EdTechTrek

Gary Stager talks about his hopes for school and schooling in the new documentary film, imagine it!² The Power of Imagination. On his blog, he describes it as being “about connecting imagination and creativity with science and engineering in education.” The vision that he recounts seems so foreign to much of what we currently see in education… so foreign to what my own students see in their local field placements… so foreign to what they learn about in many of their classes. I enjoy many of these same conversations with my students, yet realize that much work needs to be done in order for them to advocate for these types of powerful learning environments. Listen to Gary as he puts this into words. What’s your vision for school?


I’m curious as to what emotions and thoughts are stirred up in you as you watch this video. What progress have we made in this regard? Where are we yet struggling to see this realized? What remains impractical in public education? Why?

Imagine a national search for the very best teachers, Idol-syle… minus the media hype. This unique charter school’s founder, Zeke Vanderhoek, pared down over 600 applications and personally interviewed one hundred of them. He then visited the top 35 applicants and observed them teaching in their classrooms – whatever they happened to be. The Equity School will open with the final 8 faculty and 120 low academic performing fifth graders with plans to expand after that.

What were some of the attributes that got applicants hired?
- Passion
- Excitement & contagious enthusiasm
- Skillfulness
- Expertise
- Practice that matched the “golden résumé”

To cut costs, the school will have no deans, substitute teachers, assistants, and teachers will work longer hours, more days, as well as have more students. There will be no job security and teachers can be “fired at will”.

Teachers will be paid… wait for it … … $125,000/yr. – not to mention up to $25,000 in performance-based bonuses in the second year.

I love this quotation from one of the hired teachers though:

“This could be unsettling were it not for the excitement of working with a team of master teachers, all of whom are motivated to help every student succeed, with no excuses and no blame.”

So, would you want to work in such an environment where passion, enthusiasm, creativity, skillfulness, expertise, personal accountability, and a love of learning permeated everything that takes place?

It will be interesting to see what transpires here, but there are certainly some key ingredients here for a wonderful school. The salary is certainly eye-catching, but notice the money is not being spent on interactive white boards and other “high-tech” accoutrements… yet. The initial investment is in the teachers themselves.

I like that.

I love how the following statement along with one of the conclusions of Higher Education in a Web2.0 World is worded:

…

Are you seeing your students as an impetus for change? I’m not seeing it all that much yet with my students, but I am salivating for the day when it happens on a grand scale! Bring it [them] on!

So, as your life becomes more and more digital…

…and the lives of your students, and perhaps children, become more and more digital…

it becomes increasingly imperative that we all understand the implications, and yes, the ramifications of the digital tracks that we leave behind. To me, in one sense, this becomes a fantastic challenge… as the image below communicates. When we begin to understand the power that we hold and the reach that our online

activities have, the challenge becomes to live up to that potential. The students that we teach need to get this. Many adults need to get this. I am still working on getting this.

Yes, we all make mistakes and realize just how easy it is to mess up. But as I told one of my students the other day as we discussed these messy issues, if one lives with integrity, any messups are largely recoverable. If one lives recklessly, the dirty footprints that we leave on-line will end up haunting us potentially forever. Sure, you can hire one of the new companies that have emerged, online reputation managers, but they can’t work magic.

So, what better challenge than to publish worthy and quality intellectual property… to leave digital footprints that reflect, as the image above states, “good stuff”. Being “googleable” can mean searching oneself and finding nothing, mediocre to bad “stuff”, or excellence. In our present digital landscape, the first two results are not desirable in the least. For our students, this concept is quickly becoming imperative.

For many, this becomes problematic on school time, as completed worsheets are going to impress no one if published on-line. Publishing school fights, pranks, or other acts of lunacy on YouTube fills the void.

And beware… repercussions can be just a tweet away.