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 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.

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.

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:

1. project management and collaboration skills are essential and should be fostered even at the high school level
2. projects that cross areas of study and extend out beyond the campus are far more interesting and potentially more educational
3. 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)
4. advisory boards need to be clear and indicate if they think a program should emphasize "team project work" or "individual project work"

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

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:

1.  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)?
2. Are there any IT certifications in particular that you would consider as replacing education requirements in your hiring consideration?
3. Would you be willing to be part of an apprenticeship program, some sort of public/private partnership to ensure training and work opportunities?

Skeptic 101: The history of current events

Skepticality is the official podcast of Skeptic Magazine, or so they say .......

No, seriously, they really are the official podcast of Skeptic Magazine and one of a just a couple of true podcasts (not a recording of an over-the-air radio show) that I listen to regularly. Recently I've been listened to some episodes I missed last summer and came across an interview of David Cullen author of Columbine, a book that looks at what we know, or think we know, about the 1999 school shooting in Littleton, Colorado.

Co-host Swoopy opened the interview with this:

.... what we were told was a group of students possibly involved with a gang called the Trenchcoat Mafia, in retaliation for bullying and gay-bashing, had started shooting their classmates as punishment for the ridicule they had long endured. The two outsiders, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were cast as the perfect villains who were part of the goth subculture, worshiped Hitler and listened to Marilyn Manson. They were dark, brooding kids typical of the kind who would snap and start killing those they thought deserved their wrath - jocks, African-Americans and Jews. They would reportedly ask their victims if they believed in God and shot those who professed to believe. The problem is almost none of that is true

In the interview Cullen identifies many of the myths that exist to this day, the most notable being that Columbine was a school shooting when the evidence shows their intentions were to blowup the building and kill everyone in it. Cullen also discusses the role of the media in creating the popular myth and their failure to correct it. I haven't read the book yet, but the interview was certainly a good use of an hour.

Leaving aside the specifics of this particular incident for the moment, the theme that the media needs to do a better job of covering these big incidents and correcting errors is a consistent one in the era of media self-flagellation. Granted that needs to happen, but at some point don't we need to acknowledge that this type of news coverage is error prone in the best of situations and we, the media and general public alike, must adapt our understanding or beliefs to match the evolving truth.

The answer to that last question is, of course, yes so I propose a class called Skeptic 101: The History of Current Events. Instead of analyzing the event, the class would analyze the general understanding of the event at different time perspectives. It would be like a history MRI, analyzing little slices of understanding over a sustained time period. This would give the student the opportunity to see how truth emerges (or fades) over time and its effect, if any, on popular understanding of the situation and our reaction to it.

What, you might ask, does this have to do with IT education? You may remember that in earlier post like The Great Debate and The Data Model of Dorian Gray I discussed teaching foundation skills as a preparation for later teaching career-specific skills. In the Great Debate post I said:

As more work becomes analytical in nature we need to have programs that help students develop those capabilities in general even when we aren't training them for a specific job.

A class like the History of Current Events can surface the analytical strengths needed in most IT and business jobs while not necessarily preparing students directly for any one career. For instance, a Business or Systems Analyst is required to think critically, to question what is known in an area of the business and to re-evaluate what is held to be true over and over again. While high school might be a bit early for a requirements gathering class, it isn't too early to learn foundation skills they will need when they do take a requirements gathering class.

So what do you think?

The Data Model of Dorian Gray

Mrs. AdvisoryBored and I spent the week at the Enterprise Data World conference talking data with friends both new and old. It is a joy to get together with others who want to discuss metadata, data quality, data governance and Twitter names beginning with the word data. Yes, the last one did occur in the wee hours of the morning and yes, it is possible that some consumption of alcohol was involved. Did I mention that it was a data management conference?

A more serious topic of discussion was the concern that data management has become a profession (job, role or set of activities) of older people. I tried to point out that young people such as myself were entering the profession. They were quick to point out that 50 didn't count as young. Who knew!

While I share that concern, I think that there are aspects of the profession that will always skew the age of practitioners toward the "experienced" end of the scale. That would include a focus on:

• data, not on the computers and applications
  
• an enterprise view of the organization, not an operational view
  
• semantics, categorizations, meanings and definitions
• specialized jobs (traditionally found only in larger organizations and consulting firms)
• planning and coordination
  

I lost you at semantics didn't I?

Look, experience need not be synonymous with age, so if we want to bring younger practitioners into the field then we have got to do a few things different.

First we must teach the core competencies that serve as the foundation for data management training later. It parallels the effort to teach computational thinking skills like numbering systems or sorting algorithms without using computers at a young age so they are prepared to learn computer programming later, if they wish. These competencies - things like classification, abstract thinking, information literacy, computer literacy and set theory - ensures students are prepared to learn data management at a more appropriate time. Wax on, Wax off.

Second we must build awareness of data management as an area of study, as a set of skills and as a profession. Most of you are probably thinking database administration when I speak of data management. Fair enough, database administration is certainly part of data management, but so are data modeling, data warehousing, data security and any number of other jobs or roles. Our biggest challenge in this area, as Karen pointed out on numerous occasions at the conference, is to be visible to younger professionals by participating in the communication channels they use. This means we need to be talking data management in blogs (or this one), on Twitter, on LinkedIn, in discussion forums and on wikis.

Finally we must develop, or at least help to develop, curriculum to support the needs of new entrants into the field as well as the ongoing professional development of those who have already chosen data management as a career path. DAMA International made a huge leap in this area last week with the release of The DAMA Guide to the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DM-BOK). The challenge now is for data management professionals to carry this information to local colleges and universities. Additionally, we need to push beyond the basic database training to teach a broader range of data management activities. As Peter pointed out on several occasions, we teach students how to build new databases, but how often do we really do that in our professional lives.

Let me leave you with one final thought. Data management is both a set of activities and a profession. Many people who do the former don't consider themselves the latter. They are, nevertheless, contributing to the body of knowledge, for better or worse, and we need to connect with them just as much as an up-and-coming metadata analyst. Consider the outcomes that Mrs. AdvisoryBored identified in her original proposal for the Business Information Management class (MGMT 215) at Edmonds Community College (see the end of page two). There is no guarantee that the students, particularly those from the Business department, will embrace those data management principles and/or the profession, but she has at least had the opportunity to introduce the concept of data as a managed enterprise resource.

Tags: Enterprise Data World, DAMA, DM-BOK, Data Management

Attention shoppers

It wasn't the last minute Christmas shopping that reminded me of the old Kmart blue light special, it was a blog post by Frank Kenny on his proposal for a social networking class. Frank is president/CEO of the North Mason County Chamber of Commerce and a big believer in social networking/web 2.0 in business, particularly for the small business sector. I've been following Frank on Twitter and that's where he asked for a little feedback on his proposed class. His idea is to introduce his membership to Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging.

I really like what he is proposing because I agree that social networking offers a lot of value to small business owners if they become familiar with the tools and learn to adapt them to their needs. I kinda went over board and ended up adding a post-length comment (see here and scroll down to the comments). Instead of reprinting my comments here I'll let you switch over to his site. I'll wait -- "someone left the cake out in the rain and we'll never get that recipe .. "-- oh, you're back.

Given that Frank and others like him are pushing the information revolution into small businesses everywhere, perhaps we need to consider a few things in our education environment:

• if web 2.0 is on the radar of small businesses in Belfair then it had better on the radar of your business courses. Integrating web 2.0 into your business classes is at least as valuable as teaching it in stand alone technology classes, and probably more valuable.
• don't shy away from teaching web 2.0 in the classes because younger students "grew up with the technology". As I have discussed before, a student's ability to use the tools in a personal setting is irrelevant. When they start working they will be judged on their ability to accomplish something with them in a business context (increase revenue, cut costs, build brand recognition).
• in a small business and in a slowing economy, the creative application of technology to improve business can come from many places within the organization. Most small businesses aren't going to be looking for a director of internet marketing after completing Frank's class, but they will be more open to the use of the tools when an employee suggests it (perhaps one of your students). The person who recommends Twitter for announcing the blue light special on bananas probably won't be the store owner and maybe not even the produce manager. It's more likely to be stock boy (girl) and it's going to look great on their resume.
  

So what do you think? Does your HR program have students thinking about YouTube as a training vehicle? Do your purchasing classes include LinkedIn as a resource for vendor references?

Tags: Frank Kenny, North Mason County Chamber of Commerce, Web 2.0, Business Education

Connections yes, funding no

Today's Everett Herald had an interesting editorial piece on education. To summarize: there are a lot of good, high-skilled, high-wage jobs out there, but students aren't aware and aren't preparing for them. The solution is a $900 million fund for grants to help draw the connections.

Okay, I'm buying the part about good jobs. I agree that students aren't recognizing the full range of career opportunities. The drop-out rate is way too high, yes I'm with you. So we need a new federal program to make grants. Oppps, you lost me on that last one.

Is it possible that students don't see these as an option because we - parents, teachers, counselors, business leaders, politicians and editorial writers - have spent the last 30 years devaluing these careers? I've done it myself. I've joked about avoiding jobs where your name is sewn on your shirt. Never mind that for the last 20 years I've been sporting a badge that tracks my every moment and features a picture that makes my driver's license photo look like Annie Leibovitz was working the camera at the DMV.

A month ago I walked into the Mariner High counseling center for our first advisory committee of the year. What I saw were big banners with the registration dates for the major public and private 4-year colleges in the area. That's all I remember seeing. There may have been information on community colleges and apprenticeship programs, but I sure don't remember them. If it made that big of an impression on a 50-year old, imagine the message a 15-year old receives.

I have heard on several occassions, from teachers in different districts, that counseling students to options other than a 4-year degree directly following high school is not done. The expectation is that college is the one true way to succeed in life. Society sees it that way, why shouldn't counselors. You've heard administrators proudly claim that "xx% of our graduates are accepted to 4 year colleges"? Okay, again why are students not looking at the full range of career options? Is it possible that students are listening to what we are saying, even if we aren't listening to ourselves?

So yes, we do need to feature these career paths. Yes, we do need to counsel students about their options. Yes, we do need to celebrate the opportunity Sno-Isle Skills center and our community colleges offer. We don't need a federal program and grants to do it. We've put up a wall to block student's view and now we want a federal grant to install a window. It's our wall and we should remove it ourselves.

For related discussions, see my 2+2+2 = Bachelor of Applied Science and Review Rep. Loomis Wrap Newsletter posts.

Tags: Education, Vocational Education, Everett Herald

Educating Employees

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving day. Mine was very enjoyable, largely due to the fact that the family dinner was not at my house this year (we still had the annual Fryday gathering around the deep fryer - 2 turkeys and 5 chickens). It did throw my schedule off, however, and I missed the full, extended version of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant on the radio. There's always next year.

I did catch an interest radio piece on KUOW, part of a series from the Cunard Cruise Lines called Liner Notes. Episode 6 (Talking Turkey) contained an interview with author Wendell Berry. Around 51 minutes into the podcast the interviewer asks Mr. Berry what advice he, a frequent commencement speaker, gives young people about leading a successful life. He says his comments always go against the grain because:

... I think what they are being taught is how to be good employees, which means to be dependent and obedient and so on, and I encourage them to try for independence.

Argue if you will about whether the goal of school is to create good employees or educated citizens (are the two really mutually exclusive?), but I can assure Mr. Berry that "dependent and obedient" is the very definition of a poor employee, certainly in the modern information technology (IT) organization. The world of routine, process-oriented jobs, where employees follow orders from a boss with superior knowledge is fading fast. Organizations are flat, managerial span of control wide, knowledge fleeting and work project-oriented. I would consider the 3 skills Alan November highlights in this short video clip as more accurate representation of what good employees need to be taught.



My concern, however, is not that Mr. Berry's assessment of hiring standards is accurate (it's not). My fear is that his assessment of education might be accurate. I know teachers and administrators are going to say we don't teach those things and I know that's not their intent. I am confident that there isn't an AP Obedience class anywhere in the country. Still, I wonder if the very organization of school and the behaviors it models doesn't encourage some dependent and obedient behaviors. I'm thinking of the focus on lecturing, the teacher as the expert ("the sage on the stage"), the rigorous structuring of the class day and standardized testing the reinforces the notion of "one right answer".

This gets tricky because, if we are modeling the wrong behaviors, then the discussion can't be between a couple of teachers at Kamiak or Cascade or E-W and their respective technology advisory committees. Those behaviors are woven into the very fabric of the education system. Removing them is the job of the weaver, not the seamstress. That is why, as I have written before, there needs to be a discussion amongst the broader community - taxpayers, citizens, civic leaders, business leaders, teachers and administrators.

Tags: Wendell Berry, Alan November, Education, Employment Skills

Would you like a Certs

In a recent post over at ZDNet, Deb Perelman asks whether IT pro's should have to demonstrate their skills. It appears there is some controversy over at Slashdot (like that's hard to do) as to whether experienced professionals with degrees should have to demonstrate their chops with, oh say, PL/SQL. Deb asks:

Do accountants have to provide the scores from their back-in-the-day CPA exams?

Well no, but they are required to pass a widely recognized, respected, standarized test that demonstrates their base knowledge and must follow-up with documented continuing education credits to maintain that certification throughout their career. We're not just talking doctors, lawyers and accountants here. I think hair stylists have more licensing requirements than the IT profession. In fact, some might argue that without such standards IT doesn't deserved to be called a profession.

Certifications are a subject of frequent discussion here at the AdvisoryBored household. In a recent post Mrs. AdvisoryBored dove into the issue of certifications and education following a Herald column by economist James McCusker. I'm not going to comment further than to suggest that you read her post and the two comments. In addition to teaching, Mrs. AdvisoryBored serves on an independent IT certification body, which gives her far greater insight into assessment, certification and degrees. Having been a hiring IT manager for several years she also understands just how useless the "your check cleared" certifications are to those of in industry.

Tags: IT Certification, Deb Perelman, James McCusker, Eva Smith

30 things

CIO.com reprinted an InfoWorld article called 30 Skills Every IT Person Needs. The list is a bit network heavy, but all-in-all I thought it was a pretty good list. A few of my favorites included:

• Know basic networking (#6). Computing is all about the network. If you (programmer, DBA, support) don't know basic network concepts and troubleshooting techniques, then you deserve the scorn and ridicule that the network staff heaps upon you and trust me, they will.
  
• Test backups (#12). This is one of those "I can't possibly be that stupid" things that every IT person learns, usually the hard way. And yes, it happened to me. Six months of backups and not a single file could be restored because of bad heads in the tape drive.
  
• Learn the business process (#20). This is particularly true if you are in corporate IT (Nordstom's, Starbuck's). The real power of corporate IT is to make the business better, faster, and cheaper, not the IT department.
  
• Square pegs go in square holes (#30). The strengths movement encourages us to play to our strengths and workaround our weaknesses (see this post). I would, however, amend #30 to say that it is just as important for individuals to understand this about themselves as it is for managers to understand it about their staff.
  

So how did you do on the list? Anything you think is missing?

Tags: IT Skills, Strengths Movement

Googley Advise from a Cool Cat

Cool Cat Teacher Vicki Davis highlights a post from the Official Google Blog on what they look for in an employee. The Google post encourages students to Major in Learning. Their priority is people with good non-routine problem skills. They identify five factors that they look for, including analytical reasoning, communication skills, experimentation, team players and passion and leadership. While my four person development team is in a significantly less competitive environment than Google, the skills listed in the post are no less important in my hiring decision.

For me, this demonstrates a move away from a mass-production, process-oriented environment to a more open, agile workplace marked by projects and a shifting business environment. Life simply doesn't come at you in a nice, predictable pattern anymore. (Did it ever?)

In her post, Vicki goes on to pose the question "what does majoring in learning look like"? Not being a teacher, administrator, or even parent I've tried to steer clear of the "how" question and limit my advisory board/bored comments to the "what" and "why" questions. At the risk of crossing that line, let me take suggest three "what's" that a person majoring in learning must have:

• an understanding that school is a subset of learning, and not necessarily the most important one. As a result, these people will have the skills, tools and attitudes necessary for continuous life long learning (both professional and personal). This also means that you don't have to go to college to major in learning.
  
• an appreciation of the fact that knowledge has a shelf life. New learning sometimes adds to our understanding and sometimes replaces it. Majors in learning don't confuse certainty with correctness.
  
• the confidence to get things wrong in a safe and appropriate setting. Getting things wrong is a necessary component of getting things right, so those majoring in learning are allowed to get things wrong without penalty. Still, it is important to demonstrate "right" most of the time (new software release, brain surgery, etc), so the major in learning knows how to use prototypes, test environments, pilots and sabbaticals to be wrong safely.
  

I'm sure Vicki would love to hear any ideas you have.

Tags: Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki Davis, Google Blog, Job Skills

Image Problems

The Association of Computing Machinery's (ACM) flagship journal Communications of the ACM gets a new look in July and has a couple of interesting articles related to technology education. (If you don't have an ACM membership, you can get the magazine online through the Sno-Isle library's ProQuest service. Go to http://www.sno-isle.org, select the research menu and follow the links to magazine and journal articles.)

On page 33, Rick Rashid, Microsoft's Sr. Vice President for Research, weighs in on the lack of students in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, et al. You should read the article, but let me summarize the problem:

1. Not enough students are going into this area of study in spite of evidence that the job opportunity remains high
2. The situation is worse than it seems because significant numbers of students, particularly at the post-graduate level, are foreign-born and may not want to or be able to stay and contribute to our economy
3. This lowers are ability to innovate and remain competitive in the global marketplace

Rashid goes on to say that computer science and engineering has an image problem. All too often it is the stereotypical view of the lone programmer (male), sitting for hours coding and debugging, that turns students off. Students with a view of computer science as a means to solve important problems are more likely to enter and finish computer science programs.

As I read the article, however, I begin to think less about the image problem and more about what an incredible opportunity is available to interested students by having one of Microsoft Research's sites located right here in the Puget Sound area. Not everyone is going to be interested in this type of work, but for those that are, they can do cutting-edge, world-class research right here.

I am reminded of the incredible work done at other research labs like the legendary Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) or the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) by the likes of Alan Kay and Douglas Englebart. I will digitally dope slap anyone who says "who are Alan Kay and Doug Englebart". If you use a mouse, a laptop, a graphical user interface, hypertext or program in an object oriented programming you can, in large part, thank these two gentlemen. Just for fun, check out this video of the famous 1968 mother of all demos in which Engelbart demonstrates how to use a mouse to cut and paste text while on a video conference (contrast it with this 2007 TED Talks presentation by Kay on using computers to help children learn through modeling concepts).

Browse over to the site for the Redmond research campus and take a look at what they are working on. Sure there is work on compilers and operating systems, but there are also projects in speech technology, visualization and social computing. And while I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from going into Computer Science, you will note that not everyone needs a Ph.D. in Computer Science to work at Microsoft Research. Mary Czerwinski, for instance, is a Research Area Manager of the Visualization and Interaction (VIBE) Research Group and has her PH.D. in Cognitive Psychology. Marc Smith does research in computer mediated social interaction and his degrees are in, you guessed it, Sociology.

Rashid closes out his article by calling on professionals to reach out to students and to the people who influence students - teachers, parents, counselors. The message is that programming isn't an end in itself, but a means to an end. The programming and design skills and knowledge gained will help your students to tame information overload, help the disabled to communicate through voice commands, or just build a cool new cell phone interface. Who knows, maybe you've got a Turing Award winner in your class right now.

Okay, you've officially been reached out to (ouch, nice grammar). Now I'm going to re-watch the Engelbart video. How did they do that in 1968?

Tags: ACM, Sno-Isle Library, Microsoft Research, Rick Rashid, Xerox PARC, Alan Kay, SRI, Douglas Engelbart, Mary Czerwinski, Marc Smith

It all adds up

I spent most of last Friday afternoon performing feats of statistical wonder: median, mode, mean, min, max and standard deviation calculations. The mayor wants to make the building permit process more predictable (consistent) so the process improvement team needs data on how much variation there is in the various steps of the process. Fortunately we have the data. Most of it I could do with the built in aggregating functions in SQL, but I had to break out the VBA code to call Excel's median function from Access.

Since this blog is intended to, on occasions, provide advice about how educational programs can better prepare students for the exciting world of corporate information systems (I.S.), I thought I toss out a couple of thoughts regarding math and corporate I.S.

Personally, I didn't hate or love math in school. Generally I was indifferent to math. I knew I had to be decent at math because in college I was going to be studying Biology, Chemistry, Forestry, Economics, Business in preparation for a career in Epidemiology, Land Management, HR, Marketing, Computer Programming (how'd that happen?). Fortunately I have those math skills because as programmer I have been asked to do rigorous computational mathematics like calculating pi, calculating rocket trajectory, modeling weather patterns, rounding a 401(k) deduction to two decimal places.

Like so many other students my issue with math was relevancy - am I ever going to use this stuff. Earlier this year I was reading a book called Made to Stick, about how some ideas are memorable and other not, and came across this quote from a teacher who had grown weary of such questions:

My grade 9 students have difficulty appreciating the usefulness of the Standard Form of the equation of a line, prompting them to ask, "When are we ever going to need this?"

This question used to really bother me, and I would look, as a result, for justification for everything I taught. Now I say, "Never. You will never use this."

I then go on to remind them that people don't lift weights so that they will be prepared should, one day, [someone] knock them over on the street and lay a barbell across their chests. You lift weights so that you can knock over a defensive lineman, or carry your groceries or lift your grandchildren without being sore the next day. You do math exercises so that you can improve your ability to think logically, so that you can be a better lawyer, doctor, architect, prison warden or parent.

MATH IS MENTAL WEIGHT TRAINING. It is a means to an end (for most people), not an end in itself.

Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Made to Stick. New York: Random House, 2007 (page 194).

If you're like me, and you should be thankful you're not, you are immediately struck by the creativity in comparing math exercises with weight training for football. It's certainly true that the mental weight training my math teachers had me doing in the 1960's and 1970's sure paid off last Friday. As I pondered this post, however, it occurred to me that the analogy works in the other direction too. People who never get to play the game eventually stop lifting weights. Yes it's a means to an end, but if the end is 31 years away your going to lose a lot of folks.

Mathematically I got "into the game" in high school biology class. My project was to see if there was a statistically significant relationship between annual rainfall and the amount of growth in trees. The key was that I wasn't merely required to do the math, I had to figure out what math to do. I spent more time researching correlation than cutting up the tree (we had to go out into the forested countryside, which is now known as Mill Creek). Do you know how truly valuable it is to know that correlation and causality aren't the same things?

Okay, fast forward to today and we are thinking that another math requirement in high school is going to help raise standards. Might I suggest a class that isn't mathematical weightlifting, but instead encourages students to put math into practice. With apologies to those of you who love advanced mathematics, here is my quick list of useful math for corporate I.S. types:

• interest rates, compound interest, rates of return, percentages, present value
  
• marginal rates, rates of change
  
• central tendency (mean, mode, median, standard deviation)
• variable replacement, constants
  
• date/time arithmetic
  
• data types, numbering systems (binary, hex)
  
• set theory, predicate logic, relational algebra (the basis for relational databases)
  
• logic, story problem (can't solve a problem if you can't describe the problem)
  
• relational operators (equal, greater than, less than or equal to, etc)
  

I can make a case for hiring an entry level programmer or analyst candidate who can demonstrate the use of these math concepts. It's certainly nice to have the advance math, and essential for many types of programming, but I have never been asked to determine the area of a paycheck.

Tags: Made to Stick, Chip Heath, Dan Heath, Mathematics, Education, WASL

If you build it, they might not come

Did you read this great comment from my good friend Paul at Last Great Road Trip (I think the comment actually referenced the content in this post, but hey, it's the thought that counts). If you are teaching web design and/or marketing - it better be "and" - you need to pay attention to Paul's comments. Heck, if you are a fellow advisory board member you should be paying attention.

From the business perspective, the web is about driving traffic your way and there is no guarantee that people will show up just because you have a blog or web site. We focus our educational resources on the mechanics of web design (and we completely forget the marketing aspect of the site) but that isn't the really critical component. Have you setup a blog at Blogger.com - it takes like 3 minutes, max. Hey, my dog's got her own blog, so how difficult can it be.

Now I don't want to dis' web design or e-commerce education, and I certainly don't want to downplay the important role that informatics and information architecture play in developing a highly usable site. I do, however, want to echo Paul's point that there is a lot of noise on the internet and it takes real work to get people you don't know to stop and look at your site. We need to teach that in school too.

Paul's lesson plan is simple. Have students create a web site (he suggests www.squidoo.com) on any topic and then use the free Google Analytics to monitor how certain activities help to build traffic. The next steps are meant to build links from supporting sites to the primary site, which in turns builds rank among the various search and linking tools (Google, Technorati, etc). The specific tools he lists are not important, he even suggests non-web 2.0 tools like the good ole' fashioned press release. The point of the exercise is that students are: thinking strategically and tactically about the role of the web site, using linkages to build site traffic and analyzing the results from Google Analytics to determine if their actions lead to the desirable outcome. If fact there is a profession emerging around this called search engine optimization or SEO. A little web design, a little marketing, a little math and you got yourself a new profession.

To drive my point home, let me give you three examples to look at:

• The MedicCast is produced by paramedic Jamie Davis. Here is is collection of useful content aimed at a particular audience. He assembles content from other sources as well as creating original content and bundles it up in a blog, a podcast and a live show. Notice the blogroll in the left-hand column and the "share and enjoy" icons at the end of each post. Both encourage linking, which build credibility. Does all this work payoff? Try Googling podcast and medic to see who gets first page ranking.
  
• Think of The Wood Whisperer as Norm 2.0. Marc Spagnuolo has a woodworking business and is a contributor to Fine Woodworking magazine, along with the videocast and blog. He has less of the shared linking than on the MedicCast, but notice the various other social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc) that he uses.
  
• Last, but certainly not least, than man who started this whole rant: The Last Great Road Trip. Who knew Paul's mid-life crisis was going to be so interesting (oh, he's going get me for that comment). Again you see a aggregated and original content that keeps the reader interested and coming back. He uses the linking to improve traffic flow. Less obvious from the site is his use of old media, like the press releases, articles in specialty magazines or interviews on radio to drive additional links.

A lot of us, young and old, create content for the web - a blog, uploading pictures to Flickr or My Space page - but these are for an audience we already know. The challenge for a business or professional site is to drive traffic from people who don't know us, or Kevin Bacon. This is marketing challenge not a technology challenge. And it's not guesswork. Your students have tools available to them for free in which they can demonstrate the effectiveness of any given marketing campaign.

Tags: Last Great Road Trip, MedicCast, Wood Whisperer, Google Analytics, SEO

AITP Collegiate Conference wrap-up

The Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) sponsors a collegiate conference every year, hosting students from around the country. Eva provides a summary at The Certify-Able Data Professional blog here. The AITP student chapter at Edmonds CC isn't active, but rumor has it that there is interest in bringing it back and I think its a great idea. As Eva notes

"Professional associations and these kinds of conferences are wonderful collaborations between colleges and businesses. They create a sense of community for students, connect them with each other and with hiring businesses, and inspire professional pride and enthusiasm. "


Tags: AITP, Professional Associations

Certification and Data Management

If you are interested in data management and data management certification you might want to check out the Certify-Able Data Professional blog. This week Eva from the Education Virtually Anywhere blog has been blogging the Data Management Association symposium in San Diego.

Tags: CDMP, DAMA, ICCP

The Great Debate

Being children of the 70's, neither Eva or I thought much about IT careers in high school and college. So last week I asked her, in hindsight, what classes, activities or education from her youth indicated that she was destined to be, like me, a systems analyst. Oddly, we both had the same immediate response: debate.

First let's talk about systems analysis. A systems analyst gathers business goals, objectives and needs, then translates them into computer systems that help to achieve those goals. The systems analyst is usually responsible for the overall implementation and support of the system as well. You can draw an analogy with an architect who elicits requirements for a building from the owner and then translates them into designs for the contractor to build. The role demands excellent interpersonal skills, business knowledge and a technical background. This description of the systems analyst from the Bureau of Labor Statistic is reasonably good and shows that the pay levels are excellent and job prospects for the next 5 - 10 years remain good. In addition, the related role of business analyst is emerging as an alternate path that provides more entry level opportunities and requires less technical skills overall. For either position, the key is to remember they are first and foremost analytical jobs, not technical.

Which brings us back to the original topic - debate. In retrospect, we can now see how debate both encouraged the development of, and clearly demonstrated, the analytical, interpersonal and communications skills that are the hallmark of a good analyst. Here are some lessons learned from debate that helped us as analysts:

1. You don't choose the topic in debate, it is given to you. Likewise the systems analyst normally works in a number of business domains over his/her career. In fact, learning new things becomes one of the perks of the job. Some analysts do "go native" and specialize in one topic, but where's the fun in that.
   
2. You don't get to choose your position on the topic either. Just as the debater must argue all sides of the topic, the analyst must come to understand the perspective of all the stakeholders, whether VP or intern. Further, the analyst, like the debater, must understand that it isn't about his/her opinion.
   
3. You must thoroughly research a topic and organize the information so that it is easy to find. First, it means the debater and the analyst must resist the urge start with an opinion and work backwards into supporting documentation. Plus, you must be able to discern between good evidence and suspect. Second, both must think carefully about how information and data are categorized, organized stored and retrieved. Even though my database of choice is now SQL Server, not 3x5 cards, it still informed the way I think about information.
4. Your argument must be a logically structured set of assertions, supported by the evidence. The analyst is not generally in a debate, but must regularly make the case for a system or course of action. Argument structures like plan-meets-needs or comparative advantage provide the analyst or debater a reusable framework to build a case.
   
5. During the debate you flow the argument and rebut with evidence to the contrary. Creating a flow chart of the debate gives a quick visual map of the argument, which lays the foundation for analyzing and refuting your opponent's argument. The analyst also use models, like flowcharts, to document and validate the requirements of the system. Also, the analyst questions assumptions and challenges assertions with the same critical thinking skills the debater uses to refute an argument.
   

The point is, we were both preparing to be systems analysts without having a class in systems analysis or knowing that such a role existed. As more work becomes analytical in nature we need to have programs that help students develop those capabilities in general even when we aren't training them for a specific job.

Wax on, wax off.

Tags: systems analysis, business analysis, IIBA

Green is the new Black

Many IT departments are instigating their own green initiatives in response to concerns of global-warming, green-house gases and dependence on foreign oil. We are finding that, in IT, being eco-friendly green can lead to monetary green, too.

If you're not familiar with the concept of a data center, its a facility ranging from the size of a closet to several large buildings where servers, disks, phone systems and network components are lined up. The floors are often raised so that you can get underneath to feed cable through. There is a hum that is a combination of air conditioning, fans and spinning disks. While we think of this as something large corporation have, it's standard for medium-sized business and some small business too.

The problem is all that equipment draws a lot of electricity. It also gives off a lot of heat, hence the air conditioning. Even in our region, where outside temperatures rarely warrant inside cooling, we have air conditioning running all the time. The air conditioning draws a lot of electricity itself. It is generally accepted that the cost to power and cool a server over its life will exceed its purchase price. Outside of the data center desktops, laptops and monitors consume a reasonable amount of power considering that they sit idle most of the day. Don't forget the energy to build and deliver the equipment and the nasty, nasty stuff inside that makes it all work.

I've assembled a list of GreenIT links at my del.icio.us site http://del.icio.us/heycorey/greenit. In particular, let me highly recommend Dave Ohara's article called Build a Green Datacenter in the October 2007 Technet magazine (a podcast interview is here) and his blog Green Data Center Blog. When you're done reading Dave's article you'll wonder if you weren't reading an accounting magazine. Welcome to corporate IT - it's not about the tech, it's about helping the business. A few thoughts that occur to me as I scan the articles:

• Data centers, even small ones, are expensive to site, power and cool. The information needs of the organization, however, mean there won't be a decrease in the growth in IT equipment. Green IT can help to mitigate that cost.
  
• The greening of IT crosses a wide range of occupations (and education levels): chip and power supply designers, network administrators, electricians and HVAC specialist to name a few.
  
• There is a place in the industry for people who want to work with computers and want to do something good for the planet. In fact, there are now emerging specializations devoted specifically to greening IT.
• IT professional who can demonstrate business acumen, technology knowledge and analytical skills is going to be able to make a name for themselves in the corporation.
  

In terms of education, three opportunities strike me as valuable. The first is the exercise of developing of a Green IT business case. Without having to implement technology, a student can go through the process of estimating costs and benefits; investigating and selecting technology; and building the business case. A student can demonstrate math concepts, critical thinking and analysis, use of office productivity tools and presentation skills. Could make for a good senior project.

The second is server virtualization, a technology that allows one physical server to run multiple logical servers, called a virtual machine (VM). Virtualization allows each VM to share memory, disk and processor of the underlying physical server so each is used to its fullest extent. It's the computing equivalent of only running your clothes washer when you have a full load, except it allows you to wash whites and reds at the same time (without everything being pink). It also saves a ton of space and reduces cooling demands. At the City, for instance, about 40% of our servers are virtual. As a result we have been able to avoid costly expansion of the server room and climate control systems. Virtualization needs to be included any networking and server administration programs at the college level.

The final opportunity comes at the desktop by using the PC's power management and Wake-on-LAN capability. Think about it, the average work PC is used at best 8 to 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. However, at many organizations like mine we don't want the PCs shutdown at night because we have automated scans, downloads and updates running. It is possible to put the computer into a low-power mode, then send it a signal to wake up, run its maintenance and go back to sleep. It too should already be on the agenda for desktop management programs.

It would be great to hear stories from practicing professionals about their use of these or other green techniques in the data center and on the desktop. What Green IT skills do you think would help a student in the job marketplace? What topics and/or classes would encourage you or your staff to get back in the classroom?

Image Citation: P1000990 by Ronnie Garcia under Creative Commons Share-Alike license.