Unfortunately, high stakes testing have driven out writing workshops in teaching of writing…and if that’s been driven out, what hope do disruptive technologies? Now, we don’t teach writing, recognizing the need for students to have time and ownership of their writing. Now, we teach them to write well enough to pass a test. And, teachers, districts and the State are proud of that. Well, I’m not. I’d rather have a writer who wants to write than one that can pass a test. I have faith in the first type of writer than the second…my daughter writes because she loves to write, because she is addicted to writing a story, not because she’s was to be able to write ideal personal narratives.

Teachers must fight to be disruptive or to use those types of technologies in schools. It takes guts to say, “I’m going to do it this way” and then have district teacher specialists come to your class everyday to ask, “Don’t you want to do it this way?”

District Teacher/instructional specialists aren’t practicing innovative curriculum designers, as Ed-Tech folks developed. Over the last few years, those individuals have become “policers” and enforcers of lock-step scope and sequence. The problem is, while curriculum folks might once have embraced disruptive technologies, the high stakes testing craze makes it impossible. Hope lies, not in the district staffs but in classroom teachers that must revolt and take back their classrooms, their curriculum.
The reason we are where we’re at as educational technologists is that we revolutionized the way we did things in our classrooms. We applied new technologies to the work we did, and it made a difference. And, we were promoted to lead these efforts. That is the point where we should have said, “No, I choose to remain in the classroom. I won’t be bought out by increased salary.”

If we fundamentally want to transform teaching and learning, then teachers will have to do it. We must go straight to the campus leadership and make the appeal there. I’m tired of technology fads–and blogs, podcasts, wikis as tools to revolutionize teaching and learning are included in that–that claim they will change everything.

Systematic change will be accomplished by sharing, not pushing, disruptive technology at the classroom level with one teacher and doing so over an extended period of time. The change won’t happen right away, and the EdTech initiative may not survive the time.

http://www.mguhlin.net/blog/archives/2005/09/entry_513.htm

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/wfryer?id=129

This is an issue of sustaining versus disruptive technologies. We should be investing in disruptive tech like one to one technology immersion, the use of collaborative tools like blogs, wikis and podcasts– and shy away from the same old same old technology uses like: “let’s do electronic testing.”

When are our leaders going to catch a clue that it is not the testing or even the curriculum that makes the biggest difference for student learning: it is the teacher in the classroom?! I think this edtech spending trend is very depressing, and will just drive more students and families out of the public schools and into private/home schooling environments.

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I’m reminded of something I used to do when I was teaching physics. I was aware of the research that suggested that some students are willing to revise their writing more (and presumably improve their writing) when working with a word processor compared to writing by hand. So whenever I gave an exam (my physics exams were almost exclusively essays) I would reserve the computer lab so that students could elect to word process their responses instead of write them out. About half the class would use the computer and I’m confident that their responses were better as a result.

http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v5/F13/csteep.html

Now of course that doesn’t address the question of how to run students through existing tech capacities or how to pay for new testing tech (and what gets done with the tech when it’s not being used for testing?).

Here’s the question. By automating this process, who does it benefit?
1) Technology companies will make some money selling boxes.
2) Some very large testing company gets a huge contract.

(Just had to get the easy ones out of the way.)

3) The state will considerably reduce the time it takes to collect, process, and return data.

(This may have some impact on student learning, but it’s a stretch.)

4) Administrators will have more data for decision making.
5) If administrators use the data well, it will get to the teacher level to help improve instruction.

(Districts that know how to use data will translate this into student learning. In my experience, very few districts have this capacity.)

There are now 5 points on the board for adults…a questionable 1 or 2 for students, if things go well. The act of taking a test online vs. paper…it will benefit some and be a serious distraction for others. Let’s tip the score to 5 to 3, adult needs vs. student needs.

Cost? How many millions up front? What happens 5 years down the road? Let’s say the state replaces these labs. Now we’ve doubled the number of computers the tech staff needs to support. A quick glance at TCO research shows that initial purchase cost is only a small % of the 5 year cost of a computer. How much do you trust your state (or any state) government to support you down the road?

Questions. No answers. This stuff is complicated. Keep us informed at how things go down!!!