In a cramped elementary conference room a young second grade teacher, from one of the finest colleges on the East Coast, sits with a mother and father, the principal and several other specialists, delivering the devastating news with as much care as possible.

“I’m sorry Mr. and Mrs. Smith, this must be very difficult for you. However, it’s clear from testing, your son has a very severe communication disorder. He will probably never learn to read or write. That will make math difficult, if not impossible. If he gets along with his peers, it is possible he could be on a vocational track through High School. But you must prepare yourself. He won’t graduate with the rest of his class. He won’t get a standard diploma. He could get a certificate stating he put in three or more years at high school, but that’s all. It will be very difficult. But if we work hard, and we are lucky, it is possible he could grow up to be something like a plumber’s assistant or something–just not the guy who fills out the paperwork.”

That was 1968, and my diagnosis as a 2nd grader — Dyslexia.

Two graduate schools later, having worked paying my mortgage (for three years sun-up to sun-down) writing for CNN, having created television shows and designed the world’s largest television newsgathering network, having managed companies and 300 million dollar budgets, having lived my life with a big (backwards) scarlet “D” on my shoulder, I really would like to go back in time to 1968, find that teacher and slap her. (That is, if I were the slapping sort, which I am not.)

But she’s is more than 70-years old now and no longer relevant. What is a worry is the 23-year old version of her, now in 2010. What are they saying to parents about children with communications disorders? Even communication disorders which seem so overwhelming such as Autism.

Dyslexia was the “Autism” of its day, in 1968–pervasive, disabling, not understood. A real spear in the side of the then current educational paradigm. But just as it will with Autism, things changed. Our medical understanding of Dyslexia grew, technology advanced, and our educational approach adjusted.

WHAT SHE DIDN’T KNOW BACK THEN, ABOUT THE FUTURE:

1968-69

• I was enrolled in some of the earliest pilots of reading programs which later became elements of the Edmark reading program
• My mother demanded I remain in general education, making me one of the first “inclusive” special education students
• Daily tutoring after school for 3 hours
• Visiting every medical specialist in existence
• Advent of commercially available portable cassette tape recorders and players

1970s

• Advent of Educational Television (Sesame Street, Electric Company)
• Increased understanding of Dyslexia in medicine
• Increased understanding of psychology’s role in education
• Increased understanding of Dyslexia in education
• Advent of home video players and educational videos
• Advent of sony walkman cassette tape players
• Advent of interchangeable cassettes for white-out and ribbon on electric typewriters
• Advent of spell check prediction on electric typewriters
• International direct-dial-up telephone communication

1980-83

• First “luggable” IBM PCs with amber screens and rudimentary word processing
• Computer daisy-wheel printers, with uninterrupted paper feeds.
• Office newsrooms completely computerized with global mainframe access, word processing & electronic messaging
• Micro audio recorders

And on and on (over the course of 15 years)…allowing my first job out of Georgetown’s Graduate School of Foreign Service to be with NBC in their Cairo, Egypt bureau.

My 2nd grade teacher’s world of type-written stamp-and-envelope post for business communications and the very rudimentary direct instruction and rote transcription that defined education, was quickly snuffed out by advances in technology, education, psychology, medicine and changes in the the type of work needed in an economy ever morphing into the future.

WHAT WE DON’T KNOW NOW, ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE NEXT FIFTEEN YEARS:

In advances in communications technologies??

In advances in educational practice??

In advances in medical understanding of communication disorders such as Autism??

In advances and changes in the job skills demanded by the future economy??

In advances in the integration of these four trends with one another??

• Technology & Education
• Education & Communication
• Medicine & Technology
• Medicine & Education

The answer, WE DON’T KNOW. Heck even the best minds studying the future barely see 1 to 2 YEARS out.

TEACHING FOR THE FUTURE:

We need teachers who are surfing these trends rather than handing out death sentences based on the static information of the day.

I’m not talking about tilting windmills.  I know many special needs students will never have “normal” careers.  But there’s more to life in the next 15 to 30 years for heavily impacted (read “non-verbal/ID”) people than institutionalization.  There are real opportunities for a fulfilling life of happiness and friendship.

Technology and communication is becoming much more visual and personal than ever before.  People’s attitudes toward ID and Autism is becoming much more accepting.  People are figuring out how to work with these types of folks more and more.  These trends are going to continue and make things easier for those with communications disorders — no matter how severe.  I’m not saying many will be able to completely overcome their disabilities using technology, but the trends toward the future are promising to have a very positive impact on their ability to function.

We should be looking to sculpt an education and trajectory for these students which will allow them to keep as many options open as possible for a future which is morphing in their direction.

We need special educators who see this.

SPECIAL EDUCATION DEATH SENTENCE:

So the next time you are considering giving a death sentence to some kid…

Telling his parents what’s going to happen to a student 15 years from now…

Remember, they get to live through the next 15 years.  You’re just guessing.

21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020 is a post in Teach Paperless, a blog by Shelly Blake-Plock.  It’s a great blog about teaching.  I love how this guy thinks.

I’m reading this post in teachpaperless and I’m thinking, “Why write about it, just do it.” (I know, to share, to share …)

Here’s the list from Teachpaperless of 21 things that will be obsolete over the next 10 years, and what we (at a Title One elementary school outside Washington, D.C.) are doing about them today.

I’ve put the items teach paperless stated would be obsolete in bold.  I agree with all of them, save two (numbers 8 & 9).

The following is not bragging, I’m just stating the facts about the school at which I’m lucky enough to work:

1. Desks: A 5th grade teacher here removed all desks from her room two years ago.  She did a research project to track data on student performance.  She has not asked for the furniture back.

2. Language Labs: Hah! Forget ESOL, try finding an ETMT student (English as Their Mother Tongue).  This whole school is a language lab, and if the demographers are correct so will be most U.S. schools in the future.  We don’t have a separate language lab as a result.

3. Computers: The majority of our computers are laptops, and going forward we are trying the netbooks and the next step.  School-system finances and classroom real estate both being at a premium, small and mobile is where everything is going, not just computing.

4. Homework: We’re going 24/7 using Blackboard (2 & 3) in the lower grades and wordpress/blogspot & wikispaces in the upper grades (3, 4 & 5).  Students are doing work at home without being asked.  That’s the real power of social media.  A 5th grade teacher is currently doing educational research on best practices for homework, which is NOT the way it used to be done, more along the line of teachpaperless.

5. Standardized Tests: This is a hot topic, the details of which I will cover in an upcoming post.  But we are very much moving toward portfolios as a large percentage of our students (compared with other schools) do a portfolio replacement test for the standardized tests.

6. Differentiated Instruction as Unique: We’re already far beyond this and our teachers differentiate due to language, learning styles and/or special needs.  We have an inclusive model which requires real and meaningful differentiation as a fundamental baseline to everything happening in a classroom or other part of the school, rather than an afterthought or “something the special ed teacher do” (which unfortunately is what many teachers around the world think).

7. Fear of Wikipedia: We use it as a method to teach critical reading skills. And by “critical” we mean “with a discerning eye.”

*8. Paperbacks: Here is the one thing with which I don’t agree.  Radio was to be the end of newspapers, and radio theater the end of paperbacks.  Television was to be the end of Radio, and Computers the end of everything that came before.  People will consume information in a way that is most useful and although the percentage of market share changes we have a ways to go before books go the way of papyrus scrolls.

*9. Attendance Offices: Bio scans are great, but there will still be a frazzled office person handing out tardy slips and calling home to confirm children’s whereabouts.

10. Lockers: Well, didn’t need them anyway.

11. IT Departments: According to TeachPaperless, IT Departments will have more time to innovate as they give up control and budget-line to shared-open solutions.  A lovely sentiment, and clear-headed if one remembers fondly how there didn’t really seem to be anyone in charge of IT on the Star Ship Enterprise.  But the thought of the obsessive, slightly asburger-y engineers (the norm in most IT departments) being “innovative”, well, let’s not be silly now.

12. Centralized Institutions: He’s right on the mark.  He’s talking about school buildings being like a factory where students show up for a shift.  I would also include decentralizing central offices.  “Employees who do not spend at least 10 hours a week with student should be sacked,” is a budget solution suggested by one of the teachers at my school.  All “central office” types should be housed in schools. That way they might accidentally run into a student every now and then.  At our school we house central office types, and it helps them understand the school and students, and helps us by having them more accessible.

13. Organization of Educational Service by Grade: We’re already doing this by necessity, because when one successfully differentiates, it’s done.

14. Education School Classes that Fail to Integrate Social Technology: I agree, but would reword this to say the following will be obsolete in two years, “Education School Classes that Can Successfully Continue to Keep Social Technology Out.” (I mean MiFi kind of screws up all the “firewall technology” on which we are currently spending money.)

15. Paid/Outsourced Professional Development: Our school has a specific model which is co-teaching, coaching and inclusive.  One can walk into any room at any time and nobody bats an eyelash.  The kids and teachers are used to constant traffic.  This raises the bar, because no one can go into their room, shut the door and come out in June.  Professional accountability which includes an AP coming in twice a year is ridiculous.  Constant feedback on everything at all times is what professional development is now and going forward.  Implementing it is the hard part.  We have.  There’s still a place for Paid/Outsourced PD, but the guts of our PD is inhouse PLC, and it works.

16. Current Curricular Norms: We’re doing this, but it is easier in a K-5 environment.  Differentiation demands it.

17. Parent-Teacher Conference Night: More and more classroom blogs are cropping up at my school. These keep the parents in the loop in an ongoing way.  One instance (not at this school) is an individual blog being used for a special needs student instead of a journal they take from home to school and back.  The dialog is deep and meaningful and discrete.  A reality to which I think Blake-Plock is alluding.

18.Typical Cafeteria Food: We’ve made no great inroads here, but one can only hope.

19. Outsourced Graphic Design and Webmastering: Here again is a tension between the creative flow in a school and the need of many DIT departments to assert control claiming “Internet Security” as the cover.  In the future, with social media becoming a utility, and technology becoming ubiquitous, “Internet Security” emanating from within a technology department as a firewall or other technology will not be possible.  “Internet Security” will principally be achieved through behavior management by education of students from Kindergarten forward.  Our 3rd and 4th graders are doing MySpace and Facebook pages at home already.  They are doing google pages, blogspot and wordpress at school.  Given the tools, they could do what Blake-Plock is suggesting next week, but current technology setup of our formal graphic design and webmastering prevents this.

20. High School Algebra I: OK, well, N/A for this K-5 school.

21. Paper: In the last three years, we have moved from a deskjet at every teacher’s desk to a small set of networked centralized printers.  Paper use (and toner) has declined exponentially.

Thanks to Blake-Plock and TeachPaperless.blogspot.com for everything they are doing to support the mission.

Thanks to those folks who sent in suggestions on improving this list. Your comments are welcome.

1) Mozilla Firefox is a “nondenominational” web browser.  Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser pushes users toward Microsoft products.  Apple’s Safari browser is very light on its use of computer resources, but also light on its features.  Mozilla Firefox is superior to both in that it does not push users toward specific products and is so feature rich, Microsoft is starting to fashion it’s browser IE after Firefox.

2) Delicious Social Bookmarking is the best way to manage website links.  This links to a page which explains social bookmarking, How to Social Bookmark.

3) Blogs are Internet resources which are great for publishing and managing student work.  This links to a page which explains blogs, What’s a Blog.

4) Wikis are Internet resources which allow multiple users to edit documents, make lists, and coordinate information.  This links to a page which explains wikis, What’s a Wiki.

5) Twitter is a “micro blogging” site. It is one of the best ways for teaching teams to maintain instant and ongoing communication throughout a busy day.  Twitter has the benefits of instant messaging, while maintaining a record of what is communicated so the information can be read whenever a team member has a free moment.  Here’s a short video explaining twitter.

6) Tagging is the new way of organizing digital items online.  Tagging is a way of putting multiple lables on items such as documents, photos, audio files, etc.  One can then pull similarly tagged items.  The truly interesting thing is in most online environments tags are not centrally organized.  Users choose which labels they place on digital objects.  The distributed nature of this organizing tool creates a more social form of organizing large amounts of data.  This links to a page which explains tagging, Wikipedia on Tagging.

7) Snagit is a product which can be purchased and downloaded to a user’s computer. SnagIt is a screenshot program that operates under the Windows operating system contains most features needed (scrolling page screenshots and automatic ‘trim edges’ function, for example). SnagIt Accessories extends its features. For example, Flickr Output enables the user to upload screen capture onto one’s own Flickr account. The ease of use, comprehensive features makes it one of the best cut and paste software packages available.

8) Flickr.com online photo storage allows photos to be shared and organized with tags.  One can also search thousands of copyright free photos organized by tags.  Here’s a link to a page that explains social photosharing.   Here’s a link to the flickr site for the National Zoo, www.flickr.com/nationalzoo. Two other important source of photos are Wikimedia Commons and the Morguefile.

9) Audacity is a free program that allows anyone to easily make digital audio recordings.  Digital recordings can be rendered in MP3 files (like what are used on iPods).  Any digital recording can be called a “podcast” even if it is only stored on a computer or website.  Here’s a short video explaining podcasting.

10) PhotoStory3 is a free program that allows anyone to easily make a presentation out of digital photographs.  PhotoStory3 allows users to add titles, narration, background music and different focusing and other effects on the photos and transitions between the photos.  Digital photo stories can be rendered as windows media video.  A wmv digital video file can be posted on a website, inserted in a blog, wiki and/or PowerPoint.

11) Photos can be edited with any number of photo editors.  There are rudimentary photo editors within free resources such as Flickr.com, PhotoStory3 and commercial software packages for photo editing such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements and even in some children’s educational software such as Imageblender.  There are also some free online options including Picnik (http://www.picnik.com) and Photoshop Express (http://www.photoshop.com/).

12) Windows Movie Maker is a video creating/editing software included in Microsoft Windows. It contains features such as effects, transitions, titles/credits, audio track, timeline narration, and Auto Movie.

13) Discovery Education Streaming is a subscription service which has a)full videos, b)video segments, c)high quality still photos, d)audio clips and other media elements organized by key word and grade level.

14) Gcast.com is a free Internet site for creating and posting podcasts.  Podcasts posted on Gcast can be linked to from any web resources (blog, wiki, etc.) and reviewed multiple times from any computer or handheld device with an internet connection.

15) Youtube.com has many useful and educational video resources.  They are searchable via keyword.

16) Teachertube.com is an educational resource of videos modeled on youtube but subject specific to education.

17) iTunes is a free product which one can download onto their desktop.  It allows digital audio files to be organized and shared with others.  Audio files stored on Gcast.com can be lists on iTunes for any iTunes subscriber to download and play on their computers, iPods and/or telephones.  iTunes begins to cost users money when they purchase items from the iTunes store.

18) RSS feeds can be found on almost all websites, blogs, wikis, photo sites, and other resources on the web.  Users can subscribe to the RSS feeds for Internet resources they wish to regularly track.  Updates to those internet resources are sent to the subscribers via the RSS feeds and organized in what are called RSS Readers.

19) Google.com has many features besides gmail and the search engine.  Three specific elements are Google Sites, Google Reader and Google Earth.  Google Pages allows anyone to create multiple websites as easily as constructing a PowerPoint.  Google Reader allows anyone to follow any number of websites, blogs, wikis and other resources on the web by subscribing to their RSS feeds.  Information from those RSS feeds are then gathered into the user’s Google Reader page and displayed like email. Google Earth is one of the best mapping tools for education available.

20) Internet safety focuses on four main concerns: 1) Internet bullying, 2) Internet predators, 3) Internet identity theft and 4) Internet negative identity profiles impacting college entry and career opportunities.  All four of these aspects of Internet safety can be covered with two safety principles.  The first is to keep one’s personal information secret.  This includes name, contact information, work and school information, family information and the names of associates.  The second is to never meet anyone in real life, who one has only met on the Internet.  With these two principles, students (and teachers) can protect themselves from the major Internet safety concerns.

21) Publishing on the Internet can be done professionally while maintaining the safety of students and colleagues by following APA publishing guidelines.  By combining the APA ethical guidelines (no student identifiers, no school identifiers) with the Internet safety principles of keeping the author’s identity secret, a great deal of professional practice can be shared in an online professional learning community without fear of breaching our professional ethics.  You can review APA Ethic’s Code here.  Clairvoy is dedicated to teachers publishing strategy.  See more here.

22) Students with different learning styles (visual learners, audio learners, etc.) can better explore Blooms Taxonomy of cognitive objectives by working with the curriculum using the different media available to them in a digital environment.

23) Copyright is important and must be respected at all times.  The copyright laws regarding special education do allow for materials being used in class (which have been purchased) to be adapted to meet the needs of student IEPs.  This can call for teachers to use all the digital tools at their disposal to adapt standard text, photographic and multimedia resources to meet the needs of student IEPs.  Anyone can do this adaptation for the teacher’s needs, including students inside and outside the classroom.  Here are a number of online resources on use of copyright in the classroom.

24) Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

25) Google Earth is a tremendous tool. Hardware such as Flip video cameras (under $100), student digital still cameras, color scanners, document cameras, transferring video from camcorders to computers (Firewire pcmcia card cost around $20  / some analogue to digital video converters cost less than $50), SMARTBoards and iPods are all things with which teachers should familiarize themselves and use in their teaching.

Graphic of Google forms for data collection

This is a way to use Google Docs and an iPhone or any hand-held device that can hit the web to track student data.

Remember in Educational Research, APA ethical guidelines require no information be used which could be employed to identify the student.

1)In Google docs, open a new Spreadsheet.

2)Name columns with the items you are tracking; Disrupting Teacher; Disrupting Students; Absence of Bad Behavior for 30 minutes, for example.  This will be determined by the student’s Behavior Intervention Plan or whatever research question you are tracking.  Each entry you make will automatically be stamped with the time and date, so you don’t have to worry about that column.

3)On the “Form” menu of the same spreadsheet click on “Create form.”  Name the form something you can remember, but not the name of the student.  Then on the Form menu choose “Go to live form” which opens your form as a webpage.  Along the bottom of that window is the “You can view the published form here: url” which is the web address of your live form.  Make a shortcut to the live form and put that on your iPhone or whatever you want to use to enter data.

From that point on, everything you enter into the live form and save, will be entered into your spreadsheet as a row and saved for your later analysis.

On the way out, remember to Save your form, and choose File and Save your spreadsheet.Too Easy!

For extra credit, on the forms creation page, you can edit the questions and make them multiple choice or check boxes to make data entry even easier!

Bruce Springsteen

One doesn’t think of how odd sheet music is as a language.  Ubiquitous and rather separate from other languages.  Appealing no doubt to the musically inclined.

As Gardner (1999, p38) puts it, “Symbol systems may have been developed precisely because of their preexisting, ready fit with the relevant intelligence or intelligences.”

Gardner, Howard, (1999). Intelligence Reframed, NY: Basic Books.