George+Blair

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I am sure all of you are familiar with the pain & desperation of trying to get this multimedia project. Just when I was about to turn my computer into a paper weight & run screaming into the night, everything finally came together. Yes, there is a bit of an echo on the videos, and the timing is off a little in a few places, but the Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint) was done. All I had to do was convert it to a Quicktime file so that any computer will play the presentation & upload it to the wiki & I am done. But I descended into the 7th level of hell when the file was too big to upload to the wiki. So.......I uploaded the file to my personal school website & put in a link to it below. It has several movie clips in it, so it is slow to load.====== [|Click Here] to go to my Personal Learning Philosophy.

Disrupting Class Review
Christensen, C.M., Horn, M.B., & Johnson, C.W. (2008). //Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.// Chicago: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishers.

Clayton Christensen, a Harvard business professor & author of several well-received books on innovations in business, has written an intriguing book that examines the problems of public schools and then applies his business-related theories to solving those problems. Although not specifically trained in education, the author quickly establishes his ability to examine the problems related to raising student performance in public schools. His expertise is founded in two key areas that are relevant to educational innovation: first, he quickly shows that current business practice can be effective in analyzing institutional problems from the outside rather than the inside, and second, the concept that analyzing institutional inertia is the same in any bureaucratic institution, whether it is based on a business or an educational model. Using a variety of real life examples from both the business world and education, Professor Clayton clearly shows that effective change cannot occur from within any given institution. The basic goals of any institution always include gradual improvement in their product and self-preservation. It is the understandable goal of self-preservation, the author argues, that prevents an institution from making any meaningful change from within their own structure. Professor Clayton proposes the use of his theory of innovation called “destructive innovation”, in which meaningful change can only come from outside the existing organization. Interestingly, he discusses the fact that no modern company would attempt to make meaningful changes within the company while trying to maintain product production. Yet this is exactly what today’s educational institutions are trying to do. Schools are required to continue the education of their students while attempting to make changes to meet ever-changing national & state standards, new demands from the public, shifts in teaching theory, and accommodate the demands of new generations of students and parents. The author praises public schools for their success in accomplishing this task when most businesses would not even attempt the changes in the first place. Despite these incremental successes, Professor Christensen argues that schools will never be able to make the meaningful institutional changes necessary to meet the future demands of students who are fundamentally different than those students who preceded them. In the end, the author reaches the conclusion that the only way for public schools to make the disruptive changes necessary to meet their future goals is to set up schools outside of the current public educational system. He believes that the process will begin with loss of programs in public schools due to declining tax revenue and reduced state budget support for public education. As schools cut programs, other sources will develop to meet the unsatisfied demand for these lost educational opportunities. Professor Christensen believes that computer technology will quickly develop that will fill the gap created by these lost courses. He shows that courses such as Advanced Placement, Dual Credit, foreign language, and computer technology courses can be effectively offered through online sources. The author also believes that new schools will spring up to offer courses and innovative teaching methods that will be unavailable in public school. Professor Christensen envisions two sources of these new, more innovative schools. First, through the use of charter schools who are free of traditional educational restrictions, and second, the establishment of model schools within existing educational systems that can use and showcase new methods of teaching and administration. The author makes a convincing argument that until schools are free of the institutional restrictions that hold them back and prevent them from exploring non-traditional educational solutions, they will never be able to make the innovative changes necessary to meet future demands.

As I read Professor Christensen’s book, I found myself nodding and smiling to myself. “Finally,” I thought, “Someone who understands the basic problems involved in making meaningful changes in education.” The problems that he identifies are right on the mark. He has identified and quantified every single obstacle involved in changing public education. His discussion of disruptive innovation, along with the concrete business examples he provides, is clear and easy to understand. Deep inside every public school educator is the awareness that fundamental changes are necessary and that all of the current changes in education are nothing more than a Band-Aid on the problem. The information in this book cannot fail to strike a chord in the mind and heart of every educator. My one disappointment with Dr. Christensen’s conclusions is the fact that his primary recommendation is to turn to charter schools as an answer for the educational ills of America. Although charter schools would seem to be an irrefutable conclusion to the facts discussed in this book, I have several problems with this conclusion. First, education is an institution that has resisted change for the last 200 years. We still run on a annual calendar that is more effective for farmers than it is for today’s modern world. What makes the author think that schools would willingly abrogate their power and student base to charter schools in the name of educational innovation? Second, the track record of charter schools in Texas has been less than exemplary. The TAKS failure rate in most charter schools is at least as high as it is in public schools. This highlights the fact that, without meaningful changes in the public laws that administer the educational system in the United States, there cannot be meaningful changes in either public or publicly chartered schools. As long as the stakes remain high for educational institutions should they fail to meet the demands of lawmakers, then there will always a reluctance to do anything other than make minor changes in how we teach. Charter schools, if they attempt to meet the same requirements as their public counterparts, will have no choice other than to use teaching methods similar to those used in public schools. Without a concrete plan to effectively make the demands of lawmakers more flexible, then Professor Christensen’s recommendations fall short of the mark. I would have much rather he dealt with the realities of public education by making concrete suggestions that lie within the current educational & governmental environment, such as the model school concept he discusses as his second choice for the innovative disruption concept. What the author needs to overcome is the fact that model school concepts circulate around public education like bags of M and M candy. There is a new model every day. What education needs is an effective model for our schools, and a method to convince lawmakers to allow us to make these changes long-term without fear of legislative sanction. I think most educators know, deep down inside, what changes need to be made in our schools. We also know the obstacles that we face in meeting those goals. While this book does a good job reinforcing this knowledge, it does little to provide an effective solution.

Bauerlein, Mark. (2009) //The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).// New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today.” -Hesiod (Greek Philosopher, 8th Century BCE)

Mark Bauerlein, a professor at Emory University, has written a detailed examination of the negative effects of interactive, personal technology on today’s young people. Although computers & other personal technology have long been touted by many educational experts & researchers as the wave of the future in education, Dr. Bauerlein provides convincing proof that these innovations are actually destroying the ability for young people to think & disrupting their ability to function in society. Using a comprehensive litany of authoritative studies and research, the author quickly confirms the alarming decline in knowledge and skills in the academic and cultural fields of history, math, science, technology, and fine arts. This “knowledge deficit” continues to increase despite the almost universal belief that technology will lead us to a new, golden period of learning and education. The author then documents the rapid decline in the traditional reading skills of today’s young people. Once again using an astounding list of studies and research, the decline in reading ability in young people is correlated to a general decline in the number of books read and a general malaise concerning all things educational. Dr. Bauerlein examines the massive use of technology by young people and then explains why this use doesn’t translate into an increased ability to learn. Although young people know how play games and send text messages, the general decline in the ability of teenagers to use technology to gather and process useful data is documented by a variety of studies. The author then shows how the “screen time” of today’s young people does not translate into any type of measurable learning. In fact, Bauerlein accuses gaming and personal technology use for preventing today’s youth from becoming socialized into acceptable cultural norms. Because of the non-stop use of technology, young people are being deprived of traditional American values that would be learned in face-to-face social interactions that are absent in today’s online transactions. In the end, Dr. Bauerlein lays the blame for these unnerving developments at the feet of American educators. Citing many examples of educators who have embraced technology as the wave of modern education, the author believes that today’s leaders in education have aided and abetted this transformation of our youth into dumb people. Instead of providing educational leadership in this time of crisis, the author believes that educators, teachers, and administrators have mistakenly embraced the false promise of technology.

After reading page after page of over-whelming scientific evidence, it is hard not to join Dr. Bauerlein in his conclusion that society and education are rapidly going to hell in a hand basket. Yet, I could not shake the feeling that the author was trying too hard to convince the reader of his point. As I read this book, I often had the feeling that I was watching a magician who uses misdirection to convince us that what we see must be believed. Upon closer examination of the over-whelming research in this book, along with Dr. Bauerlein’s “inescapable” conclusions, it becomes obvious that the same data may also lead to other, equally plausible explanations and conclusions. Like the man who can’t see the forest for the trees, the author’s biases cause him to seize one conclusion while ignoring equally valid conclusions from the same data. For instance, Dr. Bauerlein cites studies that show a rapid decline in recreational reading among college students as evidence that technology has taken away the desire and ability for students to read as a means of self-improvement. He uses similar evidence to reach the same conclusion about high school students. I don’t know about the author, but the reading required by my college courses reached a level that I didn’t even want to see a book during whatever free time I had, much less read one. I would also submit that state school boards, responding to the academic requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind program, have increased high school graduation requirements to the point that high school has become a hyper-intensive zone where students are bombarded with a never-ending litany of information to learn. Sports, band, fine arts, and industrial arts classes, once the place where students could seek refuge from their studies, have now begun to disappear under the demands of federal mandates and diminished school budgets. It’s no mystery that students now seek the diversion of technology and gaming in an effort to relieve the constant pressure of today’s schools. While it is certainly possible to find students who don’t care about education, society, and reading, we must remember that America has always had these students. Today we call them skaters and gamers, while in the past they were known as hippies, beatniks, flappers, or the lost generation. And during the entire history of America, college professors have always complained about the preparation and caliber of the students they get as freshmen. Yet somehow, a large number of these ill-prepared students always seem to graduate from college. It has only been since 1960s that Americans began to believe in the idea that everyone can succeed, especially in school. Now that a college education is accessible to most people, colleges eagerly accept a much larger number of students than in previous decades. I believe this means that that colleges are now accepting students with lower academic achievement in order to fill their ever-increasing classes. Is it any wonder that we have 50% of incoming college freshmen fail to graduate? Only in the era of "any child can succeed" would people be alarmed that academically inferior students don't pass college. The No Child Left Behind program is the federal manifestation of the idea that any child can succeed. According to this program, public schools are told that an “acceptable” school will have 100% of their students pass the grade-level, state-mandated knowledge and skills test by the year 2014. Is this even statistically possible?

In the end, I do agree with Dr. Bauerlein’s conclusion that educators are to blame for the current educational crisis, but for different reasons. Citing studies that show students don’t know how to use technology to find information and draw conclusions or inferences from the same information, Dr. Bauerlein reaches the erroneous conclusion that students simply don’t care to know how to perform these tasks. As an educator, I wonder if these failures aren’t a failure to learn, but rather a failure to teach. I would argue that teachers often fail to teach the appropriate use of educational technology either because they assume students already know how to use it or because the teachers themselves don’t know how to use it. How many educators actually believe that an ability to send a text message on an iPhone automatically translates into the ability to find, document, and appropriately use information found in Google? How many educators never teach the appropriate ways to use tools such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint because they believe the students already know how to use them? Do “old school” teachers realize that using a SmartBoard & multimedia projector to show a PowerPoint presentation is exactly the same as using an overhead projector? Do “old school” teachers know how to use cutting edge technology to teach students the skills required in college? I think the answers are obvious. In either case, we end up with students who are proficient in using personal technology, but unskilled in the use of informational technology for gathering and interpreting data, and reaching conclusions. Technology by itself is not a magic solution for the many challenges in education, nor is it the great evil claimed by Dr. Bauerlein. Modern technology is a powerful part of the educational arsenal, but, like any tool, it must be used appropriately as a part of a comprehensive plan that uses a variety of instructional techniques. No single tool can possibly be a complete solution to any problem. The use of modern technology in education holds many promises and it is time that educators learn how to use it effectively. As former General of the Army Omar Bradley once said, “If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”

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Prensky, Mark (2006). //“Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning”//. St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House.

In an age when we are constantly bombarded with information about the negative effects of the overuse of technology by young people, Mark Prensky has written a provocative book that claims that the opposite is true. Focusing specifically on the use of games and gaming, the author makes a strong case for claiming that technology is not only beneficial, but may actually reshape the brain to allow complex, higher-order thinking. Using a variety of written sources and experiential evidence, Prensky asserts that the changes made to a student’s brain by gaming and the use of technology make it almost impossible for them to do well in a traditional academic setting. He argues that schools must adapt and change their teaching methods to meet these new learning styles or they will be unable to teach these newly rewired students.

Mr. Prensky identifies his goals early in his book: First, to peak into the hidden world of gaming, and second, to understand the positive aspects of gaming. The first few chapters of the book seek to dispel the negative perception held by most parents that computer games are just a fun way to waste a great deal of time. The games played by today’s young people are much more complex than those of their parents and required an entirely new set of mental skills to complete. The difference between the skill set used by young people and older people to play games is so pronounced that he has coined two terms to describe the differences: “digital native” for those who grew up using technology and “digital immigrant” for those who learned to use technology later in life. Mr. Prensky presents a variety of scientific evidence to show that long-term use of these interactive, multi-player games actually reshapes the brain and changes the way the player learns. He further claims that the compelling nature of the learning and skills required in today’s games make traditional education and “drill and kill” educational games ineffective in teaching these new students. Dismissing parental fears about the violent nature of many of today’s games, Prensky describes the necessity of having parents participate in the gaming experience to act as a counterbalancing influence to the violence found in many games. As proof of his statements that violent games don’t increase violence in teens, he cites statistics that show that societal violence has diminished as teenage gaming has gone up.

As the reader moves deeper into the book, the information becomes more technical. There is a lengthy discussion of brain neuroplasticity and its effects on the learning capabilities of today’s gaming youth. Among the benefits gained through gaming are an increased attention span (for things the person likes to do) and a heightened ability to reflect on decisions and outcomes. Prensky cites a variety of testimonial evidence, including a surgeon who claims that their surgical ability is enhanced through gaming. As further evidence of the learning that can be achieved through gaming, the author discusses the use games and simulations in training new recruits for both the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps. The many ways digital immigrants learn and do things differently than younger digital natives are fully explored and discussed. The last portion of the book is essentially a testimonial by the author about the benefits of gaming with his children. He seems to believe that gaming is way for parents and children to share and grow together in ways that might not be possible otherwise.

Reading this book was like watching a James Bond movie: It’s fun to watch and enjoy the technology applied in new and exciting ways, but if you stop to think about what is really happening you begin to see the fictitious nature of the story. The nature of the information in the book is telegraphed by the author’s self-description in the Introduction as being “not a psychologist or professor by training.” His expressed goal for the book, also listed in the Introduction, is to “peek into the hidden world into which your kids disappear when they are playing computer games.” It is obvious that this book has been written to bridge the gap between immigrant parents and their native, gaming-playing children. Prensky presents a very compelling story buoyed by testimonials from a variety of PhDs, scientists, surgeons, military technologists, and game designers. Although a lot of the information in the book has an academic feel to it, we readily find that scientific evidence of any kind is missing from this story. One example is the surgeon who claims that he makes 40% fewer mistakes during surgery because he is an active gamer. How is it possible to measure mistakes you don’t make? The author claims that as violence in games has gone up, the amount of violent crime in the United States has gone down. But he offers no evidence of a connection between gaming and crime reduction. Most scientific studies I have seen link the decrease in violent crime with an improvement in the economy. Perhaps there is less of a connection here than we think. The use of gaming as a training aid for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps would seem to be credible evidence until the reasons for its use are understood. The military has found that the reading level of most of our recruits is so low that they cannot learn by reading a manual. Training methods were forced to change because of the low academic level of most recruits and budget cutbacks. New recruits use gaming to simulate combat simply because its cheaper and easier to learn by trainees with low academic skills. The low-level reading skills have forced the military to teach traditional academic information through the use books similar to “graphic comics.”

This book is based on an interesting and compelling idea, but it would be much more credible if the author’s assertions were supported by scientific evidence and educational studies. I can only assume that these studies were not considered for use in this book because they don't support Mr. Prensky's ideas. I think the concepts of brain-based learning provide a much clearer look into the future of education rather than the assertions in this book. The best use of this book is as a means for "immigrant" parents to peak into the little understood world of technology inhabited by their "native" children". Educators must prepare their students to be a valuable part of today’s society, and students who are high-level learners only for “things they like” are not going to be successful in the "real" world. Tomorrow's schools will feature a comprehensive educational plan that incorporates a variety of proven educational technologies, including the daily use of current technology by students at all levels. And, as Mr. Prensky points out, we dinosaurs from the non-digital age will continue to struggle making lessons that effectively use the newest technologies. But don't despair, we are quick learners.