of afternoon 'mini projects'. The purpose of these projects is not so much academic, but more to introduce students to the resources available to them at MNCS, and to walk them through doing a project. I led a group of students through a two hour movie making sessions, in which the students developed a concept, found props, shot, edited, and published a short movie. It's pretty much nonsense, but entertaining none the less. I tried to upload it using the new blogger video feature, but it failed.

Probably not Oscar-worthy, but it did introduce students to the tools of iMovie that are available to them.

Good Morning!

2007-08-23T05:10:00.001-06:00

What Does It Mean to Be Educated? Part I

2007-08-20T20:46:00.000-06:00

When I was feeling particularly bitter the other day about unwelcome state intrusion into my educational offerings, a realization came to me. I realized that it wasn't necessarily the unwelcome intrusion that bothers me, but the unquestioned intrusion. I started thinking about why more people are not more critical about the state standards that the educational community is supposed to spoon feed people's children.
I then realized that there is a larger, much more significant question that I think I must adequately address before I can proceed to the question of what the state can and cannot tell me to do. Before I can rightly criticize one-size-fits-all state standards, I need to come to a firm understanding of what it means to be educated. Educated is the final goal of education, and I, a professional educator, cannot sufficiently tell you what it means to be educated.
I guess this is a bit like a mechanic that can't tell the difference between a car that is running well, and a car that could use a heavy tune-up. It's a bit embarrassing, really. Of course, never in my seemingly endless semesters of teacher training (sorry, MSU-M) was I asked to seriously dwell on the idea of what educated is. Maybe if we follow state standards to a tee, we will produce an educated person. Maybe not.
Of course I didn't go through years of learnin' without knowing a thing or two about, well, learnin', so I sent myself to the library today, and returned with Howard Gardner's 1999 book The Disciplined Mind and John Dewey's 1916 landmark Democracy in Education. I'll work my way through them and hopefully at least be on track to reach some sort of conclusion about what educated means. I'll keep you posted.

Very Interesting, Part 1

2007-08-19T08:29:00.000-06:00

These growing virtual worlds continue to fascinate me:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Like many central bankers, Eyjolfur Gudmundsson spends his days fretting about inflation, making sure monetary growth is reasonable and trying to collect data about the economy.

The difference is that the economy Guodmundsson oversees exists only in the virtual world of Eve Online, a science fiction computer game run out of Iceland.

Guodmundsson is the newly appointed chief economist for CCP Games, which hired him in June to quantify the wheelings and dealings of Eve Online's denizens, which number about 200,000 players.

CCP hopes that will grow 50 percent by the end of 2008 to be about the same size as Iceland's population.

"There's a lot of discussion in the game about inflation and that is my job, to find out if inflation is going on," said Guodmundsson, who has a doctorate in environment and resource economics from the University of Rhode Island.

Players want standardized data about Eve's economy to help them track prices and make investment decisions as they battle to control interstellar space on behalf of mega-corporations whose size and power would make any real multinational blush.

"This makes the consumers behave in a more natural way because they are competing against each other on multiple levels, not only on a tactical level in combat but for logistics and resources. That builds consumer behavior and patterns that you see in the real world," Guodmundsson said.

It's a darkly literal twist on the creative destruction beloved by classical economists -- players create things, like heavily armed starships and alliances, to destroy rivals.

Eve's economy is rooted in activities such as mining raw materials. Players deal in interstellar kredits, or ISKs, a play on the trading symbol for Iceland's currency, the krona.

Just like for a Wall Street stock investor, a Singaporean commodities trader or a London foreign exchange dealer, information is key. In this regard, Guodmundsson is the envy of every policymaker who has wrestled with incomplete data -- all deals and prices are instantly captured by CCP's computers.

"As a real economist I had to spend months trying to find data to test an economic theory but if I was wrong, I wasn't sure if the theory was wrong or the data was wrong. At least here I know the data is right," Guodmundsson said.

As new players join, CCP adds new planets and asteroids that can be exploited, one of several "faucets" that serve to inject funds into the universe and keep the economy ticking.

"After we opened up an area where there was more zydrine (an in-game mineral), we saw that price dropped. We did not announce that there was more explicitly, but in a matter of days the price had adjusted," Guodmundsson said.

He is tasked with figuring out whether the game has enough "sinks" that can soak up excess money if it looks like an inflationary bubble is emerging.

CCP pricked such a bubble when it overhauled the system for producing player-created items. The 425mm railgun -- a powerful gun for the large ships that are a stalwart of any serious battle fleet -- dropped to a fifth of its previous price.

"We think Milton Friedman would definitely like this," CCP Chief Executive Hilmar Petursson said, referring to the American economist best known for his theory that money supply ultimately drives the boom and bust of the business cycle.

Guodmundsson is also looking into whether lessons learned in running a virtual economy can apply to real-world ones. It's a rich field that is drawing interest since experiments that would be impossible in real life can be arranged with a few software tweaks.

"We watch price bubbles happen in Eve Online. We are thus able to watch in rapid fashion, a mathematical simulation of those price bubbles. We then are in a position to extrapolate price bubbles in the real world and trade on that, in futures or whatnot," Petursson said.

When pressed on whether he thought his work would really eventually give CCP an edge in real-world financial markets, Guodmundsson declined to answer, but said: "I strongly believe that in future we will look to virtual worlds to see how things have evolved in that world and apply that to a real-world situation."

Taken from PC World

Open Office

2007-08-18T15:51:00.001-06:00

When I switched over to my Mac a few months ago, I decided to start trying to utilize more free, open source software. Rather than fork out the money for MS office or Apple Work, I downloaded open office 2.0 instead. So far, so good. I even had to download it onto my pc the other day, because I needed a quick way to export PDFs from word docs, which Word does not support by itself, as far as I know. I will continue to dwell on my OO2 experience as time goes on. If you have any questions about it, feel free to contact me.

Good Morning!

2007-08-17T05:26:00.001-06:00

I Love My Dictatorship

2007-08-15T16:45:00.000-06:00

I just finished reading a recent ISTE L&L article about the practicality of project-based learning. The negative side of the discussion was essentially:

"Our states dictate
what students must know, and NCLB
determines if we are meeting these
goals. PBL takes more time, energy,
and resources for too little payoff."

Our states dictate what students must know?

Do we seriously believe that the people working at the DOE are so blessed with an amazing ability to see into the future that they are able to tell us exactly what students must know?

I think we need to rethink our willingness to bend over backwards to appointed officials when it comes to them telling us what is best for us. Confusing? Let me throw a hunk of one my favorite political philosophers out there to chew on:

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.
John Stewart Mill, On Liberty

I'm not trying to say that the government should play no role in education. I fully believe that compulsory education is of an immeasurable benefit to human society. But I do think we need to question how far government should be allowed to go in dictating "what students must know." If our students are to have the creativity, inventiveness, and problem-solving skills that our society of tomorrow must also have, does it make sense to drag them all through the same mandated, and unavoidably biased curriculum that the state standards dictate we teach them? Having high standards and accountability are good things, but let's make sure they are geared towards a meaningful, quality education, and not towards an android assembly line.

Project-Based Learning in Prime Time: Mythbusters

2007-08-14T19:20:00.000-06:00

I try not to watch too much of the television. Most of it is garbage. But there are a handful of shows I watch religiously, mainly on the Discovery channel. As I was watching TV today, it dawned on me that one of my favorites, Mythbusters, is really an hour of entertaining project-based learning. In each episode Adam, Jamie, and the gang complete three or four projects. While some of the projects are pure whimsy, most have all the elements of good learning.
In the episode I watched today, the gang joined up with Roger 'the rocket' Clemens to do a number of projects on baseball myths. In one such project, the team tested the idea of the illegal 'corked' bat concept that pops in the pros every now and again. The project started with the essential question, does drilling out and corking a bat really give a player more power at the plate? The common hypothesis that the crew tested is the idea that the cork makes the bat lighter to swing, and gives it more 'spring' at impact, thus sending the ball farther than a standard bat.
The team then designed an experiment to test the corked bats versus the uncorked bats.
After the tests, the crew discovered that the corked bats were in fact only half as effective as uncorked bats at turning the speed and mass of both bat and ball into hitting distance. They then reflected on their results, using their knowledge of physics to conclude that the reduced mass of the bat, plus the spongy nature of the cork, actually combine in the exact opposite manner that people generally assume corked bats work, thus robbing the hitter of power.
Anyway, I think that Mythbusting is a particularly awesome way of doing a learning project. This year I would like to take some of the experience Fridays at MNCS and turn them into 'Mythbusting Fridays'. Ideally I would give two teams of students the same myth, and have them work through the day either busting or confirming said myth. It's basically as good a done as far as I am concerned, the only thing left to do is find some myths.
If any of the avid readers of this blog have any ideas for some simple myths that could be used in this situation, please submit a comment with your idea at the end of this post. I need all the help I can get!

Dinner, Take 2

2007-08-14T16:43:00.001-06:00

It looks even better now, so let's hope this works this time.

Apparently Mobile Blogging is only still-photo compatible at this time. I did it by sending an MMS message from my ATT 8525 to go@blogger.com. I was then able to link my blog to my phone, so I can now send short (600K) MMS messages directly to my blog.

I think I can use this to generate some interesting discussion for my advisory students come fall.

Dinner

2007-08-14T16:09:00.001-06:00

Mmm, beer-can chicken.

Hmm. I'm trying to learn how to post to my blog from my mobile phone. There should have been a delicious short film clip along with this post, but it isn't here.

Perhaps the mobile blog feature doesn't support movies. Hmm. Technology.

Old School vs. New School

2007-08-13T07:19:00.000-06:00

As I was slurping down my ritual caffeine this morning, I was reading a paper presented by Education Evolving on innovating in schools and schooling. One section of the paper was a chart comparing and contrasting what our old schools look like compared to EE's conception of the new schools that we need to be competitive, effective, and productive in education today:

The Past/ The Future
Transform existing schools/ Create new schools
Larger schools/ Smaller schools
'Delivering education'/ Students learning
Read books; listen to talk/ Explore the Web
Time-bound/place-bound/ Any time/any place
Technology as textbook/ Technology for research
Groups, classes/ Individualized
Time is fixed/ Time is variable
Standardization/ Customization
Cover material/ Understand key ideas
Who and What/ Why and How
Know things/ Apply knowledge
Rigor/ Relevance
Multiple-choice tests/ Written/oral demonstrations
Testing for accountability/ Testing for diagnosis
"Make 'em"/ "Motivate 'em"
Instructors/ Advisers
Teachers serve administrators/ Administrators serve teachers
Administrative management/ Professional partnership
Adult interests dominate/ Student interests dominate

As I read through the list, it was instantly apparent that I could substitute the 'Future' title in the second column with 'MNCS Now' and the contrasts would be spot on. The only thing on the list we are not doing well at this time is the 'any time/any place' idea, which is a large part of what I am trying to develop right now. I put a link to the paper on my website here. Look under 'Happenings' to find it.

A Beautiful Weekend

2007-08-12T19:31:00.000-06:00

I had the privilege of spending the past weekend on the the beautiful Whitefish Chain in the Brainerd lakes area of north-central Minnesota. We made the typical Minnesota trip 'up north' for our niece's baptism. It was to spend all day Saturday on the lakes with my new family, I am not ready to be back to reality tomorrow. School will be starting soon; one full day of relaxation on the beach was all too precious. Thanks to all the family who were there for making it such an enjoyable trip. Also thanks to my mom and sister for watching my dog while we were gone.

Linux, anyone?

2007-08-09T06:25:00.000-06:00

In my pursuit of new educational applications for technology, I want to explore some of the possibilities that Linux can bring into our school. I am interested in this for several reasons, but primarily for cost and open-source reliability reasons. I am looking for any suggestions as to which Linux or Linux-type platform to explore. I am considering Solaris 10, Ubuntu, and also Red Hat, especially in light of this find that Aaron Grimm recently sent me. It sounds like a reasonably well-built laptop, and for $150 I could buy 4 of them for every in-house desktop we build, with the caveat that the end user needs to work with Linux.

I also being charged with the task of creating an ad-hoc computer lab at our school to use during the wonderful mandated state tests that come around every spring. Because all of our students have a computer at their own desk, we don't have a stand alone computer lab. Needless to say, a bunch of students sitting around taking unsupervised state tests in a noisy environment does not live up to the security standards of the state, nor do we want our students to be testing in an environment that wasn't designed for testing. It wouldn't be fair to them.

If the state testing program was linux compatible, I could build up a bunch of cheap yet highly functional Linux workstations that we could dust off every year for state testing. Unfortunately, the online test software is not Linux friendly, so now I've got to come up with alternative ideas.

Anyways, my original point of this post was to solicit some advice from readers on what linux platform to pursue in exploring this technology. If anyone has any good or bad experiences about using a Linux OS, I would love to hear about it.

Dear Hippies,

2007-08-08T21:04:00.001-06:00

This post is in response to the criticism I have taken from several stinky hippies I know (I say stinky hippie in the most loving way possible) about my recent post about Thomas Friedman's book 'The World is Flat'.

Dear Hippies,
I am well aware that there are still poor people throughout the world. Many people die of starvation every day. Others are plagued by infectious diseases that are sadly curable if medicine is available. Yes, I do realize that the world is indeed not flat in any metaphorical or physical sense; I am even aware of the fact that cross-global networking, communicating, and collaborating would be even more difficult on a flat world. Yes, it is a silly title for a book, and a silly metaphor for the ideas Friedman is presenting.

In response to your complaints about this book (not that you've read it), nowhere in it does Friedman assert either explicitly or implicitly that the fast rise of digital communication that has brought distant and almost unreachable aspects of the globe into the global economic sphere has somehow eliminated poverty, and that everyone in the world is immediately better off because of it. In fact, Friedman does draw attention to the fact that while this broadening of global technology infrastructure has brought numerous people economic prosperity, even in places where it has touched many lives, basic infrastructure such as electricity, water, and education are still problematic or altogether nonexistent. Friedman devotes a portion of the book to discussing the problems that many 'undeveloped' areas of the world faces, and discusses how this new technology might open up new possibilities for people living in these conditions, albeit not in the near future.

You can disagree with Friedman that turning third-world China or Africa into a series of 'little Americas' by creating factories and outsourced labor centers there is going to pull them out of poverty. I'll even agree with you. At this point, it's ecologically unrealistic that everybody suddenly opens a factory or a call center and enjoys new prosperity. Perhaps when alternative fuel and water sources become mainstream those people might have a chance. I still believe that even today a cheap, solar-powered laptop with an internet browser and connection would immediately make a positive impact on the lives of people in so-called third-world countries, and the technological hurdles to achieving this are quickly disappearing. The fact is, there are a lot of people in the world who are better of because of the changes that Friedman describes in his book. I am sorry that these changes haven't helped everyone, but for now I am not going to unplug my computer because people in Africa are starving; I like what I do for a living, and am glad that I have the opportunity to do it. I could (and am usually trying) to do more to lessen my impact, but the basic situation is that I need to take care of me and family first and foremost.

I still certainly believe, as I stated, that Friedman's book is a good read (not Dostoevsky good, but readable) and raises some interesting points that have serious implications for city, state, national, and global education, not to mention the level of public discussion that it has raised about the issues surrounding globalization. That's it. It's not the Tao Te Ching, and while I agree with Friedman's views on many issues, I'll readily admit that he's not the world's foremost authority on everything.

So please, stop telling me that the world isn't flat, I am already aware of that. And at least take your iPod out of your ears and your cell phone out of your pocket, tape them to your PC, buckle them into your Toyota, and drive them off a cliff before telling me that globalization sucks.

Thank you,

Nick Ryan

Project Modeling

2007-08-08T20:04:00.000-06:00

One thing (of several things) I am working on as I prepare for the upcoming school year and beyond is project modeling. By this I mean turning some of the things I do or learn on a regular basis into model project using different ideas and techniques as I come up with them. My reasoning for this is that students are frequently stuck in a project rut, wherein many a good project idea is killed by the 'poster-board/power point' monster. While there are some important skills that can be learned from designing effective Power Point presentations, if you've created and watched a handful of them, you've seen them all. Hopefully I can help generate some different and more creative project products by throwing some of my own wacked ideas out there. Students can not only learn new ways to demonstrate learning, but they might be more willing to take risks if they see me doing it.

For my inaugural project, I took something I have been working on lately (playing the guitar) and made a documentary of me practicing a song. Not only do I practice it, I use Garage Band on my Macbook to actually record a song using multiple tracks and instruments. The end result isn't perfect, but it does demonstrate how simple software tools can turn routine practice and playing into something that demonstrates learning.

A word of warning: I even stretched my own limits in making this song by actually singing in it. Sorry if I offend any sophisticated tastes. If I can do it, a student can, too.

Well Said...

2007-08-04T06:32:00.000-06:00

While Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman has managed to write some unintelligent and completely misleading columns in the past, his most recent one about the 35W bridge collapsed is worth reading here.

I think both our state and federal governments need to be labeled 'structurally deficient' and replaced. Too many years of partisan politics and fat-cat pork barrelling have left us with a system that seems capable of everything but doing its job. Of course, most of us aren't really clear what that job is, which is what allows the idiocy to continue. I'm calling for a national 'return to Independence Hall' so that we can review our roots and try to reach a clear view on what basic things we believe a government should do before they are allowed do to glamorous and completely moronic things such as spending our future in an Iraqi debacle.

It's not that we necessarily need more taxes as Coleman suggest; what we really need are more responsible people in politics who won't blow are hard-earned tax dollars. Giving more money to these same idiots who misspent it all in the first place is not going to solve anything.

I spend a third of the year working to pay taxes; paying more of them is not really what I need to do. While I recognize that citizens should all contribute to help maintaining our basic infrastructure, on a teacher's salary it's hard enough making ends meet as it is. I want better governance, not more expensive governance.

Brainstorming By Myself...

2007-08-03T08:58:00.000-06:00

This is interesting and applicable to students, teachers, and organizations that depend upon constant creativity to stay in the game (aka MNCS).
I found this on Netscape founder Marc Andreessen's blog

From Frans Johansson's book The Medici Effect:

Brainstorming [is] used in nearly all of the world's largeset companies, nonprofits, and government organizations. And the reasons seem obvious... "The average person can think of twice as many ideas when working with a group than when working alone."... But is it true?

In 1958... psychologists let groups of four people brainstorm about the practical benefits or difficulties that would arise if everyone had an extra thumb on each hand after next year. These people were called "real groups" since they actually brainstormed together. Next, the researchers let "virtual groups" of four people generate ideas around the "thumb problem", but they had to brainstorm individually, in separate rooms. The researchers combined the answers they received from each [virtual group] individual and eliminated redundancies... They then compared the performance between real groups and virtual groups...

To their surprise, the researchers found that virtual groups, where people brainstormed individually, generated nearly twice as many ideas as the real groups.

The result, it turned out, is not an anomaly. In a [1987 study, researchers] concluded that brainstorming groups have never outperformed virtual groups. Of the 25 reported experiments by psychologists all over the world, real groups have never once been shown to be more productive than virtual groups. In fact, real groups that engage in brainstorming consistently generate about half the number of ideas they would have produced if the group's individuals had [worked] alone.

In addition, in the studies where the quality of ideas was measured, researchers found that the total number of good ideas was much higher in virtual groups than in real groups.

Essential Skill #3

2007-07-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

Essential Skill #3: Technological Literacy

In a world that is being increasingly overrun by computers, the ability to effectively manage these devices can make a person's life a whole lot easier. While part of me bemoans the fact that thanks to my new ATT 8525 I am basically never without a computer, the other part of me is happy that this technology allows me to do what I like to do from whenever and wherever it is convenient for me. Many of these blog posts are being typed while I wait in line, or in between conference presentations, etc.
I digress. There are at least three key reasons why technological literacy will be a huge benefit to today's students. The first important aspect is being literate in 'tech-a-nese' or 'techspeak'. Like the language of math, understanding techspeak gives you acces to a whole world of technological proficiency that the technical illiterate will never have. It is tough to stay up to date on the latest, most useful technology if you can't understand what people are saying about it.
Techspeak fluency also plays an important role in the second key aspect of an overall Technological Literacy, which is the ability to troubleshoot and maintain your own tech devices. Similar to being able to do some of your own basic car maintenance, having the ability to troubleshoot basic problems with a PC, and knowing how to keep your technology safe from various maladies will save you much time and money over the life of a typical PC. If you want to drop $100 at the Geek Squad every time your PC crashes, be my guest, but with a little bit of upfront learning, you can protect yourself from the threat of these disasters and fix them when they do occur.
Finally, the most important aspect of technological literacy is the ability it gives you to manage and make the most efficient use of your technology possible. Like the old saying that people only use 10% of their brain, the typical PC user only takes advantage of 10% of the available and effective tools that the technology they pay hard earned cash for provides. Being technologically literate means you are able to take a new piece of software, learn what's useful about it and what's not, and put it to effective use in a short time period. If you can do this, your return on the money you invested in a computer will be increased significantly. It is interesting to watch two people trying to use a new piece of software: the tech illiterate is scared to push buttons, does not no where to find out how to use the software, and becomes so frustrated that they often quit on it altogether. The other, tech-lit person, immediately goes to tinkering with the software, exploring what it can and can't do, and discovering ways to tweak it to their own liking. They can do this because the graphical interfaces (GUI, pronounced "Gooey") of most software programs are logically similar; being proficient in a few programs greatly increases your ability to access and utilizes hundreds, if not thousands of additional programs.
So how do we help students acquire this tech literacy? Give them computers, and let them tinker with them. Like automotive mechanics, the only way to learn how to fix a computer is by doing it. And don't be scared to wipe everything out, either. If they've done their job of backing things up, a blue screen of death should bring a sense of curiosity to the tech-literate, and not the icy fear that those who don't know what they are doing often experience. Also, students need access to software. The more programs they learn, the better. Generally, the first few programs a person learns are frustrating experiences, but once they've persevered through them, they will gain confidence in their ability to take on newcomers as they appear in the market.

The World is Flat

2007-07-30T08:25:00.000-06:00

I've spent a substantial portion of the past week reading Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat. Friedman raises many interesting points in his book; I highly recommended it to anyone who can read. Many people find the content of this book and the implications that globalization creates for the American worker frightening as they visualize a world dominated by a powerful new China and other nations who have been hard at work trying to displace the mighty U.S. I think a little bit of fear is a good thing, but only if the proper source is acknowledged. Rather than fear the Chinese for what they are doing, we need to fear our own poor leadership for not doing more to prepare Americans for the 21st century. I could go on about this for ever, so I'll leave it at that.
The ideas that Friedman present in this book raise numerous questions and implications for education, but two of them really stuck out in my mind as being problems that both our public education system and our national culture as a whole need to step up and address.

1. I love Friedman's ideas of a future for lifetime employability versus lifetime employment. Long gone are the days when the average American would spend their entire adulthood traveling down the same career path. It is my belief that we are spending way too much time in schools teaching a standardized curriculum of essentially randomized facts to our students, and instead we should be focusing on a broad skill set that students will need to incorporate into their lives if they are going to remain employable for the next 50 years.
The most essential skill we can teach students today is how to teach themselves. Friedman paints a picture of a world in which technology and job skill sets can change at a moments notice, and in order to remain competitive, workers will need to be able to re-educate themselves on a continual basis, often with little support in doing so. I think that project-based learning is well suited to the challenge of teaching students how to learn. Rarely does a project based teacher (we don't even call them teachers) spend time teaching a student specific content. Instead, we help students navigate and create their own learning process through modeling, guided questioning, and other strategies.
It is also important that students develop good communication and collaboration skills in order to remain competitive. More and more people are going to find themselves working "side-by-side" on business projects with people they've never physically seen. These communication skills and other 'soft' skills are transferable from job to job, and having a good set of them will serve students well forever.
Again, I know I'm always knocking the standards, and I don't want to take too much away from the important knowledge that they represent, but in tomorrow's world I see little need for students to share a single set of state-directed knowledge. Creativity and flexibility are king in the 21st century, and I'm not sure that a rigid standards-based education is doing the job in promoting the type of skills are students need.

2. I also took away from Friedman's book a deeper understanding of the crucial need for more young American minds to become engaged in science and technology. As a nation we are low on the international totem pole in terms of the number of upcoming students and workers we are producing in the fields of creative math, science, and engineering. While some people sneer at the idea of an international competition for who can produce the greatest number of engineers, the implications that our developing brain-drain has for our economic well-being are very real. Without the brain-power driving innovation in our economy, we stand to lose a large number jobs and revenue that always accompanies innovation.
Where I had trouble with Friedman's analysis of the situation was where he describes the cause and potential cure for this problem. He mostly attributes the current American culture of laziness and entitlement to our student's current underachievement in the math and sciences, but then calls upon better teaching to solve the problem (This is admittedly an oversimplification of Friedman's argument, and doesn't do his thinking on this issue justice. I'm simplifying things to make a point). The dillemna this creates for teachers, and for society as a whole, is how do we teach science and math to a bunch of students who see no value in learning them, and are totally apathetic to our attempts to help them see that value? This is also an oversimplification of the current state of American education, but the question I am driving at is, what comes first, the motivation to succeed in these areas, or the good teaching? As somebody who was totally unmotivated in high school but had a number of good teachers, I believe that the teacher will lose this battle every time. If a student doesn't care, then there is little the teacher can do, especially when faced with the workload and poor odds that our current system gives to teachers. The are generally too busy to put the necessary time into every unmotivated student to help them succeed in math and science.
I have no immediate solution to all of this. Until it becomes cooler to be an engineer than a pro athlete or an MBA, we may be doomed to struggle with this issue. I have spent the weekend pondering ways to bring some exciting science into MNCS in hopes that putting cool science and engineering in front of students may inspire them into delving deeper into these subjects. So far the idea of a robotics program is the best I've got, if anybody reading this has any other good science, math, or engineering approaches for the classroom, please chime in.

Essential Skill #2

2007-07-26T19:11:00.000-06:00

Essential Skill 2: Financial Literacy

I've recently finished reading some books and undergoing some changes in my own life that have brought the realization on me that our schools are doing a woeful job at preparing students for one of the most critical aspects to personal success: financial competency. While money isn't everything to everyone, regardless of how much a person makes, how they handle it can mean the difference between a lifetime of personal happiness and satisfaction, or one of frustration, agony, and shame.
My own personal situation has shed a lot of light on this subject for me. Getting married has forced me to suddenly become financially literate as my wife and I look at how we need to manage our finances in order to take care of our present needs, while at the same time planning for the future. Had I learned ten years ago all of the things about accounting, investing, assets, and liabilities that I've learned in the past few months, my present financial picture would probably be much more satisfying than it is. Not that it's bad, but I consider my wife and I lucky that neither of us ended up in bad financial states due to our own ignorance, as several people I know have unfortunately done.

To continue from the rant of my previous post, it makes little sense to claim that we are preparing students for success in the real world by requiring them to all learn algebra 2 or some random facts about the civil war, yet not doing anything at all to teach them about something as essential and as basic as personal finance. What do you do more often, balance your checkbook or solve quadratic equations? And let's face it, you probably don't balance your checkbook all that often.

While I am not sure exactly how I will remedy this situation, I am going to start by planning some one-day or even one-week seminars for MNCS students about the financial basics such as accounting, credit cards, investments, and sound financial decision making. I devoted a one hour class period to these topics in my economics class I taught last spring, and the response from the students was overwhelmingly positive. If I can save one student from years of financial struggle due to financial ignorance, then it will be well worth it.

If you have any good suggestions for activities or materials that work well for teaching basic finances in a secondary setting, please leave me a comment so that I can check them out.

Interesting Reading...

2007-07-23T19:19:00.000-06:00

Here's a link to an interesting article that the good folks at Education Evolving sent me.

http://www.educationevolving.org/content_newest.asp

Scroll down and click on the topic 'A Learning Revolution'.

21st Century Literacy

2007-07-23T16:53:00.000-06:00

As I struggle through the summer trying to organize a new learning program, I have continued to think about how the educational experience I am creating will best me the needs of 21st century learners. One of the philosophies I am working to incorporate into the e-learning program is K.I.S.S. (Keep It Super Simple or Keep It Simple, Stupid, depending on who you ask). As I see it, one of the main problems facing today's educators is that they are saddled with an immense amount of standards, theories, tests, paperwork, etc., all of which is designed to teach students information they probably will never need in the 21st century world.
I recently compiled all of the MN state standards for every subject (being a general education advisor, I need to work in every subject), and was astounded by the sheer size of even one set of standards. While I do see a real value in having a framework to help organize aspects of our teaching and learning, I don't believe that most of the factual information that the state standards are built around are relevant to todays student. Not matter how obscure the fact, I can have it hand in a minute thanks to modern information technology. While an understanding of historical and social forces that shape mankind is important, it is no longer necessary for a person to know the who, what, when, where, and why off the top of the head.
Anyway, to simplify matters, I've been reading some various articles and scanning the standards to try and pull out some essential skills and literacies students will need to be successful in the 21st century. Although nobody can predict for sure what those skills might be, there have been plenty of people who have studied current and historical trends who in order to make some predictions about what these skills might be.
Since I'm starting to ramble, I'll end this post with my first essential literacy:
1. Logic and Critical Thinking
While algebra and geometry do teach essential logic and critical thinking skills, the lessons are almost always lost amidst the frustrations that students experience as they struggle through difficult subjects that are not only boring, but are perceived by students as unnecessary. Instead, we should shift the focus from rigorous math to other, more effective methods of teaching critical thinking skills. By combining practical math lessons with real-life, hands-on learning such as architecture, construction, robotics, science, etc. Rather than fighting this essential skill, students can learn it by doing thigs they see as relevant and enjoyable.

Please throw out any comments you might have on this line of thinking, I appreciate any feedback. I will continue to compile literacy/skills as I develop them.

A Strange New World

2007-07-21T09:20:00.000-06:00

For my work at school I was able to set myself up with a laptop. I made the brave decision to switch up my PC habit for a new Macbook. I had become somewhat familiar with the Mac OS from using an iMac at school while I was student teaching, but I was still nervous about making the switch, largely due to compatibility in software concerns. I was also nervous about the Macbook's small display, seing as how I thought the 15 inch monitor that came with my HP desktop seems too small for me.

My doubts have been blown out of the water. For the record, I'm no MacNazi (you know the type); I still have much love for my PC, but this Macbook absolutely is awesome. Maybe because it's the first truly portable computer I've ever had, but I'm totally in love with it. Right out of the box, no hassle, works great, looks great, love it. I got used to the 13-inch display real quick; since a bigger display would be nice from time to time, if I need to I can hook it up to my 15-inch VGA and share the desktop across two screens. It makes me feel hardcore when I do this; it's sweet.

I made the Mac decision for a couple of reasons, mainly because the Macbook comes with a webcam and microphone built in, which is nice for an online educator. Plus, good software like Garage Band and iDVD come standard with the Macbook. Garage Band has already reinvigorated my stagnant guitar career; I've begun recording my own version of Neil Young's 'Hey Hey, My, My'. Trust me, you don't want to hear it. But it is fun to make. With these software inclusions, the Macbook might be the ultimate project-based learning computer. I might do a whole post on this thought later.

Relay for Life 2007

2007-07-14T17:27:00.000-06:00

Last night I had the pleasure of joining six MNCS students and one other advisor at the 2007 Le Seuer cty. Relay for Life at the Le Seuer Cty fairgrounds in Le Center, MN. Relay for life is a fundraiser for cancer research. The event is held in locations across the nation. Participants help raise money by selling paper bag luminaries in honor of cancer survivors or in memory of those who lost the fight. I'm not sure about the final numbers for the event, but I overheard someone saying it was in the neighborhood of $80,000 for the Le Seuer event alone.

The night was a lot of fun. The event kicked off about 5:30 with food and music to help support teams as the walked laps around a track. The walking continued throughout the night, with various dance contests and such for fun. I arrived about midnight to help see the crew through the night. Despite getting drenched in a downpour at about 2:00am which unfortunately extinguished most of the luminary bags, we had a ton of fun as we fought to stay awake. I even resorted to throwing down a few of my ridiculous dance moves for some cheap entertainment. It was a great night, and everyone who participated deserves a big thanks for their support for such a worthy cause. It was especially exciting to see the number of middle and high school age students who stayed the night to show their support.

Food for Thought...

2007-07-13T09:27:00.000-06:00

From Forbes Nanotech Insider:

"Everyone seems worried about their kids and grandkids. Will we burden them with social security, with global warming, with re-runs of Real World vs. Road Rules vs. Donald Trump?

Want to really do something for the future? If you’re a scientist or entrepreneur or investor: invent it.

It starts with people saying do as I do, not do as I say. Be a hero to someone. Think heroism not hypocrisy. More on the latter later.

First: I haven’t met someone who doesn’t lament our education system, bemoan classroom sizes and underpaid teachers (my mother is one). But I wish I would. You see: the problem isn’t supply-side, it’s demand: kids need to yearn to learn.

It starts with picking the right heroes. And to pick the right heroes, you need exposure to a lot of them. And then you need the reinforcement, observed admiration and coveted celebration from others. Cialdini’s social proof. Keynes beauty contest. Kids want to be what other kids want to be. And other kids want to be what’s popular.

As famed inventor Dean Kamen was quoted saying, “Everyone is complaining about supply – we don’t have enough teachers, enough books, more, more, more is the American way. If you look at it, it’s not a supply issue. We have $600 billion going into education, which is more than most of the rest of the developed world. It’s not supply, it’s demand, the lack of it. And it’s not an education problem, this is a cultural problem, you get what you celebrate. By the time kids are teenagers, they want to bounce a ball like Shaquille O'Neal, not go into science. While the U.S. produces 72,000 engineer graduates a year, it produces 84,000 graduates with sports management degrees. That tells you that if the world is going to compete in anything that gives out hot towels, the U.S. is going to win.”

Not sure yet what I really think about this. I do believe that if a student doesn't want to learn, than you better find something that will create that desire within them. Learning isn't the type of thing you can physically beat into someone against their will; if they don't want to do it, they won't do it. I've never looked at education from a cultural supply/demand perspective, it opens a new line of thinking for me.
From another perspective, maybe it is a supply issue, and the real problem is that we are supplying the wrong kind of education that does not meet the demands of today's student. Maybe it's a little from column A, and a little from column B.

Some Edumacational Philosophizin'

2007-07-11T20:37:00.000-06:00

As part of my duties at MNCS, I am taking their already awesome educational approach outside the schoolhouse walls by building an on/off campus program using sweet technology. As of now I am referring to this approach as e-learning (although if I called it ilearning, I would probably have a half-million students lined up around the block, patiently waiting for the program to be released). The 'e' stands for both electronic (as in modern, web-based technology) and experience. As I put the pieces of this thing of ours together, I am trying to assemble a philosophy (Hey, that BA I spent 4 years earning and then stuck in the closet can finally be hung on the wall now!) for the program that will help guide us through the rough waters ahead. In golf terms, I am trying to hit the fairway on every hole. Hopefully I educate better than I golf.

I began to formulate the first aspect of my philosophy as I was joggin' today, I am not exactly sure how to implement it in totality, but it's a good place to start the program. I call it:

4x4 Learning

4x4 learning, just like 4x4 trucking, can go anyplace, anytime. If the schoolhouse is the road, I want students to be off of it as much as possible. I know the road is safe and smooth, but you don't see much of the world by sticking to it. If you've got a nice, well-equipped 4x4 off-road vehicle and a little bit of courage, you can get to new, exciting places while minimizing your risks. Ideally, students in the program will have the ability to get involved in activities and opportunities that they would never have while constrained in a classroom for forty hours a week.

All of this will be possible through portable and ultra-portable computing on the technology end, which will allow me and the students to remain in contact fairly effortlessly throughout the entire day (not just 7:30 to 3:00, because learning happens all the time!), and allow the students to record and document their work. On the institutional end, the project based learning system that MNCS has spent the past decade developing will provide the flexible accountability required to move public education outside of the classroom. What this will do or mean to the educator (me), I don't know for sure.

We'll see how this philosophy pans out. Any comments or thoughts would be appreciated!

Just a Google-O

2007-07-04T09:51:00.000-06:00

Is it just me, or does google seem too good to be true? I realized the other day the I use a Google product to communicate with the outside world (gmail and the embedded chat feature), keep track of my daily happenings (Google Calendar, which also conveniently reminds me of my important happenings by sending my phone a text message), keep track of the happenings in the outside world via my Google reader, keep track of my thoughts and ideas as they occur by using a Google notebook, and I write this blog with Google blogger. I don't mind being a google-o, but what will I do if their servers were ever struck by lightning? I'd lose track of everything! On the plus side, I love being able to one-stop shop all of my info using integrated Google products, plus I can check my gmail and my calendar from anywhere using my mobile phone. It seems like this should all cost a fortune. Crazy.

One Crazy Summer...

2007-07-02T15:42:00.000-06:00

So I woke up this morning and was shocked to realize that it's already July! Where does the time go? I'm happy to report that I've signed a contract to work at Minnesota New Country School for the 07-08 school year. I was hired to help design and implement a new technology-based learning program for the school. It's an honor to be a part of such an outstanding staff at an outstanding school; hopefully this year will be the first of many more to come. I'll provide more details about what I'm doing as the summer progresses, but up to this point it's mainly been painting and moving furniture as the school gets a little bit of redecoration.

Also, in one of life's 'who'd a thunk it', I have also found myself responsible for maintaining MNCS's server and networking technology, a major learning-by-doing experience. At least I can't be accused of failing to practice what I preach.

Finalization Madness

2007-06-07T20:43:00.000-06:00

It's the last full week of the school year at Minnesota New Country School. While the school is different from the traditional secondary school model, the students aren't much different from the typical teenager found in any school. As summer vacation suddenly becomes very real, students have been scrambling for the past three days in order to get all of their projects finalized.

Finalization represents the end of most projects. Students bring their completed project and supporting documentation to a proposal team meeting. There they must present their work to a group of staff members, and argue for the credit they think they deserve for the work they put into the final product. It's an interesting process of give and take, with the staff weighing in on various aspects of the student's project, including the documented time the student put into the project, and the overall quality of the project as compared to the expectations the staff and student have for their projects. It's the student's job to argue the merits of their project in an attempt to receive as much credit as they can. It's a fair process they gauges the value of an education on a much grander scheme than "pass/fail" or a series of A's, B's, and C's that can represented a variety of different standards.

It's been a stressful week as everyone rushes to receive their credit by the end of the year, but I've been able to see and be a part of many incredible projects. I never cease to be amazed by the things that so many of our teenagers are capable of producing; it will be a bittersweet ending to a stressful yet very rewarding school year.

Mummified Chickens

2007-06-03T10:57:00.000-06:00

For those of you who are interested in learning more about project-based learning, here is a link to a 30-min video that does a nice job of explaining how it all comes together. This video was largely shot at Minnesota New Country School, and can also be found on the homepage of the Edvisions Teacher Cooperative website:

Mummified Chickens, Mutant Frogs, and Rockets to the Moon

Here are some links to a couple of senior presentations given by MNCS students:

Ben Rohloff: Charter School Lobbying

Brandon Stolt: The Training of a Horse

The videographer (aka: Me) apologizes for the poor sound and video quality, I'm stil learning by doing when it comes to video production and internet uploads.

Back In Action

2007-06-03T10:45:00.000-06:00

All apologies to any loyal fans of my blog (cue laugh track here) for the lengthy span of inactivity. I've been a little busy over the past few weeks as I've wrapped up my student teaching experience, gotten married, honeymooned, and started a career. To help heal any wounds that my absence has caused, here is a picture of my beautiful bride and I.

Please forgive me, and stay tuned for a lot fascinating blog activity in the coming weeks, months, and years.

My First Podcast (Click here to listen)

2007-05-12T09:23:00.000-06:00

I have (hopefully) made the leap into the wide world of podcasting. I'm thinking of a million cool things students could do with a podcast, so I thought I would take a stab at it myself in order to see how it works. Except for needing a microphone, everything you need to podcast is free. I used free mixing and recording software from Audacity to record my speech and mix in the music. That was the easy part. Once you've recorded your audio, you then need to set up a place to host your audio files so that they are available on the web. I used Ourmedia as my host; it was recommended as one of the best organizations for this, but it wasn't entirely smooth sailing. I had to register with three or four different organizations in order to make it all come together, and ultimately needed to download software from Spinxpress in order to get my content on the web. Once this was all accomplished, you paste a link to you file at Ourmedia into google blogger, and ta-da, a podcast.

I'm a little disappointed in the final results; I was hoping to create a podcast that did not force you to open a new browser window in order to listen to it. Not that this is a huge inconvenience, but I'm going to keep hacking around to see if I can make my podcasting dreams come true. If you have any questions or suggestions about podcasting, pleas post a comment below.

Hats Off to Hannah

2007-05-10T12:42:00.000-06:00

One of the sixth grade students in our advisory recently submitted an essay into a University of Minnesota Center for School Change essay contest. The essay was to focus on how attending a charter school has impacted the student's life. Hannah's submission took third place out of roughly 300 entrants. To honor her work, the Center for School change presented her with an award at the state capitol building, and she read her essay for an audience on the steps of the capitol. Here it is in its entirety, I must apologize for some of the punctuation, it did not transfer right from her word processor into mine. But otherwise, enjoy!

I like it better here than at a traditional school because the staff takes more time to listen to what I have to say. I think I am a better student here than I was at my old traditional school. The staff and the students have motivated me, and when I was at my old school I wouldn’t have even thought about doing these projects. For example, I just finished Child Development project and at first I said, “No I can’t do it”, it will be way too hard, “but then the teachers sat down and talked to me about it. They made me realize that it wouldn’t be so hard and I would get a lot of credit for it. I said, “Ok I will try it” and it ended up being really fun. It was kind of hard but it felt really well once I was done and I felt like I did something really big and it made me feel really proud. So, now I am more confident to do bigger projects.
I really like the students at MNCS and going here has made my life a lot easier because at my old school there was a bunch of gossip and if someone was mad at me then everybody else would be mad at me too. At MNCS you’re friends with everybody. Each advisory it is mixed age groups, and then you get an opportunity to meet everybody. Students don’t think, “Well because you’re in 6th grade and I’m in 8th I can’t hang out with you. “ I also like this school because I don’t have a teacher talking in front of me the whole day. I can work on my projects, but if I need help the staff will help.
At Hilltop there was a janitor but here we pick up after are selves and each advisory takes turns cleaning for example some people in the advisory’s clean the bathrooms some vacuum some mop and things like that. Plus think how much money the school is saving by not having a janitor and not having a principle. The school can spend more money on other things like computers and that kind of stuff.

MNCS is also nice because I look at my advisor Jim and I see how good his relationship is with like the kids who have been here for at least two or three years. At a traditional high school you would just go from class to class to class and you wouldn’t really know the teachers that well but here everybody knows each other really good even the new students. So that’s why I hope that one day my advisor will know me as well as he knows the other students but I guess that all depends on how long I go here. I think I’m going to go here until I graduate.

My advisor Jim is a really great guy and all the staff members here are great, at first I thought of them oh great a bunch of teachers but now they’ve like become my friends and they have always been there for me. Unlike the other school I went to, when I was feeling sad they would just ignore me but not here the teachers will ask me if I’m all right and if you want to talk about it they will talk about it but if you don’t then they won’t they are the best teachers in the world!

A really great thing about this school is that I get to do projects. What I do when I want to do projects is I think about what project I want to do. For example, I want to do the History of Henderson what I do then is, I would go on my compute rand go to project foundry that is the school’s website. Then I would click on propose a project request. Then I would write the name of the project, and think of three questions that I would like to find out during my project, next I think of at least two reasons how my project would apply to my life outside of school. Then I think of at least three people that could help me with my project, next I put down the tasks that I have to do to finish my project then I put down the start date and end date for my project. Then my advisor will look at my project request and will either ok it, or will tell me to fix some things on my project request. Then once my advisor says its ok, then I can start working on it, so then I would go in the library and check out the book on the history of Henderson, and I can also go on the internet and see if Henderson has a website. Next, I print out my proposal form and take it home and have my guardian sign my form, next I go to proposal team and have them look at it.

One of the great things at are school is that we have some Fridays off and some Fridays are required. How that works is when we don’t have a required Friday then I can either stay home or I can come to school and I can do remediation. What that is, is when you just work at school or, I can sign up for something to do like for example my favorite things to do are to do scrap booking or in the summer time one of the advisors lives out in the country and was building a suspension bridge and me and a bunch of other students helped him build it or there is pottery or in the winter some of the staff members take some kids ice fishing. So there is a lot of fun activates going on at school.

Another really cool thing is when we have experience week. That is when I can sign up for some activity that I would do for a week. I can pick three of my favorite things out of like ten options I can pick my number one favorite number two and number three. Then the staff members look at everybody’s slip and I might not always get my number one choice but I will usually get one of my three choices. Then once the staff assign everybody’s spots they put the results up and the week after that is usually experience week so if my three choices were pottery, art and poetry and say I got pottery then I spend my time making pottery and glazing them and stuff like that and trust me you learn so much during experience week. We usually have experience week for a week in October and a week in April or May.

Rocketry Day at MNCS

2007-04-30T20:22:00.000-06:00

At MNCS, most of the Fridays during the school year are experience days. Experience Fridays are generally optional, although students are required to attend a certain number over the course of the year, and recieve credit for doing so. On 4/27/07, I helped plan and run a rocketry experience day with Nichole, one of the other advisors at MNCS. Our agenda for the day was fairly loose; we wanted the students to have fun on a beautiful spring Friday while exploring basic rocketry principles. We started the day by having teams of two students construct entry-level model rockets from a small kit from Estes. Once these were assembled, the students began constructing small 32oz pop bottle rockets. These rockets are fired by filling them 1/3 of the way with water, attaching them to a launcher, and then using a bike pump to pump them full of air until they blast off. The smaller pop bottles don't fly real high, but they allowed each student to play around with some ideas and gain some valuable experience for the afternoon activity.

After lunch, the students were grouped into teams of three or four, and tasked with devising a 2-liter bottle rocket that would carry an egg as high as possible, and return it back to the ground intact. The students took to this task with enthusiasm; it was a real joy watching them put their heads together and create some very interesting devices. While my launcher design was less than stellar, a few of the groups did manage to put their payload a good distance into "orbit", and have it safely returned. After the 2-liter launching, we all took to the softball field to launch the model rockets they had assembled earlier in the day. Some of them were spectacular, some were duds, and a few were a little scary (Nichole ended up with a burnt shirt as evidence of the dangers of teaching). In the end everyone had a great time, the teamwork was great, and hopefully the students managed to take home some valuable learning about rocket propulsion and aerodynamic efficiency.

Continuing Education at MIT

2007-04-25T05:32:00.000-06:00

Over the past few months I have been trolling the information superhighway for great educational resources for both students and myself. One of the more interesting possibilities that has been brought to my attention is Open Course Ware from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As part of a broader mission to increase educational opportunities everywhere, MIT has been placing the materials for many of its courses online for no cost. Materials included in the OCW program include course syllabi, lecture notes, reading lists, and assignments; essentially everything except actual video footage of the lecturer. The only costs required to participate are time and the availability of reading materials.
The organization and quality of most materials is excellent; I think the only thing missing is a set of fellow classmates to hash things over with, and a leader to help facilitate discussion. This is where the world wide web comes into play. By organizing an online discussion section using a wiki space or some other electronic medium, people anywhere could be brought together to learn from a common set of learning materials that have already been organized by the fine minds of MIT. We're attempting to engage a couple of older students at MNCS with the OCW program; so far no takers, but with persistence I think that some of our PSEO students might appreciate learning from these college level materials.

I am thinking about working through some of the philosophy courses over the summer, although they wouldn't be nearly as interesting without the benefit of having other participants to discuss the readings with. If anybody is interested in taking an MIT course in morality, justice, or any other OCW course offerings,perhaps Intermediate Applied Economics, post a comment here and I'll work on setting up a discussion space.

Putting Yourself on Display

2007-04-17T18:48:00.000-06:00

One of the challenges that educators face is finding ways to get students to produce quality work. Even in the best of schools, many students complete their school career doing only the minimum required of them to get by. One of the most effective ways to coach quality out of students is to have them put their work on public display. When students know that their friends, family, and complete strangers will be able to see the results of their work, it often gives them the motivation to produce work that will at the very least not be embarrassing, and will hopefully be work that they can take pride in. I have found the same thing to be true of my new blogging experience. Putting what I do on display has given me a little extra incentive (and enjoyment) for doing quality work. At the very least, the fear of public typos has (hopefully) improved my proofreading ability.

This week, one of the students in my advisory has been hard at work developing her own blog into an online gallery for some of the high-quality artwork she does. While this student has already developed a solid reputation as a consistent hard-worker, it is exciting to see her take her work to the next level by displaying it online. I encourage you to take a look at www.vonnieahl.blogspot.com.

Not So Quiet on the Electronic Front

2007-04-13T11:34:00.000-06:00

Over the past several weeks, a group of several students, myself, and a couple of other adults at MNCS have been participating in a reading group two times a week. The book we chose to read is "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque. We chose this particular book in order to introduce interested students to key aspects of global politics in the WW1 era, to teach elements of both European and American history, and to initiate a discussion on the nature of war. During our twice-weekly meetings, we would discuss various aspects of these topics, and examine literary themes that continue throughout the book.

As a final assignment for the group, I created a wiki space at www.nickseducationspot.wikispaces.com and initiated an online discussion-response forum. My goal in doing this was to take an aspect of the internet that students were familiar with only as a social tool, and show them how these technologies could be used to further our knowledge of ourselves and the world around us as well. I posted four discussion prompts on the site, and asked each student to post their own individual response to each prompt, and then respond to everyone else's posts as well. The project has only been underway for a few days now, but so far the student response is encouraging. The students are able to post their thoughts and feelings on difficult topics, as well as share and create new knowledege with each other in a low-pressure environment that allows them to work at their own pace and on their own time. Ultimately I would like to see students at MNCS take these technologies further by branching out on different topics and involving students from different schools in ways that were impractical in years past.

Mandarin Chinese

2007-04-07T13:42:00.000-06:00

Ni Hao! In addition to an economics class, I am also teaching a course on the basics of Mandarin Chinese. Opportunities to learn a foreign language at MNCS are in high demand but are few and far between, so I was happy to utilize my very limited Chinese speaking skills to try and offer a class on 'survival Mandarin'. I studied Chinese for a couple of years at the university level, and while I am far from fluent and have never been to China, I figured I could at least put enough material together to teach students how to introduce themselves in Chinese, and also have some basic knowledge of the numbers and some common food names.
Having no formal training in teaching languages, this course has definitely presented me and the students with a variety of challenges. Students and student teachers are very busy during a typical MNCS school day, so the first major problem we deal with is a severe limitation on the amount of in-class time we get to spend practicing our knew language skills. The class only meets once a week for about 45 minutes, which is not nearly enough time to become even somewhat skilled in a foreign language, especially a language as foreign as Chinese. To give the students more exposure to the spoken language, I found some free lessons in conversational Mandarin podcasts on itunes that each student uses to help practice their listening and pronunciation skills when we are not in class. Also, I struggled trying to get the class off to a sensible start; I realized a few weeks into it that I was totally overwhelming the students with the amount of material I was asking them to learn. We held a class meeting and decided to almost restart the class in a new, scaled back 'Chinese class 2.0'. We have rededicated ourselves to mastering the first four lessons from the podcasts, at the end of which we will all be able to introduce ourselves, ask for a telephone number, and order something to drink and eat. It doesn't sound like much, but given the difficulty of the material, these are still ambitious but manageable goals.
We have a lot of fun in class, so even if we fall short of our learning goals, at the very least I hope the students can take a positive experience working on learning a foreign language from the class. They've certainly realized it takes a lot of work to learn a new language, and I've realized that it takes just as much work to teach one. I'm hoping to get a video clip of the class up on the blog within the next few weeks.

My Economics Class

2007-04-02T20:04:00.001-06:00

Although MNCS is a project-based learning school, they encourage (perhaps require) student teachers to teach classes in their content area during their stay at the school. These classes are optional for students, but are an easy way for them to gain credit in required areas such as science, English, etc. One of the classes I have been teaching is a course on economic thinking; my goal for the class is to increase my student's awareness of how their own individual world operates in terms of economics. We spent the first four weeks of the six-week course examining how scarcity, choices, opportunity costs, and a few other basic economic concepts influence and affect their daily lives. We've applied this new knowledge to a variety of real life decisions that teenagers make, and in doing so learned an effective method for managing complicated and important decisions known as the PACED (Problem, Alternatives, Criteria, Evaluation, Decision) method of cost/benefit analysis. The last two weeks of the class are devoted to learning the rudimentary basics of the free market, and exploring some basic personal finance issues such as credit cards and investing.

Although they are not used to sitting in class for extended periods of time, the students in my classes have been a pleasure to get to know and to work with. In addition to the in-class work, each student is working on a small economics project that they designed around their own personal interests.