Changing Paradigm

I was talking with one of our teachers the other day who shared a very valid concern over some ideas I was sharing about "new literacy" and what our students will need to be able to do when they leave school.

She agreed that what kids needed to know has changed but has many concerns about how we are assessing students...especially at the state level. How can we teach new literacy skills while still maintaining high testing scores.

I think the answer lies in a total transformation of classroom practices. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Typically, when a teacher plans a lesson with higher-order thinking skills in mind, most of the lower-orders skills that others would focus on are still achieved.

This theory will work well in many categories where tests tend to required more than just factual recall. Requiring students to think critically in history, may not result in students knowing the answer to questions such as "when did the war of 1812 begin?"

This is all dependant on what types of questions are assessed in standardized tests.

Oh well, looks like I have some more homework. I think I need to take a closer look at what types of things are required in our state standardized tests.

Happy Saturday!

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The History of Education...

The History of Education...

Just the beginning...starting at the end

This is my first blog!!!

The title, The History of Education..., is actually shortened (due to space limitation in the name field). If I had my choice it would read:

The History of Education, and why NONE of it matters!

As a "technology integration specialist" at a middle school in Ohio, I have developed a unique perspective on learners and learning style.


The title of the blog is actually the title of a book that I hope to finish at some time. I have the introduction complete, and a few chapter ideas, but nothing is finished. I hope to look at some traditional educational practices that have been about for years (and years and years and years) and speak a little on why these practices will once and for all become obsolete and/or ineffective.

I have pasted the introduction to the book below...maybe by getting the information out in the open, I will be a little more motivated to move forward.


Funny...my first post after the intro was going to talk about distributed intelligence and how all of our knowledge seems to be more and more at our fingertips at any place and time.

I was attempting to access my introduction on this laptop. I didn't have a copy here, so my first thought was to go to my school's ftp site. I keep quite a bit of stuff there that I want to access periodically. That in itself it interesting...

The internet as we know it started as a way to transfer files. "Ftp - file transfer protocol" seems to be the forgotten predecessor which has paved the way for html and all of its web friends. An oldie but a goodie, ftp has saved me many times.

This time it didn't. I didn't have the file there either. No problem...I have my USB thumb disk in my bag...it has to be there! Again, no luck. Again, no problem...I have my Palm Zire also in my bag. It will actually be the best bet since it is continuously synchronized with my laptop at school. All I will have to do is beam it to my laptop here, ctrl-c, ctrl-v, and I am finished!

WRONG! Couldn't get a good connection! I think my beamer might be going bad on my palm pilot.

So, instead of looking at my introduction to my book, I have resorted to discussing the topic of distributed cognition/intelligence.

First brought to my attention through the works of Roy Pea, I believe this in one of the educational theories that is truly coming to fruition. Technology is allowing us the opportunity and structure for sharing information easier than ever before (unless by infrared!)

Email, blogs, web pages, vpn, collaborative environments...

All methods for sharing information (read: knowledge) with others and also with ourselves.

Sorry, I must be going, my alarm on my cell phone is going off. It is reminding me of a meeting early in the morning. I guess all of my distributed cognition did not fail tonight!



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