Teachers make a difference. Good teachers recognize your unique talents and “you-ness” and nurture them.

Matt Damon was a keynote speaker at the Save Our School March in Washington DC on July 30th. He was introduced by his mother, who teaches at Lesley University in Boston. His keynote was both eloquent and emotional and has resonated with many across the country and the world.

Here is a brief excerpt from his remarks.

I had incredible teachers.
My teachers were empowered to teach me. My teachers were free to approach me like an individual puzzle. They were allowed to be teachers. [...]

This has been a horrible decade for teachers, and I can’t imagine how demoralized you guys must feel. But I came here today to deliver an important message to you, and I really hope you can hear it. As I get older, I appreciate more and more the teachers that I had growing up, and I’m not alone. There are millions of people just like me. So the next time you are feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope – the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself being called overpaid, the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policies that have been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything, please, please, please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt, we love you, we thank you and we will always have your back.

I keep thinking about his message that millions of people have teachers to thank, in part, for who they have become and they love them. I remember so many teachers who gave me many, many things – keys to discovering and unlocking my passions, encouragement, even financial assistance. So I will write about a few of those special individuals today, to thank them and to thank all teachers who continue the journey with passion, hard work, and little pay or thanks from the politicians and policy-makers. I suggest to all of you, if you ever had a teacher who made a difference in your life, to write a public thank you – let the corporate-minded reformers know that teaching is more than getting students ready for tests.

My thank you list is long, but here are a few of my teachers who I will always remember and who I thank.

In first grade I dislocated my hip and was on crutches for six months. Miss Baldwin, my first grade teacher, carried me up and down the stairs of the Johnson Elementary School in Natick to my classroom every day for six months. She did not want me to fall hopping up and down, which was my plan for navigating the stairs. Having started first grade already reading and writing, Miss Baldwin let me correct spelling tests, help pick the words for the next week, and challenged me with extra credit work all the time, just what I needed.

In fifth grade, Lois Webster was my teacher and I thought she was the coolest. She played the saxophone and encouraged us all to find our creative outlets. Back when differentiation wasn’t even a word common in teachers’ rooms, she found exciting ways for each of her students to get excited about learning. I remember creating floor plans, figuring out areas, designing buildings, and making scale models – she was awesome.

In sixth grade, Mr. Capone was funny and smart and taught me how to play chess. (I already knew the rules and how pieces moved, but I didn’t really know how to play.)

At Coolidge Junior High School, there were many teachers who inspired, challenged, and taught me well. Those who stand out in my memory are Mr. Levinson (science), Miss Mahaney (English), Mr. Giorgi (math), Miss Boyd (phys ed), Mr. Keaney (latin), Miss Tutuny (social studies) and an English teacher whose name escapes me at the moment but who made me laugh and feel special by saying things like, “move along ladies – you, too Miss Tower.”  Mr. Giorgi would deliver a long explanation of how to solve an algebra problem and then ask me how I solved it, knowing it would be slightly different. I love that he respected and enjoyed the differences!

At Natick High School, Mr. Bransfield (math) was the man. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Overlook (both math) still shine as stars in my memory.  Mr. Murray helped keep my love of science alive, reminding us all to stay curious and investigative. In college and graduate school, both at the University of Massachusetts and at Boston University, I continued to be motivated and encouraged by inspiring teachers. One special professor, Dr. Patricia Davidson, even paid for my classes one semester when I said I had to drop out of the Master’s program because I was broke and had a little baby to take care of. She would not hear of it. She could not imagine me being delayed or maybe permanently detoured, for lack of a couple thousand dollars (I was a teaching assistant and tuition was free – it was fees and books I could not afford). She wrote me a check on the spot and told me to pay back whenever I could.

As I think about all of these teachers who I love and need to thank, I recall that they all connected with me as a person – they revealed something of themselves – their passions, their humor, and their humanity and they brought something out in me. They roused my own passions, helped me to discover what I loved, helped me to think about thinking and learning, and made me want to go into education.

Thank you, teachers.

This question, from Scott McLeod‘s blog post, is filled with stats, but the question goes beyond the numbers and pierces the status quo.

The Question:

“7 billion people on the planet; 5 billion cell phones. 2 billion people on the Internet. 500 million people on Facebook. 200 million on Twitter. 85 million on LinkedIn. 5 billion photos on Flickr; 50 billion photos on Facebook. 17 million Wikipedia articles. 500 billion mobile phone apps were downloaded last year. 6.1 trillion text messages were sent last year. Apple will sell 20 million iPads this year. 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute (or 176,000 full-length Hollywood movies each week). When are we going to start integrating technology into our schooling lives like we do in our personal lives and in our non-school professional lives?”

What is stopping us?

Supporting Web 2.0 usage in your school district may seem like an insurmountable task – something Hercules would walk away from. After all, there are SO MANY Web 2.0 applications that schools could use! At GO2WEB20.net, the web applications index, there are 69 pages of web applications like the one below.

With over 3000 apps listed, and apps coming and going on an almost daily basis, it makes sense for school districts to make a plan to support Web 2.0 usage.

Planning should start with reviewing needs and goals. If you have instructional technology specialists and technology committees in your schools, as we do, I suggest that starting with them makes sense. These are the teachers in your district who are embracing technology tools to the extent that they voluntarily serve on a committee.

Once needs are established, review Web 2.0 tools to meet those needs. A small working committee of technology specialists and classroom teachers can weed down the list of promising apps to a “District Web 2.0 Toolkit.”

Limiting the use of Web 2.0 applications to this list is not one of my goals. Teachers are welcome to investigate and use other tools. My goal in creating the Web 2.0 Toolkit is to expand our use of Web 2.0 apps to meet core curriculum and 21st-century skill goals. We want a variety of Web 2.0 tools to be used to address a range of issues. I think we can do this by:

• developing communities of practice
• focusing training and support efforts
• creating “critical mass” groups

Certainly, we can’t offer training and support for the 3000+ Web 2.0 applications on the Internet. Concentrating on our select list means that not only can we better support the tools, but we can count on teachers becoming expert enough to support each other. Most teachers may use only a couple of the tools we choose, but no matter what tools interest someone, they will find collegial coaching and support.

The apps that make it into the Toolkit should enable the goals previously set. For example, there are likely going to be apps to facilitate and support collaboration, personal productivity, group authoring, podcasting, creating multimedia presentations, and blogging. In addition, you may include little apps like Wordle that are already used by educators and students in your district. The Web 2.0 Toolkit should not be considered static –  it isn’t “one and done.” It will evolve and perhaps grow as needs, educator expertise, and available apps change.

The next step is to create a centralized place on your district website to list and link to the apps in your Web 2.0 Toolkit. It makes sense to include a brief blurb about what each app does, and how to get started. If the application is available in only certain schools (for example Google Apps for Education might be set up for your high school but not for the pre-K – 1 school) then state that here as well. I suggest that the “how to get started” information include account setup and links to suggested projects or lessons, or exemplars in your own school district. If you have teachers who are “super users” of an app and are willing to serve as advisers, list their name and school. I find that a powerful way to spread the use of a new tool is teacher to teacher.

In my school district, we have been successfully using Wikispaces Private Label, Google Apps for Education, Doodle, Wordle, Glogster, and Animoto, so as we approach the task of developing our Web 2.0 Toolkit, we’ll start with this list.

How do you manage the glut of Web 2.0 apps in your district?

I was talking to one of my colleagues (another Technology Director in Massachusetts) recently about the different levels of support for technology initiatives we have encountered over the years, especially in terms of support from the superintendent. She is working with a new superintendent who has taken a pretty strong stance on implementing technology, 21st century skills, and embracing digital communications with the community. The message is pretty much that if you don’t know how to do something, speak up and we’ll bring resources to bear for professional development and support, but if you won’t get on board, it would be best for all if you start looking for a job in another school district.

What a great message – if you’re willing to demonstrate continual learning and engage with the goals of the district then the district will help you get there. If you aren’t even willing, the district will help you get out of there. This position demonstrates an understanding that it is no longer optional – if you are an educator or educational administrator, then your feet have to be firmly in the 21st century and you have to be looking ahead. You can’t steer the boat very well if you keep looking at the wake behind you.

But for how many districts is this the case? Do we have a strong and viable vision that looks to the future and do we hold our educators accountable for embracing and engaging in that vision?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jhf/824461180/

People often ask me for help solving technology problems. Sometimes they can’t get the program to do exactly what they think it should do or what they want it to do. Other times, they have an idea of something that “might be possible” and want to brainstorm making it a reality. Regardless of what kind of problem solving is required, there are those people who want ideas about how to approach it and others who want an exact step-by-step recipe. For the most part, I am trying to get out of the recipe business.

Even though it seems like technology has been with us for quite some time already, the shape that it currently takes in schools is relatively new, and will remain “relatively new” because as quickly as we learn one thing it is being replaced with another. We are constant pioneers. The rule of thumb in techno-circles is that the computer you buy today would cost half what you paid in 18 months (or, you could get twice the computer for the same money). Web technologies, software applications, and information peripherals (scanners, cameras) are changing just as quickly. We can let this speed of change paralyze us into inaction or we can meet the challenge in a way that reinforces our image as educators. We can develop a “recipe” that means that when there is an operating system or software upgrade we are near tears with the thought of having to change. Or, we can become lean, mean learning machines, never afraid of taking on a new technology because we have practiced our approach, our learning stance.

The best educators are constantly teaching, learning and relearning – they refine their pedagogy, hone their practice, and reflect on their students and curriculum all the time. Educators need to add another learning dimension to their repertoire. They must become adept at confronting and taming new technologies – rather than learn a recipe-like approach (push that button, click this icon) teachers must build a foundation of skills that will serve them when the next technological advance comes. They need to know how to approach new technologies and to feel safe to take some risks using them. Teachers need to help students do the same. Economists predict that 80% of the jobs that our current third graders will have available when they graduate from college do not even exist now. Surely, the technology and software to do these jobs doesn’t exist yet either. The important skills they will need, therefore, do not revolve around specific platforms or applications, but around a strong understanding of and approach to technology in general, as well as a solid foundation in understanding what technology can do for them.

The task of figuring out new technologies and software applications isn’t going to go away – as soon we learn one application or one way of doing something, we could already be learning the “next best thing.” We must equip ourselves and our students with the skills and the mindset to approach new technologies rather than depend on recipes. We should expect to be in constant learning mode, modeling that for our students.

NBC is hosting an interactive summit on the state of education in America – Education Nation.

The summit was September 27th and 28th, and more events are happening all week. The web site says, “During the entire week of September 26th, NBC News will highlight education stories as well as broadcast live from the Plaza.” I haven’t heard or read too much about it on the news.

I am, however,  finding lots of information on the Education Nation web site:

An Education Nation scorecard
The scorecard is interactive and you enter your school and see test results and other data, including state comparisons.

Video: Shayne Evans, director of Chicago Charter School’s Woodlawn Campus, and Shmuel Meitar, founder and principal of “Time to Know” discussing whether schools are embracing technology.
This is a brief video and both guests agree that technology is very important – a critical tool.

Video: NYC pushes to revamp teacher tenure
In an interview Mayor Bloomberg explains how NY has gone after the tenure. For example, he says that if NYC has to lay off teachers they do not want to use last in, first out, but rather, exit the lowest performing teachers.

Video: PANEL: How public schools can attract good apples
A panel discusses attracting and retaining high quality teachers.

Video: Tom Brokaw Talks to Arne Duncan
This is a 41 minute video. Secretary Duncan talks to Tom Brokaw and answers the questions of college students. He announced a national campaign to attract the “next generation” of talent and the launch the associated web site teach.gov.

From Monday, there is a video of Teacher Town Hall, hosted by Brian Williams.
This video is 86 minutes and teachers participate live and through remote video connections.

Do you have any expectations for the event? What do you hope comes out of it?

I have only three small wishes.
One is that Education Nation keeps education on the national agenda as an important topic. I believe that it’s good to have more people passionate about education and engaged in an improvement process.

The second is that Education Nation gets conversations going about the importance of technology and 21st century skills in education. I can’t believe this is even a question.

The third is that I hope the ensuing conversations don’t make the mistake of blaming educators for anything everything that is wrong with the system. So many people (even Arne Duncan) seem to make an attribution error – that it’s the dedicated people in the education system that make it imperfect and not things like lack of funding.

So how about you? Do you expect any good to come of Education Nation?

In recent weeks I have attended a couple of luncheons in honor of colleagues retiring from other school districts. At one lunch there were three Technology Directors with 40, 41, and 43 years of experience in education, all retiring at the end of this school year. At the next was a Technology Director retiring after 30 years in education. I feel like I’m in a MasterCard advertisement – -

Combined years in education: 154

Number of School days: 27,720

How old they must have been when they started teaching: 14

The accumulated wisdom and experience: PRICELESS

There is nothing “retiring” about any one of them, so I choose to talk about moving to chapter two, rather than retirement. I wish all four of them the very best as they embark on chapter two. They’ve already given so much, it seems almost unfair to ask them to keep giving, but I do hope that their plans include mentoring freshly minted Technology Directors. And, if they decide to offer professional development as a part-time gig I will be the first to enlist their services for my school district. It would be a shame to lose all of that knowledge, insight, humor, generosity, and judgment. I mean you can’t fish or play golf or take photos or travel ALL the time.

We grow as a profession when the best take the time to nurture the novices. My guess is that they will be only an email away to those who take their positions and to the rest of us who will continue to elicit their opinions. Good luck to them all, and to those who have to try to fill their shoes.

President Obama is going to address students this week. The White House has released the text of his prepared remarks. I have been amazed that some parents, across the country, have made this a controversial issue. Having read his speech, I am not just amazed, but sad that some students might miss this powerful message just because some adults are politicizing the moment.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Tomaz Lasic comments, in his blog post entitled, How can Moodle change a school ,  on the “one big thing” he would bring to his school as a technology facilitator.

“Before starting to work as a part-time technology integrator at our school this year, the principal asked me to come up with one ‘thing’, one key strategy for staff and students to ICT to improve their teaching and learning. After seeing the flexibility, robustness and ‘organic’ nature of Moodle the choice was pretty simple to make.”

Read the entire post at: http://human.edublogs.org/2008/08/06/how-can-moodle-change-a-school/

I love his answer, but find myself resisting it. I, too, am enthusiastic about using Moodle in my school district. As a matter of fact, Moodle is the latest in a series of tools that I have been promoting in schools. In the mid-nineties I put together a consortium of six school districts to work together with Lotus-IBM and a developer to create an online education space that we called Compass. It was an internet-intranet for collaborating, asynchronous discussions, and posting news and assignments. We managed to involve the support of IBM-Lotus to the extent that they donated Lotus Notes to each of the consortium districts and committed an advisor from their education sector to work with us.

We received some funding from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) to help defray development costs. A member of the ESE visited us and was so impressed that within weeks they had their own RFP out to develop the same thing on a state-wide basis. It was known as VES (Virtual Education Space), a name that came directly from our description of our project. VES, which was never adequately funded or supported with sufficient staff, has since morphed into MassOne, an online education space for all public school educators in Massachusetts. The lack of sufficient resources in the past created both some real unreliability as well as a more widespread perception that it was unreliable. Only time will tell whether it can fully overcome its past issues and reputation, especially in light of the stiff (and free and reliable) competition from Moodle, Wikis, and blogs.

My own project (Compass) never really took wing and soared, although we had some successes. I think that educators were not ready at the time; it was a concept that still needed to ripen for many of our teachers. Of course, it was about fifteen years ago, but I still recall that one of the primary obstacles that teachers said kept them from wanting to use it was that they had to log in, and that was one step too many. We have come a long way since then.

I share this background to positively affirm the extent to which I support online learning spaces (like Moodle). I do this so that I can respectfully explain why I find myself so resistant to the idea that the “one big thing” could be software or hardware at all. I think that the “one big thing” that I would ask of a school, would not be about any specific tool. Instead it would be to use technology to further COLLABORATION. I would encourage communicating and sharing among and between groups – teachers, students, and parents. It’s not about the tool – it’s about the collaboration. In fact, I bet Tomaz Lasic would agree, and I’m sure his blog post was describing a specific answer to a question that was actually expecting a “tool” answer. I think I have answered similarly many times. My point is simply that I am going to (try) to refuse to be drawn into conversations that are tool-focused when they should be learning-centered;  I will try to shift those conversations more and more toward student learning, communication, collaboration, and contributing online.

This is easy in principle, but not always easy in practice. Lots of planning and budget meetings I attend seem to gravitate toward talking about technology programs as numbers of computers, age of computers, bandwidth, and operating system. I am pledging to myself that instead of sighing inwardly, I will make more of an effort to shift the conversation to include learning outcomes. Sometimes we have to talk about the hardware and the software, but we can’t stop there.

I think it was Bill Moyers who said, “Sharing is the essence of teaching. It is, I have come to believe, the essence of civilization.”

That could be the battle cry of edubloggers.

The ISTE NETS section on Communication and Collaboration appears below.

“Communication and Collaboration
Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance,
to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. Students:
a. interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments
and media.
b. communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
c. develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of other cultures.
d. contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems.”

excerpt from:

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS_for_Students_2007_Standards.pdf

I n our school district, we have been engaging in conversations around homework. Many questions have been raised. What is the purpose of homework? Are assignments differentiated? Is there a consistent framework or guidelines that are discernible by parents and students?

Many times during the conversations, I thought about how technology can help the homework “situation.” Technology can be used to open avenues for parents to be involved and informed. Teachers can offer a choice of assignments and let students select ways to practice or show their mastery of a topic or unit, and technology can open up many choice possibilities. Of course, technology can be used to facilitate collaboration. Teachers could be creating and facilitating online discussions, classroom blogs, wikis, and more. I’ve watched secondary level students collaborate on a project while each sat at their own computer. A combination of Adobe Buzzword , Skype , and instant messaging made working together, from "remote" locations, possible.

Arguably, there are so many good examples of using technology for assignments and offering students a choice of performance tasks (translate: differentiated) that rather than write more about the topic myself, I thought I would share a few links that contribute to the discussion as examples.

http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/Choice+Boards
This link is to a wiki called Dare to Differentiate. There are lots of great resources here. There are templates (like Tic Tac Toe choice board and RAFT Assignments) and background information and guidelines for use.

http://apcalc2008.blogspot.com/
This is an AP Calculus blog. The teacher and blogmeister says about his site:
"A view through the walls of our classroom. This is an interactive learning ecology for students and parents in my AP Calculus class. This ongoing dialogue is as rich as YOU make it. Visit often and post your comments freely."
This is worth a visit to see a good classroom blog in action.

http://millersenglish10.blogspot.com/
This is a good example of an English classroom blog.

Read Carol Ann Tomlinson , who writes compellingly about differentiation.
You could start with an article at: http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/MiddleGround/August2005/Article1
/tabid/339/Default.aspx

"Use differentiated homework. When everyone in the class has exactly the same homework assignment, some students will likely only be doing busy work because they have already mastered what they’ve been asked to practice, while some other students simply have no idea how to do the required work. Differentiated homework can provide a great opportunity for students to "work backwards" to master missing skills, to extend content to challenge advanced learners, and to link applications of content to student interests."

One last point – I think all school districts need to discuss and develop policies around homework. A simple Google search for "homework policy" yields more than 8 millions hits. These may be a good starting point for brainstorming ideas about what might be included in an effective homework policy, but nothing can substitute going through the process of developing a "home grown" policy and periodically reviewing and revising that policy. The process will surface attitudes, anxieties, misconceptions, and expectations.