Last Wednesday, I was asked to give the Keynote speech at the Oklahoma Technology Association lunch during the Encyclomedia conference in Oklahoma City. It was a chance to introduce some emerging ideas I’ve had for educational reform. Of course, 40 minutes was barely enough time to scratch the surface and bring the activities of the K20 Center into the mix.

Wesley Fryer was kind enough to podcast the talk and post it to his blog. I’ve posted the Powerpoint at Slideshare here. Here are some of the concepts I’ve been working through:

1. I believe technology can greatly assist learning by scaffolding learning at different levels. Kids, as much as NCLB would like to have you believe, do not all learn at the same level. I brought this up by going back to the Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve. It’s not that I like what the book concludes, but I do see statistical facts for what they are. And to force a common testing paradigm on kids across all intelligence levels is simply criminal. As mentioned in a previous post, kids with high intelligence need the opportunities to excel, and kids with low intelligence need proper scaffolding and support the the smarter kids can offer. In the adult world, we work together as a community, finding a place for everyone at all levels (at least we should). We collaborate in order to bring out the strengths in everyone. And we don’t compare each through test taking (except the few weirdos who get into Mensa ;). I never even got to the considerations of multiple intelligences, such as the very important topic of how Emotional Intelligence factors into learning. More posts on how technology can help in that arena later.

2. Engagement is key. Kids today have found technology engages and they are going to great lengths to get their hands on it. During a visit to EA Games in California a couple of years ago, A question was asked about the increasing incidence of Attention Deficit Disorder and computer gaming. The response from one gaming programmer: “We don’t really see that as an issue. A kid will sit and concentrate on a game for 17 hours in a week.” Technology has tremendous power to engage students. A wonderful report recently released by the National School Boards Association (I will post in further detail later) makes a fundamental shift in U.S. education thinking about online social networking: this is not something to be ignored. Kids are using it, learning from it, and schools need to be thinking of ways to engage students with it. Online social networking tools can be summed up in one word: participation. Participation through creative activities online. Students are engaged when they participate and technology makes it happen.

3. How do we move away from our current paradigm of teaching that increasingly ignores differences in how students learn and fails to keep up with emerging technologies that are capturing the undivided attention of kids today? Change must take place in our schools. Change is not an easy process in educational reform, but the K20 Center has found a way that can move a school in the right direction. Development of Professional Learning Communities has found student achievement increases as well as reforms in teaching practice. This is a school-wide cultural change that brings action research into the classrooms, leading to adoption of new pedagogies. But here’s the icing on the cake: technology makes a wonderful catalyst for change. The year-long work of the K20 Center in schools, using technology as a catalyst for change, has proven to be highly effective. And all this without adding content or pushing for more test preparation.

I only take issue with one aspect of the OK-ACTS program: the technology going into the schools has one wonders to engage students, but it has been primarily by taking existing curriculum and presenting it in new and engaging ways. Instead of a lecture, the teachers are making Powerpoint presentations and showing them on Smartboards. They are getting feedback using student response systems. This is not across the board. Some teachers are increasing student participation in the learning process by having the students create the Powerpoints, but it still fails to engage them at their level.

I’m working on it. But I need to find more research on how creativity can raise student achievement. Yuck. I hate having to revert to finding methods that increase test scores, but until NLCB leaves the learning alone, I’ll work with the system. Kudos to Marco Torres for bucking the system. I wish it were so easy for the majority of teachers.