education – Page 10

Students need freedom to develop critical skills with edtech

My first question when working with teachers and the technology they have available in their classrooms is, “what do you want the kids to create?”

And when we look at the 4 Shifts protocol, this question from the technology infusion section is also essential:

Does technology add value so that students can do their work in better or different ways than are possible without technology?
– 4 shifts protocol

When students can use technology to create, I hope they have been equipped with the necessary training to use that technology effectively. Otherwise, there’s trouble.

I’ve come to the realization that technology will have its greatest impact in the classroom when educators allow learners to use digital technology as a self-directed learning tool. This means not just providing students with laptops and online resources, but ensuring they have the necessary skills to find, validate, apply, and curate the vast amount of information now available to them.
Rick Cave, eSchool News

Just for the Sake of Being Creative

Sometimes, you just have to do things to flex that creative muscle.

“Do things that light your soul on fire and that help you fall in love with your life every single day. I had no clue when I started making content that I was going to be met with so much love in a place that is notorious for being unloving: the internet. do not filter yourself do not make yourself a version of you that you think is more palatable, digestible, lovable… don’t filter the humanity and the personality out of yourself. we already have that version of you. it’s everywhere. it is everywhere. we don’t want that version of you. we want you to make content that makes you happy, that fills a creative void in your life. Do things for creative sake just because you love doing them. Don’t try and monetize everything. Don’t make every hobby a side hustle, don’t make every hobby a job, just do things because you love them and watch your life just like change. you are suddenly doing things because they make you happy, and that’s a really, really powerful thing.”
Elyse Meyers

The Eclectic Educator is a free resource for everyone passionate about education and creativity. If you enjoy the content and want to support the newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps keep the insights and inspiration coming!

All your base are belong to us

Hey, y’all. We’re nearing the end of March, and for many public schools, that means Spring Break is near (or maybe already arrived). It’s a very busy time for educators as one school year ends, and plans for the next are already taking shape.

My hope for you as we approach the end of another school year is that you take the time to take care of yourself. You cannot pour from an empty cup, and it’s easy to get caught up in all the things at the end of the school year.

Take a beat, catch a deep breath, and center yourself. Rediscover what is really important to you and what you can control.

“We have so little control over our lives. The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on.” – Austin Kleon

Anyways, here are ten things I thought were worth sharing with you this week:

10 Things Worth Sharing

I worked with a senior English class this week, showing them some AI tools. They might write a book.
Here’s a curated list of prompts, tools, and resources regarding the GPT-4 language model.
Wanna learn financial literacy? This 300-page book was written completely with ChatGPT.
The TikTok trial is a mess and is only proving that the US government is targeting this specific company over other social media platforms. Any issues with TikTok are the same with Facebook, Instagram, Snap, and many others.
What is the right amount of agency to give to learners during their interactions with EdTech? Blog post and paper
Are you a Wordle fan? I’m totally not, but I’ve also never liked Scrabble. Not that you care. Here’s Every Possible Wordle Solution Visualized
An AI course creator – according to the page: “Start with a description and let AI-Assistant offer title and outline suggestions.”
You might be violating copyright in your classroom. Maybe.
Bill Gates explains why AI is as revolutionary as personal computers, mobile phones, and the Internet, and he gives three principles for how to think about it. Also, he recommends this book, this book, and this book as helpful in shaping his own thinking about AI.
An Introvert’s Field Guide to Friendship: Thoreau on the Challenges and Rewards of the Art of Connection

rocking the boat — Rocking the Boat by Debra Meyerson

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a completely reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to check out my recommendations or become a paid subscriber.

Rethinking & Reviewing

Happy Tuesday, folks. More appropriately (I guess), Happy Fat Tuesday.

Full disclaimer: I’m not Catholic, and Mardi Gras has no personal meaning for me. But many of you may join in the festivities and Lenten practices for the next 40 days. If you do, awesome. If you don’t, you’re welcome to hang with the rest of us heretics.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I sent out a newsletter on Tuesday. Life happens, deadlines loom, and if you’re me, there’s the ever-present anxiety beast that hangs back in the shadows, ready to rear its ugly head when you least expect it.

So, it’s been a minute. But we press on through whatever life throws our way and embrace what comes. In these times, I remember the words of Epictetus,

The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…” — Epictetus, Discourses, 2.5.4–5

Subscribed

You and I can only control what we can control. Trying to exercise influence over anything else is fruitless and will only cause us distress. For me, that means managing my schedule a little better and giving myself grace for getting all the things that I have to get done. That’s not easy for me, and it likely isn’t easy for you, o fearless type A perfectionist overachiever that you are.

Not that I have any experience speaking about such things…

So, today’s newsletter is a little different. I’m just going to call it “Rethinking & Reviewing” because you’re about to go on a journey through Mike’s stream of consciousness, and we’ll both find out the destination when we get there.

Here we go…

What I’m Thinking

The first year of my year-long teacher fellowship is coming to a close. We’ve met over the course of this school year to chat and help each other redesign lesson plans for deeper learning opportunities using the 4 Shifts protocol as a reference. To say the program has gone well would be a tremendous understatement. The feedback I’m receiving from the fellows is great and full of deep reflection. Most are well on their way to completing their lessons with students, and I’ll share more soon. For me, this first year will inform my work with other teachers and future cohorts but will likely also lead to part of the work for my dissertation in the coming years.

Speaking of deeper learning, I listened to episode 2 of the “Redesigning for Deeper Learning” podcast and was challenged by one particular thought: what does “student choice” really mean? Depending on the context of the lesson, giving the students options to choose from may or may not truly be “student choice.” With several lessons from my fellows fresh in my mind, I’m rolling this around in my head quite a bit this morning.

What I’m Reading

One of my goals this year for reading is to finish up all the published Cosmere works from Brandon Sanderson. I’ve gotten through most of Arcanum Unbounded, which features several previously published short stories and novellas based in the connected Cosmere. I also finished Warbreaker in January, and it might have become one of my favorite Sanderson novels. My current pick of the bunch from Arcanum is “Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell,” a short story originally published in a collection, Dangerous Women, edited by George R.R. Martin. It’s a different tale from the standard Sanderson fare, leaning a bit more toward the horror genre. It was a fantastic read.

I’m also re-reading How to Write a Lot because I need a swift kick in the pants to get my writing practice back in order. There’s no better motivation to do that than when you hear the words “your dissertation starts NOW” during a Saturday morning class. Yikes.

On the academic reading side of the world, I’ve been using Speechify for a ridiculous amount of time to process articles. For my attention-span deficient brain – no formal diagnosis, just my own experiences – having the audio version of a text playing while I am reading is a brilliant focus tool. I read faster, retain more, and am able to focus far better than when I try to read text only. This is especially true for reading journal articles, papers, and so on. Speechify gives me an audio version of just about any text on my laptop or in my web browser. I now consider it an invaluable part of my productivity toolkit, right alongside Notion and Readwise.

What I’m Watching

In my random voyage of self-care, I ran across several seasons of the 90s revival of “The Outer Limits” on YouTube. If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s an anthology series of separate sci-fi stories and features some surprising guest star appearances from some popular stars of the day (heck, even Leonard Nimoy shows up). In some episodes, they do make an attempt to connect some of the stories, which makes for interesting situations. Overall, a great way to spend 45 minutes.

Oh, and Picard Season 3 just started, so there’s that, too 😉

What’s in My Ears

Two recent episodes of The Daily from the NY Times caught my interest, mostly because they deal with the recent explosion of AI tools. “The Online Search Wars” and “The Online Search Wars Got Scary Fast” are well worth the listen.

Also, I continue to update my 2023 playlist of songs I discover, or remember, throughout the year. I’ve compiled playlists like this for 2022, 2021, and 2020.

Wrapping Up

Well, I think I’ve rambled enough. Thanks again for reading and coming along for the ride. Have a great week!

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a completely reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to check out my recommendations or become a paid subscriber.

Every Day is Groundhog Day

Hey, y’all. It’s Friday, the day after Groundhog Day here in the US. And here’s this week’s “10 Things”

10 Things Worth Sharing

I say “Every Day is Groundhog Day” because of the intro to Austin Kleon’s “Keep Going”. The book is the final installment of his series on creativity. Here’s Austin reading the first chapter. Also, full credit to Austin for the format of this newsletter, as I blatantly stole it from him 😉
I’ve been spending a lot of time with several of the teachers in my Future Shift Fellowship as they are working through the lessons they redesigned this year. I shared a little about one of them on Twitter this week.
George Couros has 4 questions to consider about using ChatGPT in education.
Speaking of ChatGPT (no, I’m not going to stop talking about it and every other AI platform), here are some ideas for how to put the tool to work for academics.
Learning loss: a topic I’ve heard far too much about and believe that it only exists because we measure the wrong things in education. I wholeheartedly agree with Jo Boaler’s thoughts on this one.
Let’s face it: most self-help books are bad and are just generalizations put into print. Here are 8 that are actually worth reading.
I read 12 books in January 2023. Here’s a recap of all of them, along with my thoughts.
If you’ve never caught an episode of “Live from Daryl’s House” featuring Daryl Hall performing with some incredible (and huge) stars of the music industry, you should check it out. Here’s an episode featuring Tommy Shaw (whom I may have performed for once upon a time when he came to my church) that’s brilliant.
Speaking of Groundhog Day, the almost-perfect movie turns 30 this year.
Finally, here’s a documentary from 1981 featuring behind-the-scenes footage from The Muppet Show. The documentary features a “table read” for one of the episodes that confirms why I believe The Muppets are the gateway to good comedy.

Thanks for reading. This newsletter is a completely reader-supported publication. The best way to support it is to check out my recommendations or become a paid subscriber.

Leading the Way

This is a preview of my Friday “10 Things” newsletter. Friday editions are free for everyone.

Greetings, friends. It’s the second Friday of 2023. I hope you’re off to a great year. It’s also Friday the 13th, so be careful out there and watch out for hockey masks…

Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week, focusing on the theme of leadership:

10 Cool Things Worth Sharing

Monday here in the US, we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. Here are 4 lessons from his leadership that apply in every organization I can think of but doubly so in education.
If there was ever a time for leadership amidst whirlwinds of change in the world of education, it’s now…

To read the rest, subscribe to my Friday “10 Things” newsletter.

Rethinking Student Work Amid AI Advances

Seth Godin has a point (as usual):

When AI is smart enough to write an essay, then what happens?

GPT3 is back in the news, because, as expected, it’s getting better and better. Using a simple chat interface, you can easily ask it a wide range of questions (write a 1,000 word essay about Clara Barton) that certainly feels like a diligent high school student wrote it.

Of course, this changes things, just as the camera, the typewriter and the internet changed things.

It means that creating huge amounts of mediocre material is easier than ever before. You can write a bad Seinfeld script in about six minutes.

It means that assigning rudimentary essays in school or average copywriting at work is now a waste of time.

But mostly it reminds us that attention and trust don’t scale.

If your work isn’t more useful or insightful or urgent than GPT can create in 12 seconds, don’t interrupt people with it.

Technology begins by making old work easier, but then it requires that new work be better.
– Seth Godin

I think it’s always important to consider the work we ask students to do in our schools. As my teacher cohort works through implementing the 4 Shifts protocol, we ask questions around deeper learning and authentic work like:

Is student work deeply rooted in discipline-specific and -relevant knowledge, skills, and dispositions?
Do learning activities and assessments allow students to engage in deep critical thinking and analysis?
Do students have the opportunity to design, create, make, or otherwise add value that is unique to them?
Is student work authentic and reflective of that done by experts outside of school?
Are students utilizing authentic, discipline-specific practices and processes?
Are students creating real-world products or performances for authentic audiences?

Of course, not every lesson or activity can be (nor should it be) an exercise in critical thinking and authentic, real-world application. But if our biggest concern about AI is whether or not students will use it to cheat, perhaps we have work to do on our classroom plans.

Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning (A Quick Guide to Educational Technology Integration and Digital Learning Spaces) (Solutions for Creating the Learning Spaces Students Deserve)

Scott McLeod (Author)
English (Publication Language)
80 Pages – 09/21/2018 (Publication Date) – Solution Tree Press (Publisher)

Sale

Teaching for Deeper Learning: Tools to Engage Students in Meaning Making

McTighe, Jay (Author)
English (Publication Language)
130 Pages – 01/22/2020 (Publication Date) – ASCD (Publisher)

More Thoughts on ChatGPT and AI in Education

From Tyler Cowen:

No, it is not converging upon human-like intelligence or for that matter AGI. Still, the broader lesson is you can build a very practical kind of intelligence with fairly simple statistical models and lots of training data. And there is more to come from this direction very soon.
Tyler Cowen

Also, my friend Micah Shippee, Ph.D., posted a conversation he had with ChatGPT (yes, I’m just calling it what it is, a conversation) on LinkedIn with interesting questions:

The question remains is this original thought? The probing questions are mine, the responses are from the AI… Did I create something new by asking unique questions?
– Micah Shippee, Ph. D.

There will be more discussions about AI and tools like ChatGPT and how they affect education.

The most important thing we can do as educators is not to ignore these tools. They’re not going away. Students will find ways to use them. Educators should find ways to use them. But if we choose to ignore them and move on as if they will not affect what we do in schools worldwide, we’re failing our students.

Don’t get caught in the aftermath of significant change. We do too much of that in education already.

Recommended Books on AI

Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World

Amazon Kindle Edition
Metz, Cade (Author)
English (Publication Language)
382 Pages – 03/16/2021 (Publication Date) – Dutton (Publisher)

Sale

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control

Russell, Stuart (Author)
English (Publication Language)
352 Pages – 11/17/2020 (Publication Date) – Penguin Books (Publisher)

Sale

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Tegmark, Max (Author)
English (Publication Language)
384 Pages – 07/31/2018 (Publication Date) – Vintage (Publisher)

Sale

MACHINES LOVING GRACE

Markoff, John (Author)
English (Publication Language)
400 Pages – 07/21/2016 (Publication Date) – EccoPress (Publisher)

The Political Philosophy of AI: An Introduction

Coeckelbergh, Mark (Author)
English (Publication Language)
176 Pages – 04/11/2022 (Publication Date) – Polity (Publisher)

Simple or Easy: Edtech Edition

I read Ev William’s brief thoughts on the question of simple or easy. In short, Ev states that we often decide to do simple things rather than easy things.

I contend that we do this in education when dealing with technology. We go through our days doing simple rather than easy things.

It’s simple to pass out papers to a class of students and collect them later. Teachers have done this for decades. But it’s easier to have students complete work in a digital format. Especially when dealing with large numbers of students.

But this task isn’t simple. Teachers have to create what they want the students to complete. Teachers have to create this assignment, whether it’s a quiz, a document, a spreadsheet, a presentation, etc.

Even if that means posting the assignment in a learning management system, the task is not as simple as passing out papers. This task might be impossible for teachers who have been in the classroom since before there were any computers in the classroom, and no one had a school email address.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not easy. It’s not simple.

Simple is comfortable. Simple gets the job done without question.

But easy? Easy might involved work upfront. Easy might involved setting something up or learning a new tool.

And that’s when the issues begin.

Teachers are, in case you didn’t know, stressed out. They always have been. Amid a global pandemic, their stress levels haven’t lowered. They’ve raised.

And expectations are higher than ever. So when teachers face change after change after change and deal with things they’ve never dealt with before (hello, temperature checks & social distancing), why would they not choose to go with simple?

This is the challenge for us in the educational technology world. We have to find ways to encourage easy over simple. We have to be there to support.

We have to understand what teachers are going through. We have to be patient. And we have to accept when some say “no.”

We have to make our own choice of simple or easy. It’s simple to create some videos or documents to support teachers and then walk away.

But it’s easy to support and empower a small group of teachers who will run with their version of “easy” and help you spread the work to others.

What will you choose? Simple or easy?

The Speech Kennedy Never Gave

“…I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.”
Remarks at a Closed-circuit Television Broadcast on Behalf of the National Cultural Center (527), November 29, 1962, Public Papers of the Presidents: John F. Kennedy, 1962.

59 years ago today, shots rang out across Dealey Plaza as President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade passed by thousands of onlookers.

I’m sure many of you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing that day.

While questions still surround the circumstances of JFK’s assassination, there can be no doubt about his legacy. The President was scheduled to deliver remarks later that day in Dallas.

Much of the speech is no longer timely, but the main ideas and philosophies are certainly as important today as they were 59 years ago.

So, heavily redacted, here are verbatim excerpts from the speech JFK never gave.

Leadership and learning

“It is fitting that these two symbols of Dallas progress are united in the sponsorship of this meeting. For they represent the best qualities, I am told, of leadership and learning in this city — and leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. The advancement of learning depends on community leadership for financial political support, and the products of that learning, in turn, are essential to the leadership’s hopes for continued progress and prosperity. It is not a coincidence that those communities possessing the best in research and graduate facilities — from MIT to Cal Tech — tend to attract new and growing industries. I congratulate those of you here in Dallas who have recognized these basic facts through the creation of the unique and forward-looking Graduate Research Center.”

The Best Books about JFK

A Thousand Days by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
Thirteen Days by Robert Kennedy
The Death of a President by William Manchester
Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

“This link between leadership and learning is not only essential at the community level. It is even more indispensable in world affairs.”

“In a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of frustrations and irritations, America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason — or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”

“…fewer people will listen to nonsense.”

“There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternative, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side and seeking influence without responsibility. Those voices are inevitable. But today other voices are heard in the land — voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality, wholly unsuited to the sixties, doctrines which apparently assume that words will suffice without weapons, that vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness.”

“We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will “talk sense to the American people.” But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.”

Words alone are not enough.

“Above all, words alone are not enough. The United States is a peaceful nation. And where our strength and determination are clear, our words need merely to convey conviction, not belligerence. If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.”

“Freedom can be lost … by ballots as well as bullets.”

“I have spoken of strength largely in terms of the deterrence and resistance of aggression and attack. But in today’s world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles – on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny.”

“An America which has fully educated its citizens…”

“Finally, it should be clear by now that a nation can be no stronger abroad than she is at home. Only an America which practices what it preaches about equal rights and social justice will be respected by those whose choice affects our future. Only an America which has fully educated its citizens is fully capable of tackling the complex problems and perceiving the hidden dangers of the world in which we live. And only an America which is growing and prospering economically can sustain the worldwide defenses of freedom, while demonstrating to all concerned the opportunities of our system and society.”

“It is clear, therefore, that we are strengthening our security as well as our economy by our recent record increases in national income and output…”

“My friends and fellow citizens: I cite these facts and figures to make it clear that America today is stronger than ever before. The strength will never be used in pursuit of aggressive ambitions — it will always be used in pursuit of peace. It will never be used to promote provocations — it will always be used to promote the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

“We, in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than by choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength.”

From the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum