- Barbara Hulit, president of Fluke and board member of Washington STEM, offers her thoughts on growing a well educated local workforce for a technology focused economy. While I don't fundamentally disagree with any of her points, I do think she is missing something. Like so many others, she fails to address the more significant problem of student disinterest in these fields which has plagued STEM for a decade or more. Certainly the numbers have stabilized or rebounded slightly, but our best intentions won't lead to any improvements if there isn't a significant interest among students in these programs. It will be interesting to what the program she cites in the article.
What if you build it and they don't come? - Not all local political leaders think the WSU takeover of University Center is a good idea. Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe and Rep. Luis Moscoso weigh in on the subject, suggesting that the WSU proposal does nothing to strengthen educational opportunities and that we must be more focused in the allocation of limited resources.
- The Herald's editorial board thinks much work lies ahead in establishing a trusting relationship between WSU and the other partner institutions at University Center if the larger goal of expanded educational opportunities is to be achieved.
I would ask the Herald's editorial board just exactly why they think any of these partners would participate. Seriously, these institutions have worked hard to establish these programs and to build up the University Center. The editorial board would have them give it their all for a couple more years so WSU can create a plan to get rid of them. Really? You think that's something they ought to do? Really?
When it comes to 4-year education in Snohomish county, the Herald's editorial board has completely lost all sense of reason. - Jerry Cornfield provides the background on the journey to the get Washington State University to take up residence on the Everett Community College campus with the long term goal of creating a 4-year, degree granting institution here in Snohomish county.
While the legislation will make the coordinator for the multi-college University Center program at EvCC, there are no solid plans nor funding to move beyond this arrangement. It seems to me that we risk losing eduction opportunities if the other existing partner colleges pull out of University Center or if the recently announced WGU online university takes hold.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 06/05/2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 06/04/2011
- Nicole Brodeur in the Times thinks the Washington legislature missed the mark related to education in the most recent session. We cut pay across the board, but didn't build in any accountability for performance, Perhaps, Brodeur thinks, we need to lower our expectations for schools.
- PayPal tycoon Peter Thiel has started to award his 20 Under 20 scholarship, $100,000 to skip college for now and venture out to start an innovative business instead. Thiel has been in the news lately for his thoughts on the education bubble and what he considers a lack of innovation.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 04/16/2011
- Peter Thiel is a Pay Pal co-founder thinks we're in a bubble, again, and this time the bubble is education. He says “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed”, noting that you can't question the value of education today.
And if you think about it, our description of education sounds an awful lot like our description of housing a few years ago (and internet stocks a few years before that). Everyone needs to own property (bachelor's degree). The value of property (education) never goes down. Borrow the money for property (education) and buy now -- it's an investment.
Perhaps our problem is that we confuse education - life long learning - with degrees. While ongoing learning/relearning has never been more critical to individual success, the value proposition of a 4-year degree in the first 4 years after high school becomes ever more questionable.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 04/15/2011
- Truly a sad commentary. The only state education institution that didn't participate in the University Center is the one that will be allowed to run it in the future.
My favorite quote was "providing new approaches to old problems". Honestly, this providing old approaches to new problems. But hey, it's only money. We got plenty of it for post-secondary education. Sigh ........
- Danny Westneat doesn't pull any punch in this article about the UW's decision to enroll more out-of-state students. In his opinion, the UW is doing exactly what we asked them to do - to get by with less and less money.
"Sheesh, we weren't even willing to go along with a temporary, 2-cents-per-can tax on soda pop last year. Now we're going to get all indignant when the UW looks to the other 49 states because we're too cheap?"
As Westneat points out, the funding is only going to get worse. The state paid 70% - 80% for the cost for me to attend the UW back in the ... well just you never mind. It's fallen to 45% today and heading south.
Westneat thinks we need to fund education as we had in the past, but I have to wonder if that's possible. It's a lot easier to subsidize 80% of a student's tuition if only 10% of graduating high school seniors go on to college. In a world where k-16 is almost mandatory of the "best paying" jobs, well that's a lot of money.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 04/11/2011
- Nice letter to the editor of the Everett Herald questioning the value of WSU running the University Center at EvCC. I don't fully agree that north Snohomish county needs its own university, but her challenges to the idea of a "employer-centric" educational program and the replacement of the University Center with a WSU branch are right on target.
WSU has done nothing to earn that position. They failed to establish a presence at University Center when all the other universities choose to participate. - Everett Herald columnist Julie Muhlstein tries to put a "face" on the UW entrance issue - where students with extremely hight GPA's aren't getting in. As is often the case, Muhlstein's article seems short on analysis and heavy on drama.
I've got several issues with the article, but my biggest is this sense that the UW is the only university worth going to in this state. The former student featured couldn't get into the UW, so went out of state. Huh? No WSU, no Western, not even Evergreen? Could have got two years at a local CC then transferred in as a junior.
The mindset that every kid must go to the UW in the four years following high school graduation absurd. Elite schools leave good students out, that's what elite means. Sometimes it just a numbers game, too many students chasing too few openings.
I have little sympathy for the students or parents left out this year. It won't be the end of their life. - The Virginia Board of Education has mandated local school boards to develop policies for teachers and the use of social media to interact with student following one particular molestation case. But other teachers have found the tools useful from an educational standpoint. The article sites an example of one teacher using Twitter to help students write more concisely. The question is how districts will balance the benefits of the tools with the misuses.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 04/03/2011
- Salman Kahn was a hedge fund analyst who recorded some videos to help him tutor his cousins. The videos were open to all, the visitors found their way to the videos. From that the Kahn Academy has grown hundreds (probably thousands) of videos.
In this TED talk Kahn explains the power of using video in the class room and how it can reshape education. - Ignore the headline and read the article. After you get past the straight-A kids be left out of the UW and the increase of out-of-state students, the article gets down to some useful information about how funding of our post-secondary education.
One closing thought. At the end of the article Rep. Carlyle is quoted about qualified kids not getting into the UW. This requires some careful consideration. At some point, an elite public school is going to reject the good kids of tax paying parents. Expectations that everyone can go to the UW are just unrealistic and our government leaders shouldn't encourage that thinking.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 03/09/2011
- In this editorial, Representatives Dunshee and Hope argue that establishing a branch campus of Washington State University in Everett will allow more of our citizens to get the skills they need to fill 21st century jobs, such as those created by the Air Force refueling tanker deal won recently by Boeing. Without such opportunities, we will continue to bring in talent from other states (and countries).
This is a continuation of the same tired, misleading rhetoric used in the debate for a standalone university, then a branch of the University of Washington. The topic deserves, and will get get, a full Advisory Bored blog post, but for now let's just focus on the notation that Snohomish county residents aren't getting engineering degrees because of the distance to a college. Attendance in engineering programs and all of STEM subjects has been dropping across the country for over a decade. While the slide seems to have hit bottom, programs aren't bursting at the seams just yet.
Hope and Dunshee seem to be taking a "if we build it they will come" attitude. However, the idea that engineering enrollment will surge merely because of the geographic proximity to a school of engineering is laughable. Which means that we will stop importing engineers and start importing engineering students. Oh great!
- The Herald's editorial board sides with the Governor in her efforts to consolidate the various education boards and committees into a single entity reporting directly to her (to the dismay of the publicly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction).
I so rarely agree with any thing the Herald's editorial board has to say about education, the fact that I agree this time warrants a comment. Our education system is many things, but it is not a system. Bringing focus to this effort by consolidating the groups is necessary, but not sufficient to bring about reform.
One area were I disagree is the Herald's advise to leave high-ed out of the discussion. Again, it's a system and all parts should be included. The Herald's own article about Running Start the previous week should make that point. But even without inclusion of post-secondary education, the reform is worth implementing. - Myandie Burton is a 67 year-old woman attending Edmonds Community College's adult basic education program to learn to read for the first time. The article discusses her history and her return to school to learn to read and, perhaps, to earn a GED.
Beyond the individual achievement story is another story about the profound impact basic adult education programs can have on families and communities. It is not critical that this woman at this time in her life earn a GED, but it sends a powerful message to those around her how important education is. If we believe that all citizens need high school and beyond education to be successful, then a culture of education needs to be infused into all communities. Adult basic education is part of that effort.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 03/04/2011
- Due to the recession, plenty of recent graduates are finding employment in non-profits and in government work. While rewarding in many ways, the pay is less. Concern remains that this will have a lasting, negative impact on life-long earnings.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The scaffolding of learning
Eva has a great post about teaching without a textbook over at the Education Virtually Anywhere (EVA) blog. Now I might be be a bit biased (truth in advertising: Eva is Mrs. Advisory Bored), but I find it a really insightful view of learning in the information age.
I hope, however, that technology educators and IT managers will consider this post with more than just passing intellectual curiosity at the changing nature of post-secondary education. I see in Eva's teaching methodology a model for long-term professional development and organizational transformation for IT professionals and their managers. Let me explain.
An IT professional, particularly in a smaller, corporate IT shop, can no longer assume that his/her manager can define his/her job responsibilities, career path, training needs or long-term organizational strategy for his/her area of specialization without significant input from the professional him or herself. This isn't the Dilbertesque dumbing down of IT management until they all resemble the PHB. Both the breadth and pace of technological change make it nearly impossible for a leader to dictate the work environment in a top-down, hierarchical fashion. 21st Century IT is not a 1960's assembly line.
Put simply, there is no longer room for IT workers, all staff must be IT professionals. Professionals accept responsibility for their own training and development. They identify and establish standards and practices for their area of responsibility. They remain abreast of the technology in their area of expertise and its impacts on the business, making recommendations to the IT manager. They build and maintain professional networks inside and outside the organization.
As the IT manager, it is my responsibility to create an environment for that to occur. It seems to me that's what Eva is expressing when she says:
I hope, however, that technology educators and IT managers will consider this post with more than just passing intellectual curiosity at the changing nature of post-secondary education. I see in Eva's teaching methodology a model for long-term professional development and organizational transformation for IT professionals and their managers. Let me explain.
An IT professional, particularly in a smaller, corporate IT shop, can no longer assume that his/her manager can define his/her job responsibilities, career path, training needs or long-term organizational strategy for his/her area of specialization without significant input from the professional him or herself. This isn't the Dilbertesque dumbing down of IT management until they all resemble the PHB. Both the breadth and pace of technological change make it nearly impossible for a leader to dictate the work environment in a top-down, hierarchical fashion. 21st Century IT is not a 1960's assembly line.
Put simply, there is no longer room for IT workers, all staff must be IT professionals. Professionals accept responsibility for their own training and development. They identify and establish standards and practices for their area of responsibility. They remain abreast of the technology in their area of expertise and its impacts on the business, making recommendations to the IT manager. They build and maintain professional networks inside and outside the organization.
As the IT manager, it is my responsibility to create an environment for that to occur. It seems to me that's what Eva is expressing when she says:
I make them do the work. I provide them with the framework or "scaffolding" of questions and problems to solve. They go looking for the answers and build their own library of resources along the way.One hopes that along the way, Eva is also sharing with her student the method to her madness. The knowledge her students gain on any given project is fleeting, whereas the method by which the gained it will be valuable for years and decades to come.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List 02/22/2011
- Everett School Board will discuss a possible censure of board member Jessica Olson on Tuesday, February 22nd. Olson's tenure has been marked by ongoing controversy with her interaction with the school district leadership and fellow board members. She won her seat on a platform of more openness.
Personal opinion here: After the past leadership of Everett schools, openness would be very welcome, but Olson has failed to move the objective forward. It's nice that she fights all these battles, but maybe she should consider winning a one or two. The real censure should come from voters who replace the ineffective Olson and the other secretive members of the board.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List
Michele Martin provides us with her thoughts of how school prepares students for more school, not "real" life. I couldn't agree more that we set an expectation of well-defined problems with single right answers. I wish I lived in that world.
The author draws an interesting analogy between testing driven education and fad diets. Even if we meet our goal, have we done so in a healthy manner that allows us to maintain that goal.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan highlighted the efforts of Granite High School's ShopGirls team at last years Shell Eco-marathon Americas competition. He used there performance as an example of strong career and technical education (CTE) programs.
In this post the author highlights the findings in Pathways to Prosperity report that questions the current "College for All" goal for education. Many jobs will require more than high school but less than a BA. Many students may not be well served by the current 4-year university system which does not prepare students for careers.Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Questions and concerns are raised as whether college should just be about getting a job. REALITY CHECK: the only reason most people are going to college is to get ahead in their professional careers. This hand-wringing over creating "better, well-rounded people" is nonsense (that's my opinion, not necessarily the authors).
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Advisory Bored Reading List
No more teaching for Josh, he's going to guide and encourage the students in his classroom.
tags: AB teaching
Riffing on Guy Kawasaki post, Stephen Downes comes up with his own list of things you really need to learn, more than just to be successful in business.Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
tags: education learning lessons AB
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Innovation is in the use
Andy Rathbun's article on innovative technology in Snohomish county classrooms gets the front page treatment in today's Everett Herald. Andy highlights a number of new gadgets in use including interactive white boards, document cameras, sound systems and clickers.
I had a chance to see the the white board in use last week at the kick-off meeting for the Mukilteo school district's professional advisory committee for business and technology. As if a teacher's job isn't difficult enough, the white board wasn't working right. But then, which of us hasn't been in that position before?
While I am really happy to see these tools making their way into the classroom, slowly breaking down barriers to technology adoption, I find it hard to consider this innovative. It feels like the early 90's adoption of information technology in business. Putting leading edge technology to use cutting paychecks was automation, not innovation.
Real innovation comes with changes to the system, to decision making, afforded by the technology. Take the use of the clicker described in the article. Automation of assessment has been going on for decades: multiple choice tests, mark sense forms, learning management systems. In a sense, the clicker is just one more step in that automation path. What's innovative about that scenario is that the teacher will adjust the instruction based upon that real-time feedback. Similarly, we saw the Everett school district's remarkable turn around in graduations rates as a result of the innovative, real-time use of student grade and attendance data. The collection and consolidation of data isn't innovative, but the personalized intervention based upon that data is.
I don't mean to discourage or disparage the adoption of technology as described in the article. Instead I hope we can lift up our vision of innovation in education. Let's use the Flat Classroom Project as an example of this bigger goal. Founded in 2006 by Vicki Davis (aka Cool Cat Teacher) and Julie Lindsay, it uses web 2.0 tools to break down the classroom walls. Students across the globe work together on learning projects. Realize, however, that the technology didn't change the learning environment, Vicki and Julie did.
The lesson education can draw from business is that information technology affords you the opportunity to change, but it does not compel you to change.
I had a chance to see the the white board in use last week at the kick-off meeting for the Mukilteo school district's professional advisory committee for business and technology. As if a teacher's job isn't difficult enough, the white board wasn't working right. But then, which of us hasn't been in that position before?
While I am really happy to see these tools making their way into the classroom, slowly breaking down barriers to technology adoption, I find it hard to consider this innovative. It feels like the early 90's adoption of information technology in business. Putting leading edge technology to use cutting paychecks was automation, not innovation.
Real innovation comes with changes to the system, to decision making, afforded by the technology. Take the use of the clicker described in the article. Automation of assessment has been going on for decades: multiple choice tests, mark sense forms, learning management systems. In a sense, the clicker is just one more step in that automation path. What's innovative about that scenario is that the teacher will adjust the instruction based upon that real-time feedback. Similarly, we saw the Everett school district's remarkable turn around in graduations rates as a result of the innovative, real-time use of student grade and attendance data. The collection and consolidation of data isn't innovative, but the personalized intervention based upon that data is.
I don't mean to discourage or disparage the adoption of technology as described in the article. Instead I hope we can lift up our vision of innovation in education. Let's use the Flat Classroom Project as an example of this bigger goal. Founded in 2006 by Vicki Davis (aka Cool Cat Teacher) and Julie Lindsay, it uses web 2.0 tools to break down the classroom walls. Students across the globe work together on learning projects. Realize, however, that the technology didn't change the learning environment, Vicki and Julie did.
The lesson education can draw from business is that information technology affords you the opportunity to change, but it does not compel you to change.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Sometimes a hyphen is just a hyphen
I had to smile as I read a recent post by Alfred Thompson on validating character input strings for name. In it, Alfred walks through a number of ways to test for valid alphabetic characters while not limiting it to only the 26 letters of our English alphabet. Most options did not return the results he had hoped for.
I seriously doubt these businesses had a policy that said we don't want women with hyphenated last names as customers, but that's what they implemented. It is important that programming students understand they aren't implementing code, they're implementing the business. The implementation can't (properly) occur without the business context.
And that's a lesson that is just as important as the return value from the isLetter function.
You see, overly aggressive character validation was one of the reasons my wife became a programmer. Early in our marriage, Mrs. Advisory Bored used a hyphenated maiden/married last name. Most computer systems would not accept "maiden-married" as a last name. At some point she figured she couldn't do any worse than those programmers and she changed careers.
I seriously doubt these businesses had a policy that said we don't want women with hyphenated last names as customers, but that's what they implemented. It is important that programming students understand they aren't implementing code, they're implementing the business. The implementation can't (properly) occur without the business context.
And that's a lesson that is just as important as the return value from the isLetter function.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Teachers, unions and the Geo Prizm
Mrs. Advisory Bored and I both broke into the IT world as employees of Electronic Data System (EDS), a whole owned subsidiary of General Motors (GM). That honor bought us a one-way trip to the suburbs of Detroit, MI. While there, we bought ourselves a new car, our first "new" new car. We weren't really interested in an early 90's GM product, but that was neither the time or the place to buy Japanese. Fortunately GM had opened a joint venture with Toyota to learn lean manufacturing techniques so we bought a Geo Prizm, Chevy's version of the Toyota Corola. We owned the car for 17 years and logged plenty of memorable trips in the East and the most important one, moving back home to Seattle.
This joint venture was called New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc (NUMMI) and was located at the site of the old GM assembly plant in Fremont, CA. What was so interesting about the NUMMI facility was that it was staff by former workers of the Fremont plant, generally considered to be among the worst workers in the industry producing some of GM's worst vehicles. Re-energized and re-trained in the Toyota Production System (TPS), however, the plant lead by Toyota management started to produce a range of Toyota-designed products starting in 1984 until last year when the plant closed after GM pulled out of the partnership. The lesson to be learned was that while the UAW did itself no favors, union workers were not the problem. It was a change in leadership, a focus on quality, a top notch design and radically re-envisioned assembly model that made the difference.
It is well worth considering this lesson as we attack "bad" teachers and their union. When bloodletting is finally done, all you may be left with is a group of demoralized employees futilely trying to assemble a model that is ill-conceived and out-of-date, handed down to them by a bunch of bean counters more concerned with the numbers on the paper than the product on the street. If, as happened at NUMMI, we identify a new, better way of working first, the problems that need to be fixed may well fix themselves.
Just sayin'.
This joint venture was called New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc (NUMMI) and was located at the site of the old GM assembly plant in Fremont, CA. What was so interesting about the NUMMI facility was that it was staff by former workers of the Fremont plant, generally considered to be among the worst workers in the industry producing some of GM's worst vehicles. Re-energized and re-trained in the Toyota Production System (TPS), however, the plant lead by Toyota management started to produce a range of Toyota-designed products starting in 1984 until last year when the plant closed after GM pulled out of the partnership. The lesson to be learned was that while the UAW did itself no favors, union workers were not the problem. It was a change in leadership, a focus on quality, a top notch design and radically re-envisioned assembly model that made the difference.
It is well worth considering this lesson as we attack "bad" teachers and their union. When bloodletting is finally done, all you may be left with is a group of demoralized employees futilely trying to assemble a model that is ill-conceived and out-of-date, handed down to them by a bunch of bean counters more concerned with the numbers on the paper than the product on the street. If, as happened at NUMMI, we identify a new, better way of working first, the problems that need to be fixed may well fix themselves.
Just sayin'.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Abundance, the mother of purchase orders
Good friend of the Advisory Bored blog, Paul over at Last Great Road Trip, is at it again. He's been busy playing around with the technology. When Paul isn't giving some one's data center an extreme makeover, he's either roaming the trails in a Toyota FJ or blogging about roaming the trails in a Toyota FJ.
In a recent post, Paul decided to build himself a good old fashion mobile GPS command center out of inexpensive or free parts. A second-hand laptop, some open source software and an inexpensive GPS receiver makeup his system (I'm guessing the nice vehicle mount for the laptop described in a subsequent post cost more than the rest of the system put together).
All of which reminds me that resource constraints aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes we forget that a little tinkering, some kludging, a roll of duct tape and a bit of ingenuity can lead to some pretty interesting outcomes and some really powerful learning (which is, after all, the only outcome of any real importance). More money doesn't necessarily improve learning.
Certainly you can plop 30 students down in a lab, each with a copy of "Google Maps for Dummies", but does that really make for more compelling resume entry than the experience of "building a mobile GPS command center, including configuration of the hardware, operating system, mapping software and integration with freely available online map information for under $75.00"? Do you really think the former learned more than the latter?
Remember, necessity is the mother of invention. Abundance is the mother of purchase orders.
All of which reminds me that resource constraints aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes we forget that a little tinkering, some kludging, a roll of duct tape and a bit of ingenuity can lead to some pretty interesting outcomes and some really powerful learning (which is, after all, the only outcome of any real importance). More money doesn't necessarily improve learning.
Certainly you can plop 30 students down in a lab, each with a copy of "Google Maps for Dummies", but does that really make for more compelling resume entry than the experience of "building a mobile GPS command center, including configuration of the hardware, operating system, mapping software and integration with freely available online map information for under $75.00"? Do you really think the former learned more than the latter?
Remember, necessity is the mother of invention. Abundance is the mother of purchase orders.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
If it ain't broke, re-envision it
I've been reconsidering my If I had a hammer post this week because of some discussions I've been having about the redesign of our "broken" web site. I've tried to steer folks away from terms like "broken" and "fix" when dealing with changing requirements, but the average person isn't so concerned about the semantical differences. I found myself having to be much clearer in my reasoning than I was in the blog post.
Now I don't really care to engage in pointless arguments over semantics if I don't have to, but our words do matter a great deal. The language we use drives our thinking and, consequently, drives our behavior. When you say something is broken, you are inherently saying that the system in question - whether a simple appliance or a large social institution - is fundamentally sound and still capable of producing the outcome you desire, if you can fix the one malfunctioning part.
Saying that a system is broken puts you into troubleshooting mode. Think about troubleshooting for a moment. If a user says "my computer won't work", what's the first thing that comes to mind? Does it involve the electrical outlet or perhaps you want clarification on the current status. Either way, in troubleshooting mode you immediately move to the beginning of the process and work forward asking a series of yes/no questions looking for components that aren't functioning or are not functioning to standard. That's how we are trained.
What if, instead, that user said "I have all these new job tasks and I can't find the tools to help me get them done. This computer won't work for me."? Your attention is immediately focused toward the end of the process and the outcomes. Your questions are open-ended and probing for understanding. You are in requirements mode. Imagine the look you would get if your first response to this second question was "Is the computer plugged in?".
In a recent post, "Who's Asking", Will Richardson advises leaders in educational reform that they must some how satisfy the complaints of the school-is-broken crowd without losing sight of real need, which is a re-envisioned education system focused on 21st century outcomes. In my mind, however, there is only so much that reformers can do until the question is rephrased from "what's wrong" to "what should we do". This is pretty much the same thing I said in this rant 2 years ago in response to a Scott McLeod post about building community backing for 21st century skills.
I think IT leadership is (still) uniquely positioned to help educational reformers, but not until we are clear in our own minds that we must first redefine the goals of education before we change the structure and funding of education. Let me recommend this post on Redesigning Education in Fast Company Design as a starting point.
Now I don't really care to engage in pointless arguments over semantics if I don't have to, but our words do matter a great deal. The language we use drives our thinking and, consequently, drives our behavior. When you say something is broken, you are inherently saying that the system in question - whether a simple appliance or a large social institution - is fundamentally sound and still capable of producing the outcome you desire, if you can fix the one malfunctioning part.
Saying that a system is broken puts you into troubleshooting mode. Think about troubleshooting for a moment. If a user says "my computer won't work", what's the first thing that comes to mind? Does it involve the electrical outlet or perhaps you want clarification on the current status. Either way, in troubleshooting mode you immediately move to the beginning of the process and work forward asking a series of yes/no questions looking for components that aren't functioning or are not functioning to standard. That's how we are trained.
What if, instead, that user said "I have all these new job tasks and I can't find the tools to help me get them done. This computer won't work for me."? Your attention is immediately focused toward the end of the process and the outcomes. Your questions are open-ended and probing for understanding. You are in requirements mode. Imagine the look you would get if your first response to this second question was "Is the computer plugged in?".
In a recent post, "Who's Asking", Will Richardson advises leaders in educational reform that they must some how satisfy the complaints of the school-is-broken crowd without losing sight of real need, which is a re-envisioned education system focused on 21st century outcomes. In my mind, however, there is only so much that reformers can do until the question is rephrased from "what's wrong" to "what should we do". This is pretty much the same thing I said in this rant 2 years ago in response to a Scott McLeod post about building community backing for 21st century skills.
I think IT leadership is (still) uniquely positioned to help educational reformers, but not until we are clear in our own minds that we must first redefine the goals of education before we change the structure and funding of education. Let me recommend this post on Redesigning Education in Fast Company Design as a starting point.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Tag, you're it
This week I was investigating QR Codes and Microsoft Tags when I came across this article from EDUCAUSE . As a quick background, QR Codes and Tags are types of matrix or 2 dimensional barcodes that contain information that a reader on a smartphone (using the built in camera) can use to route users to a website, add contact information to an address book or make a phone call.
For instance, the image you see here is a Microsoft Tag with the web address of the Advisory Bored blog embedded. If you had a smartphone with the free tag reader you could point your smartphone camera at the image and it would launch the browser and navigate to the Advisory Bored blog. Now imagine if the image were on a business card, placed in a newspaper ad or printed on the side of a bus. (I was researching the idea of printing a Tag on those big white land use signs that go up whenever there is a new building development or a zoning code change.)
It was not, however, the use of QR Codes in particular that most interested me in the EDUCAUSE article; it was the cross-discipline student project highlighted on the first page. The project has at least four major aspects. First, there is the biology, compiling the information about the plants. Second, the team members had to deal with technological issues like information access and user education/training. Third, there was the information management challenge to make sure the content presentation was sensitive to different technologies (phones vs PCs). Finally, there was a myriad of logistical issues from coordinating with the docents to printing the QR Codes to staffing the guest booth.
More and more, work is characterized by this type of team project in which different people from different areas of the organization (and across organizations) must collaborate to accomplish a goal. It is my sense, however, that educational assessment, particularly in secondary schools, is still focused on individual performance. On more than one occasion I have heard from teachers that group projects present significant challenges for student assessment. That's unfortunate, because those are precisely the skills the workforce of today and tomorrow need.
An example that's a little closer to home is the Western Washington University V45 project team for the Progressive X Prize competition, a $10 million dollar challenge to build production-capable cars getting 100 MPGe. Look down that participant list. You've got business students, materials sciences students and vehicle design students all working toward that prize. (The V45 was eventually eliminated, but did an outstanding job getting to the finals.)
So what's the take-away? I'll toss out four, just to get us started:
More and more, work is characterized by this type of team project in which different people from different areas of the organization (and across organizations) must collaborate to accomplish a goal. It is my sense, however, that educational assessment, particularly in secondary schools, is still focused on individual performance. On more than one occasion I have heard from teachers that group projects present significant challenges for student assessment. That's unfortunate, because those are precisely the skills the workforce of today and tomorrow need.
An example that's a little closer to home is the Western Washington University V45 project team for the Progressive X Prize competition, a $10 million dollar challenge to build production-capable cars getting 100 MPGe. Look down that participant list. You've got business students, materials sciences students and vehicle design students all working toward that prize. (The V45 was eventually eliminated, but did an outstanding job getting to the finals.)
So what's the take-away? I'll toss out four, just to get us started:
- project management and collaboration skills are essential and should be fostered even at the high school level
- projects that cross areas of study and extend out beyond the campus are far more interesting and potentially more educational
- teachers will need to develop curriculum that is team-based and be prepared to address all the issues that teams present (such as the ability for teams to "fire" members who aren't participating)
- advisory boards need to be clear and indicate if they think a program should emphasize "team project work" or "individual project work"
Sunday, June 20, 2010
If I had a hammer
Suppose I asked you to join two pieces of wood, two 2 by 4's, three feet long. I need you to join the boards at each end and in the middle. I give you a hammer and you walk to the right end of the boards where you find a nail already started. Somewhat tentatively you take several swings before finally driving the nail in.
You take a step to the left and at the mid-point of the boards you find another nail. More confidently, you take a couple of really good swings and drive the nail home. Finally, you take another step to the left and at the left end of the board you find ..... a screw.
My question to you is a simple one. Is the hammer broken?
The obvious answer is no and most people would be smart enough to either get a screwdriver or replace the screw with a nail. A few truly creative, out-of-the-box thinkers, such as myself, would simply pound in the screw with the hammer, although I don't recommend it for finish work. (Oh please, that revelation didn't really surprise you, did it?)
Still, there are those that must bring work to a complete halt so they may blame the task master, the hammer, the screw or the over-reaching federal government seeking to nationalize the construction industry.
It is this question, is the hammer broken, that I come back to again and again as the battle over educational reform rages on. For far too many people, the current educational system can't merely be a tool that successfully met the challenges of the past, but is not design to meet our new requirements. It must be broken and someone must be to blame. However, as Gerry Weinberg reminds us in his wonderful book The Secrets of Consulting:
You take a step to the left and at the mid-point of the boards you find another nail. More confidently, you take a couple of really good swings and drive the nail home. Finally, you take another step to the left and at the left end of the board you find ..... a screw.
My question to you is a simple one. Is the hammer broken?
The obvious answer is no and most people would be smart enough to either get a screwdriver or replace the screw with a nail. A few truly creative, out-of-the-box thinkers, such as myself, would simply pound in the screw with the hammer, although I don't recommend it for finish work. (Oh please, that revelation didn't really surprise you, did it?)
Still, there are those that must bring work to a complete halt so they may blame the task master, the hammer, the screw or the over-reaching federal government seeking to nationalize the construction industry.
It is this question, is the hammer broken, that I come back to again and again as the battle over educational reform rages on. For far too many people, the current educational system can't merely be a tool that successfully met the challenges of the past, but is not design to meet our new requirements. It must be broken and someone must be to blame. However, as Gerry Weinberg reminds us in his wonderful book The Secrets of Consulting:
The chances of solving a problem decline the closer you get to finding out who was the cause of the problem. (Spark's Law of Problem Solution)The challenge then, is for us interested in the education of the IT professionals of the future to wade into the debate with our required outcomes in hand. We must continue to press for a discussion of the what and why of education, while steadfastly refusing to be drawn into the debate of how and who. Most of all, we must resist the temptation to play the blame game.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Time for an IT apprenticeship
A recent New York Times (NYT) article, Plan B: Skip College, examines whether a vocational alternative, like apprenticeships, needs to be offered to students for whom college is not a good fit. In it, author Jacques Steinberg says
Regular readers of this blog know that I favor having many different paths to the skills, knowledge and competencies required of IT professionals (see 2+2+2 = Bachelor of Applied Science), so I won't bore you with my understanding of the article. You can read it for yourself, along with some interesting commentary here.
Instead, I want to get a sense from local IT managers if there is a place for something like an apprenticeship for IT staff and if there are openings available to those with less than a bachelors degree. Specifically, I am focusing on corporate/government IT, not high-tech companies of the Microsoft variety. These are positions like help desk, email administrator and programmer at banks, retailers and insurance companies. I ask, because I know a lot of the jobs out there seem to carry educational requirements that leave many capable people out of the running. There's not much value in an apprenticeship if you won't hire the participants after they complete the program.
So I have a few question for all you IT leaders out there:
A small but influential group of economists and educators is pushing another pathway: for some students, no college at all. It’s time, they say, to develop credible alternatives for students unlikely to be successful pursuing a higher degree, or who may not be ready to do so.
Regular readers of this blog know that I favor having many different paths to the skills, knowledge and competencies required of IT professionals (see 2+2+2 = Bachelor of Applied Science), so I won't bore you with my understanding of the article. You can read it for yourself, along with some interesting commentary here.
Instead, I want to get a sense from local IT managers if there is a place for something like an apprenticeship for IT staff and if there are openings available to those with less than a bachelors degree. Specifically, I am focusing on corporate/government IT, not high-tech companies of the Microsoft variety. These are positions like help desk, email administrator and programmer at banks, retailers and insurance companies. I ask, because I know a lot of the jobs out there seem to carry educational requirements that leave many capable people out of the running. There's not much value in an apprenticeship if you won't hire the participants after they complete the program.
So I have a few question for all you IT leaders out there:
- Do you have or would you be willing to add an entry level IT position in your organization whose educational requirements would be fulfilled by vocational education at the high school or community college level? What types of position would that be (help desk, email administration, business analyst)?
- Are there any IT certifications in particular that you would consider as replacing education requirements in your hiring consideration?
- Would you be willing to be part of an apprenticeship program, some sort of public/private partnership to ensure training and work opportunities?
