I have been doing a little opinionizing this week, and in an effort to underpin that with actual facts, I've done a bit of research and also a good deal of introspect examination based on my own experiences teaching for 25 years. In my 25th, I hope to keep racking up those years. My prospects of doing so, however, are looking less hopeful by the day this week. 

The new administration, which I supported with my vote and with my modest social media presence, is not helping. I think that is likely a result of its own pining to return to education "the way we've always done it" (the most harmful words in our cultural phrasebook, in my humble opinion). 

I wrote something: 

The Case for Real Virtual Learning

By Scott Merrick

January 23, 2021

The context in which I write is Covid-19 and its growing army of mutations, and the hold the pandemic has on how we learn and teach. Legions of politicians and pundits cry out for the re-opening of school buildings. The topic has become ridiculously political. Welcome to America in 2021, where an issue of life and death can be divisive.

It is time we stopped talking about "the way things were" and look these times square in the eyes. We must tell these times, and forcefully, that it they are not going to let our children down. We are not going to let our children down.

Before moving on, please take a look at the heat map image published by Nashville's WKRN on January 22, 2021 from https://www.wkrn.com/community/health/coronavirus/heatmaps-show-higher-concentration-of-covid-19-cases-in-downtown-nashville/. 

So. The stats go up and up and down and up and up and down and and down and up and down, but the facts are clear. Covid is here. The experts, from the President to the local health department, tell us that the pandemic is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Here is one optimistic (everything in place and functioning optimally) prediction:

“Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society that as we get to the end of 2021, we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before.” [1]

The interpretation of Dr. Fauci’s statement is a bit elusive due to its subtlety. The effect of understanding it is inevitable: We cannot allow ourselves to so pine for “where we were before” that we fail to focus on improving the way things are. I repeat that the above is an optimistic prediction. What if the troubles that plague (sorry) vaccination roll-out in the United States persist? When can we realistically expect that we will “actually have enough herd immunity” to actually “approach very much some degree” (what does that even mean, really?) of “the way we have always done it?”

The responsibility of our educational leadership to focus on making things better given the realities we face, and which we will predictably face for at least a good long while, if not forever.

In doing so, we must stop characterizing student progress in the frame of what was. Among other things, we must rethink learning and establish realistic policies that both support progressive student learning and reward some of the non-academic learning children are gaining during this unique period in history. We cannot judge/assess students by how they were expected to progress in conditions which are no longer present. We must judge/assess student progress given the conditions which are. We absolutely must develop online learning environments which can, at a distance, encourage our children to learn, support them in their learning, and reward them for learning. We must stop focusing on what inapplicable data tells us about what they are “losing” and turn our complete focus on what we can help them learn.

Theresa Thayer Snyder, former superintendent of the Voorheesville district in upstate New York, wrote (and I really think these words belong here in their entirety, so please do read),

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I am writing today about the children of this pandemic. After a lifetime of working among the young, I feel compelled to address the concerns that are being expressed by so many of my peers about the deficits the children will demonstrate when they finally return to school. My goodness, what a disconcerting thing to be concerned about in the face of a pandemic which is affecting millions of people around the country and the world. It speaks to one of my biggest fears for the children when they return. In our determination to “catch them up,” I fear that we will lose who they are and what they have learned during this unprecedented era. What on earth are we trying to catch them up on? The models no longer apply, the benchmarks are no longer valid, the trend analyses have been interrupted. We must not forget that those arbitrary measures were established by people, not ordained by God. We can make those invalid measures as obsolete as a crank up telephone! They simply do not apply. 

 

When the children return to school, they will have returned with a new history that we will need to help them identify and make sense of. When the children return to school, we will need to listen to them. Let their stories be told. They have endured a year that has no parallel in modern times. There is no assessment that applies to who they are or what they have learned. Remember, their brains did not go into hibernation during this year. Their brains may not have been focused on traditional school material, but they did not stop either. Their brains may have been focused on where their next meal is coming from, or how to care for a younger sibling, or how to deal with missing grandma, or how it feels to have to surrender a beloved pet, or how to deal with death. Our job is to welcome them back and help them write that history.

 

I sincerely plead with my colleagues, to surrender the artificial constructs that measure achievement and greet the children where they are, not where we think they “should be.” Greet them with art supplies and writing materials, and music and dance and so many other avenues to help them express what has happened to them in their lives during this horrific year. Greet them with stories and books that will help them make sense of an upside-down world. They missed you. They did not miss the test prep. They did not miss the worksheets. They did not miss the reading groups. They did not miss the homework. They missed you.

 

Resist the pressure from whatever ‘powers that be’ who are in a hurry to “fix” kids and make up for the “lost” time. The time was not lost, it was invested in surviving an historic period of time in their lives—in our lives. The children do not need to be fixed. They are not broken. They need to be heard. They need be given as many tools as we can provide to nurture resilience and help them adjust to a post pandemic world.

 

Being a teacher is an essential connection between what is and what can be. Please, let what can be demonstrate that our children have so much to share about the world they live in and in helping them make sense of what, for all of us has been unimaginable. This will help them– and us– achieve a lot more than can be measured by any assessment tool ever devised. Peace to all who work with the children![2]

 

This is a unique opportunity in human history.

Many politicians do not agree. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said just a few days ago:

“Here’s the bottom line: you can’t say “follow the science” and keep schools closed. 

You can’t say “I believe in public education” and keep schools closed. 

And you can’t say you’re putting the needs of students first and keep schools closed. 

Kids do better in school: we know that - parents know that.”[3]

 

Of course kids are perceived to do better “in school.” All the assessment measures are crafted with their presence in school, in person, as a foundation. They are by and large calculated by grading fill in the blank or multiple choice questions whose answers have most often been drilled into them by teachers who are fighting tooth and nail to keep their jobs. Those teachers are now learning new ways to teach in order to help students learn how to survive in the world. How about we focus on our new real world and see what we can do to help students cope with it.

How about we implement the “two tab test,” where students are encouraged to have a second browser tab open to the lesson while they take an online quiz or test. The very process of understanding a question enough to go into a lesson and find the answer is more intellectual contact with the information, and will help the retention of content learning, not hinder it. Stop playing “gotcha” with our struggling students and encourage them to learn the way anyone learns in the modern world. LET them google the answers.

Theresa Hatcher Snyder’s message, above, may be the most eloquent message that can be shared with parents, who, by the by, must be always considered in every single change we make to new ways of learning and teaching. Parents must be in this with us, more now than ever. Some have not adapted. I have talked to more than one super-frustrated parent who feels completely imposed upon by changes incumbent upon them due to distance learning. I will also report talking to several parents who are delighted by the opportunity to both spend more time with their children and participate in their learning pathways. No two families will have the same response, based on countless differences between lifestyles and attitudes. We must, however, give parents, indeed students, positive alternatives to their thinking, not pipe dreams about the old ways.

 

I say this: Until we understand that students and teachers are “in person” when we are teaching virtually, using digital means to be so, we will not be able to acknowledge and improve the potential opportunities the pandemic is forcing upon us. What? Opportunities?

 

Yes. There are opportunities. Think about this.

 

It is a staple of research into online learning. Study after study has found that there is no significant difference between face-to-face (in person) learning and distance (virtual) learning, including a recent study that conclude, once again, that

“The results of the study show there is no significant difference in performance between online and traditional classroom students with respect to modality, gender, or class rank in a science concepts course for non-STEM majors. Although there were sample size issues and study limitations, this assessment shows both online learners and classroom learners perform at the same level. This conclusion indicates teaching modality may not matter as much as other factors.”[4]

 

Why do I feel qualified to voice an opinion? In 2010, I left a productive 15-year teaching position at a premier Nashville independent K-12 school to research, create, and make accredited and sustainable the first public online school in Tennessee, MNPS Virtual School. You won't see me in the school's "V-School History" story online because my position was eliminated in 2017 and “virtually” all mention of my contributions to its relative success were eradicated. That's another story.

At that time, I obtained a job teaching computer skills in an inner city elementary school, which I did for a year, and then I moved to a middle school computer lab teaching role, where I very happily remain to this day. I love my colleagues, I love my students, and I loved going to school to work and teach every day when it was safe. I now love teaching from home, as imposed by the high rate of infection in my state and especially in my city. My advanced age is also a factor.

I am a product of public education, at least I was, up until the time I forsook my established career in food and beverage and enrolled in Vanderbilt University at age 40 to learn to become a teacher. I say to Governor Lee that I believe in public education, and that I oppose precipitous re-establishment of “the way we’ve always done things.” Many of us who are opposed to the rushed reopening of schools in physical buildings believe in public education. Stop flippantly discounting us by saying “We all know that.” What do I know is that teachers and schools can adapt to the new realities as we craft and implement new and effective ways to help our children both want to live through today and to envision hope for tomorrow. I also say to Governor Lee even one life lost in his rush to the old days will be a preventable tragedy he is choosing to allow.

We will not go forward by targeting “the way we’ve always done it” despite either the possibility of doing that safely nor all indications of the inappropriateness and ineffectiveness, nay danger, of doing so. This is my call to action:

1.       Face the reality that public schools in America had basic flaws long before the first case of Coronavirus hit its shores. Dr. Miquel Cardona, President Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Education, recently said, "There are no shortage of challenges ahead, no shortage of problems for us to solve," he said. "For too many students, public education in America has been a 'flor palida': a wilted rose, neglected, in need of care. We must be the master gardeners who cultivate it, who work every day to preserve its beauty and its purpose.[5]

2.      Establish think tanks that focus on ways to make distance learning more accessible, more engaging, more effective, and more relevant to all students and supporting those think tanks thinking ‘way out of the box, including 3D synchronous learning environments of the sort explored for years by global organizations like The International Society for Technology in Education’s Virtual Environments Network, OpenColleges, EduResearch Matters, Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education, and the list goes on. 

3.      Research and encourage a focus on student motivation (currently hit-or-miss in my experience, and recognized as a crucial factor in online learning success). Hasnan Baber, a student at Woosong University in South Korea, studied undergraduate online education in both South Korea and India in the context of the recent move by “every educational institute towards online learning.” His study, focused on student perceived satisfaction with online learning and their learning outcomes in those two countries, concluded:  “Online learning has arisen as an alternative to traditional learning during the pandemic. Most students have experienced online classes for the first time. Variables such as interact(ion) in the online class, student motivation to participate in the online class, course structure, and instructor facilitation and knowledge are important determinants of perceived student learning and student satisfaction. Online student engagement is a stronger determinant of the perceived student learning outcome as online classes lack physical socialization. There is no significant difference in the learning outcome and satisfaction levels of students from either country. Future studies should be done to understand the role of technology acceptance in perceived learning and student satisfaction. Future studies should also focus on the factors which are critical from the point of view of students to accept this online learning during the pandemic COVID19”.[i][6]

4.      Review every single educational policy and both revise those and come up with new ones that face realities. State legislatures need to be held accountable by educators, not the other way around.

5.      Challenge the massive commercial entities that dominate the educational market to help hone virtual learning delivery. You know who you are. You do not deserve to profit by digitizing your insanely priced textbooks and making virtual learning all about plowing through them and completing multiple choice tests.

6.      Acknowledge the diversity of our school populations and craft learning options that truly nurture the learning of all students.

7.      Celebrate the positive changes imposed upon us by the pandemic and building upon them

In closing, for the moment, I just want to restate and rephrase. Sorry, it’s a teacher thing.

We do not need to be putting effort into returning to brick and mortar (a common description used by distance learning proponents to distinguish virtual from “real”) schools. We must turn our complete focus and all of our creative energies to making online learning and teaching work in new and measurably effective ways for all of our students. To continue to strive backward is lunacy.

Let us bypass the moon references and share the 2^nd and 3^rd dictionary meanings of that word:

2: wild foolishness : extravagant folly

3: a foolish act[7]

It is also a life-threatening act. Speak up to your administrations and your politicians if you agree.

Thank you, and stay safe and well.

---

[1] Powell, A. (2020, December 11). Anthony Fauci offers a timeline for ending COVID-19 pandemic. Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/12/anthony-fauci-offers-a-timeline-for-ending-covid-19-pandemic/

[2] Teresa Thayer Snyder: What Shall We Do About the Children After the Pandemic. (2020, December 08). Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://dianeravitch.net/2020/12/12/teresa-thayer-snyder-what-shall-we-do-about-the-children-after-the-pandemic/

[3] Mangrum, N. (2021, January 20). Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee pushes for all schools to return in-person as legislature begins special session. Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2021/01/19/tennessee-gov-bill-lee-pushes-all-person-learning-special-session-starts/4208007001/

[4] Paul, J., & Jefferson, F. (2019, October 15). A Comparative Analysis of Student Performance in an Online vs. Face-to-Face Environmental Science Course From 2009 to 2016. Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2019.00007/full

[5] Miguel Cardona, Biden's Pick for Education Secretary, Stares Down a Long To-Do List. (2020, December 30). Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2020-12-30/miguel-cardona-bidens-pick-for-education-secretary-stares-down-a-long-to-do-list

[6] Citation | Hasnan Baber (2020). Determinants of Students’ Perceived Learning Outcome and Satisfaction in Online Learning during the Pandemic of COVID19. Journal of Education and eLearning Research, 7(3): 285-292. History: Received: 6 August 2020 Revised: 12 August 2020 Accepted: 18 August 2020 Published: 24 August 2020 Licensed: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License Publisher: Asian Online Journal Publishing Group Funding: This study will receive support from Woosong Academic Research Funding 2020 Competing Interests: The author declares that there are no conflicts of interests regarding the publication of this paper. Transparency: The author confirms that the manuscript is an honest, accurate, and transparent account of the study was reported; that no vital features of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as planned have been explained. Ethical: This study follows all ethical practices during writing.

[7] Lunacy. (1996). Retrieved January 23, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lunacy

---

Scott Merrick is a 26 year veteran of Elementary and Middle School teaching in both private and public school settings. He is the recipient of the Making IT Happen award from the International Society for Technology in Education and the father of two wonderful humans. All social media and other means of contacting him may be accessed anytime at https://about.me/scottmerrick. His blog is scottmerrickdotnet at https://scottmerrick.net.

Our Youngest High Schooler is Honored!

Congratulations to our youngest High Schooler, Alex, for soldiering through his first high school curriculum course. What's the big deal? Well, he's in 4th grade, y'all. He's actually not a high schooler at all, but is attending one of our wonderful public elementary schools in the 4th grade. During the school day, he has some blocks of time to take some higher level elementary and middle school classes online, as well as oh, one or two secondary school courses. He's a math wiz, for one thing, and he is sneaking up on a precocious mastery of languages. We think he's a good bet for President in a decade or two.

Alex put the Local television news piece up on his own YouTube and I think it could use a few more views and follows. Yes?

Please enjoy and share:



You also need to see and hear this young gem-tleman play excerpts from two Yanni songs. Love me some Yanni!

Happy Fall from Nashvegas, TN

It's been a while since I posted. Wanted to share some developments.

Lee Ann's been workingworkingworking at Tinwings, LLC, her "EEE" (entreprenurial epicurian enterprise), full-bore since well before they opened their storefront at 816 51st Avenue South last spring. Like any startup, it's hard, but perhaps unlike every startup, it's magnificently rewarding for her, her partner Ursula, and for the small but mighty group of workers she's employing, mostly very part-time. She and Ursula are the core of the operation, and they are both working overtime and under-compensated, paying back initial investment with hard hard work. I'm proud of all of them, but mostly so of my dear Lee Ann.

Our house is on the market. I cannot BELIEVE the work it took to get it there, but it's there, and we are living on a stage set, prepping it most mornings to be as ready as it can be and working on a 4 hour notice of showings. We had one over the weekend and another yesterday, and we are optimistic that it will sell soon--it's just a matter of the right buyer falling in love with it the way we did nearly ten years ago. Think good thoughts for us.

School is going great guns, and I'm teaching this semester. It's challenging, and such a learning experience to be working with a large student roll in two courses in two grade levels. Specifically, I'm working with 7th and 8th graders in Social Studies classes, 7th grade World History and 8th grade U.S. History. There are specific challenges I cannot share here, but I will say it's never boring! It's Fall Break at MNPS this week, so I'm killing trees. I printed over 200 pages of .pdf versions of my two course's Keys, in order to save time grading by accessing them without the stages of logging into Office365 and clicking to find the folder, bringing up the file in a viewer, and scrolling or searching to the appropriate assignment or assessment to find rubrics and notes about grading. I can just pick up the hefty tome and move to the page, holding it in my hands.

I'm surprised by all that, but since every day is a learning experience, my preference for a hard copy for this task (not at all typical for me, in any arena) is simply something I'm learning from. I like surprises as long as they lead to improvements in fairness, support, and learning on the part of my students.

A couple of other upcoming things are in my radar. In my volunteering arena, I'm captaining a stellar group of volunteer reviewers who are tasked with selecting a set of proposals accepted for ISTE 2016 in Denver, Colorado next summer--those submitted in the theme of Distance Learning Resources and Open Educational Tools. I've glanced at the 32 proposals we will be reviewing and they look good. I have every confidence in the process ISTE's put in place and we'll get the job done. Yay.

I'm also driving down to Atlanta, GA in a couple weeks to serve on the AdvancED External Review Team for a university down there. This service is one I have done before, in Massachusetts then, but I'm going to be working full-bore from a Sunday evening to a Tuesday afternoon before driving back home to Nashville and back to work Wednesday.

Finally, and actually temporally before the other two, I'll be attending a live viewing of the Democratic debate on the 12th, at Tailgate Brewery on Hwy 70. If you are interested in joining us, fans of Bernie Sanders for President, at 7 pm, go here!

Full event details:
https://go.berniesanders.com/page/event/detail/4v9p9

Again, yay. Take care and be hopeful. You might choose, as my dear brother Ed does, to not watch the news. It's skewed toward the trivial and the negative. It's the Roman Colosseum of today. Take care. 


This looks so cool:

New Academies of Nashville -- explained in 5 minutes!

So proud to be working to make this happen at our virtual school!

NCAC in Washington, DC--Reflections

It was very productive this past weekend to spend some time with colleagues both old and new in the Hyatt Crystal City outside of our nation's capitol. The occasion was the annual conference of the National Career Academy Coalition.

My school will be the first online school in the world, to the best of my knowledge, to gain accreditation under the NCAC National Standards of Practice. This requires satisfying members of a review committee and will likely not happen until at least 2016, when we are currently scheduled to undergo review. There's a lot of work to do prior to that.

But my last post was about an accreditation, so I'm steering clear of that topic for now. What I want to do is briefly detail my experiences at the sessions I attended, all of which, without exception, were in the lecture format. This is not an adverse criticism, though it may sound so. I have thought for years that a format that encourages interaction between the participants/attendees would demonstrate leadership by example in the professional development arena, and after years of providing alternatives in the way of "Playground" sessions at ISTE conferences, I have come to settle for the fact that "this is the way we've always done it" may actually be the best way to do it, at least for educators who can actually do get something out of "sit and git."

So, that said, however inelegantly, here are the sessions that I attended, along with notes and insights gained:

Friday:
9:00 - Teacher Externships: Bringing Relevancy to Student Learning; Dayna Paine, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, Clarksville-Montgomery County School System; Becky Padgett, Academic Coach
This was a most interesting session, as Ms. Paine shared a well-thought-out and successful program geared to fill in an experiential gap not in students, but in teachers. She explained that most of her teachers had come to teaching through the regular pathway, high school, college, then to teach. Many have not had varied experiences in other working conditions, at least not in full-time, career minded ways. My main takeaways were that roles of all sets of participants need to be explicit and clear from the outset, and that the externship relationships are intended to be maintained throughout the school year. The "collatoral skills" teachers experience and maybe even learn can make what they do in the classroom all that much more valid and real for their students.

10:30 - The Academy Model in an Alternative Setting: The Roosevelt Way; Dr. Heidi Houy, Principal, Roosevelt Learning Center; Jennifer Carson, Academy School Counselor, Rockford Public Schools
This session was close to my heart, since as we work toward the brass ring of accreditation, we struggle with many of the same issues of practice that any Alternative school will find. Roosevelt has come a long way in their implementation of the Academies model in spite of that. Clearly their ongoing response to Theodore Roosevelt's call to "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" informs that. The transience of their student population, their practice of meeting each student where they learn and how they learn, and their robust community partnerships all weigh in toward success of their program. And it is a program, though the school diploma is the same one that students in a regular brick and mortar school receive. That said, with 1200 students moving through their system a year, in one way or another, they are working to give students who rarely get the attention they need the special small learning community that Academies can provide. Dr. Houy came from Special Education into Administration and if she had not told us that I would certainly have been able to guess it. She cares and does so in a proactive way. I was most impressed by her adaptations of the Academies Model to the Alternative School setting.

12:15 - Lunch and Keynote Speaker; Roberto J. Rodriguez, Deputy Assistant to the President for Education, White House Domestic Policy Council; Johan Uvin, Acting Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Portia Wu, Assistant Secretary, Employment and Training Administration
Mr. Rodriguez came in after our Dr. Jay Steele, Chief Academic Officer for our MNPS (and, I was proud to learn, incoming President of NCAC!), had pitched some policy questions to our other guests. The answers were predictable but supportive. Mr. Rodriguez also preached to the choir, though I don't think anyone in the room was expecting anything otherwise. He mentioned that President Obama has visited not only our McGavock High School but several other schools across the nation, drilling down to the student level to help inform policy by what works. Disclaimer: I still believe in President Obama, despite his famously low approval ratings these days. I think history will be kind to his Presidential service, especially in the light of mostly successful opposing partisan blockages. If the country is polarized, I am just left of middle but absolutely nowhere to the right. I like his style and his humor and his effort to do well in a bad system. Watch this and see if you can do so with a dry eye.

2:00 - Melting Pot Marketing; Beverley Flatt, Program Manager (for the Academies of Nashville), Metro Nashville Public Schools
This was one of my favorite sessions, and only 20 minutes long. It was "sit and git," but a modified version since it was one of three sessions that could be chosen during the hour as participants rotated between 7 sessions. I spoke with two presenters who told me they had prepared for one hour sessions, so as you can imagine Bev talked fast. And she had alot to say. Her scientific research into the amazingly diverse Nashville community demographic and the appropriate ways to market to each of them is nothing short of brilliant. Raised eyebrows and smiles announced surprised learning around the table. Here's our Beverley's Prezi so you can learn too.

I was sooo tired of sitting down that I took a long walk down to Harris Teeter during the final session. There were some good ones offered though, with topics covering:

• New software for career and education planning
• Leadership practices for National Standards of Practice
• Georgia Career Academies
• School Counselors in academy settings
• Career Academies and afterschool programs
• Engaging business partners
• and another software demo, from ConnectEd Studios
• Monday morning units
• Critical skills for career readiness
• Lessons learned developing Career Academies
• Developing a State network of Academies

I wish I'd gone to at least one of these, but the excellent thing is that many, if not most, of the presenters have uploaded their presentations for download.  I still have the NCAC conference app and will take a good look at what I can.

From 5:00-6:00 There was a "Speed Networking" session, billed as being like Speed Dating, and it would have been fun to watch but no one I knew went to it. I wonder how it went. Anyone go? Comment here if you did.

Saturday:
  I had room service breakfast, which cost me my entire per diem for the day but was pretty tasty. Then I jumped right into it:

• I next attended (Innovation) Developing Workplace Internships: PG&E Energy Academy Summer Internship Program; Geneve Villacres, Community Relations, Pacific Gas and Electric Company; and Jerry Winthrop, Lead Consultant, California Department of Education. This session was an engaging look at a big program, statewide, really, and uniquely designed to deal with the rapidly graying demographic of their current skilled workforce. Though we don't have an Energy Academy, learning the way this huge project was implemented and has developed was heartening. I'm sure there are similar situations in Business and Marketing and that we can help provide skilled workers in this field and I will keep those methods in mind as we proceed. I was sure to leave my card with the capable Ms. Villacres since they did not upload their presentation and they promised sharing with those who reached out in that way.
• I tried to attend the "Recent Research on Career Academies" but it was very slow paced "sit and git" describing research solely conducted in California and I needed something more "git up and go." So I went to what had been my first choice anyway, something unfortunately typo-titled in both catalog and app as "Managing by Manage: Team Work in Nashville" Huh? Just goes to show that no matter how many sets of eyes you get on a document things can slip through. However, this was my friends and colleagues and I wouldn't have missed it even if the data talk had been more hands-on or broadly based. Whitney Weeks, VP, Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce; Chaney Moseley, Director for the Academies of Nashville; and Matt Seaton, Director of the Pencil Foundation, tag teamed around the topic of the big overarching Leadership Councils they have created and improved to further focus the work between Business and Education Community Partners who support the Academies of Nashville. I was interested to see the reactions of attendees from Montana, Illinois, Hawaii, and a couple of other places, to the suggestion that this really effective system might be helpful in their settings. First of all, none could summon up a local organization that might fill the role(s) filled by Pencil Foundation in Nashville. Some seem to have strong disconnections between what their students need and what the community can provide, and imho I feel that Leadership Councils could help with this. Nonetheless it was fun to see these three more or less sardonically play off one another and I could tell that their presentation was both entertaining the attendees and challenging them to think. I'm grateful to work with them if not daily, at least regularly.
• Lunch was on your own ("Who doesn't serve lunch at a conference on Saturday?" was the question posed by one of my fellow lunch explorers) and we met at Italia Cafe Italia in a quaint strip of mostly ethnic restaurants on 23rd Street, just a few long blocks away from the hotel. I don't think the food was all that good--my "Caesar salad" was iceberg lettuce and dry sliced chicken breast but the Calzone was reportedly good. The best thing was that my nephew Ed drove down from his home and met us and I got to chat for an hour with him and have him meet four of my Academies colleagues. 
• Back at the conference playing field, I hit "Teaching Game Development in High School;" Eric Preisz, CEO, GarageGames, LLC. This vendor-delivered session surely enlightened me and I learned a bit, and though we don't have an IT academy (yet) we do have a Gamers' Club and this might be something of interest to them. I know the development structure I learned may be of great use in any development project. I'm pretty sure it flew over the heads of some in attendance, though, and when it was just about to wind up I headed out for a bio break.
• By then we were down to the last session, and since I was somewhat sleep deprived from a great night eating, laughing and hiking 4.79 miles (yes, Beverley measured it) I went upstairs and took a power nap, which turned out to be a good thing since I was about to have a very decent roasted chicken dinner at the NCAC Awards Banquet, ending with Nashville receiving the first ever Model Community award, all 50 or so of us onstage (will add pic when I can find it!), then walk to Bar Louie with my colleagues to have tasty adult beverages and play "HeadsUp" on our iPhones. Another late, but fun night

Hiking to the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Monument

The conference was over, and so am I.

Accreditation! Check!

Yesterday MNPS Virtual School rounded out two days of intensive review by a four person visiting committee from AdvanceED, the accreditation organization which handles Continuous Improvement model review for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The extensive review process was described afterward by one of our Academy of Business and Marketing partners, who had undergone it herself, as "maybe more intense than writing my [Masters] dissertation." It involves weeks of collaborative work within the organization, compiling documentary evidence that the school meets or exceeds a set of criteria set by the reviewing organization, which serves over 32,000 schools in 173 countries. The process needs be driven by a single person in the school but everyone in the team is tapped to help provide evidential  documentation. Dr. Witty was the driver, and our "small but mighty" Executive Leadership team, aided by most of our Adjunct v-Teachers, contributed.

In order to even begin compiling said evidence, long meetings with a detailed self-evaluation tool were held in order to identify which kinds of documentation may be needed for each individual element in an extensive rubric. 

During the visit, the four team members from AdvanceED scheduled and held separate interview sessions with stakeholders, including students, parents, staff, faculty, and administration. They sequestered themselves in a conference room for hours, also spending time meeting off-campus in their hotel, discussing and debating findings toward preparing an exit review report rooted in consensus.

At around 2:30 yesterday, Dr. Karla Gable, the leader of the review team, reported out. She presented our brief "External Review Exit Report for Digital Learning Institutions." Toward the end, Dr. Gable shared what AdvancED calls their "Index of Education Quality, "a set of numbers that represent the review findings in quantitative ways so that they can be compared with those achieved by all of those many schools in their system. Our scores in each of the free domains, "Teaching and Learning Impact," "Leadership Capacity," and "Resource Utilization," were very significantly higher than the averages. I won't detail those but I will share that our overall score was 337.80 and the AE Network average overall score is 282.79. The final slide in her PowerPoint set proclaimed the news:

Dr. Karla Gable prepares to present final findings

We had done it. The information we had collected and shared in a massive Dropbox folder, then summarized in a 43 slide PowerPoint of our own on Monday, had clearly demonstrated that we deserve to be among the digital learning institutions accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The committee team's report further noted a few things, including that the strides toward excellence we have made over our brief life as a program and a school--these at other districts have only been made with both funding levels and staffing levels at 3 or 4 times the ones we have had in place. Either we are very efficient or we are very lucky. I'm guessing it's a combination of the two. And we are blessed to be led by Dr. James Witty, our Executive Principle, who is organized to a tee and completely knowledgeable about how Continuous Improvement philosophies and concepts drive a school to excellence.

Our team is very special, and by that I mean not only our core Leadership team--I extend that description to everyone in the school, all the stakeholders, all of us. Importantly, now that we have distinguished our school in this way we can return our full attention to exercising the continuous improvement we have demonstrated thus far. Thank you, AdvanceED, SACS, and Metro Nashville Public Schools. We're on it.

Over and out,

Scott

Cross-posted from MNPS Virtual School

"Innovator" Reflections, Part 8 and Conclusion (not): ISTE 2014

Hello, good morning, and .  Just sayin'.

I'll be at the Online Learning Network's Sunday 11a.m. ISTE Online Learning Network learning extravaganza — Blended, online and flipped learning, Sunday, June 29, 11:00 am–12:00 pm, GWCC B206 and most certainly at the Metagame: Virtual Environments Playground on Monday, June 30, 2:00 pm–5:30 pm, GWCC Building B, Level 2 (near Room B206) and floating around relatively untethered the rest of the time. Oh, I do have a couple 11-1 pm shifts in the new PLN Lounge, Monday and Tuesday, and of course the ISTE Virtual Environments Network Machinima Fest on Sunday, June 29, 5:30 pm–6:45 pm, GWCC A411. I sincerely hope to see you there, and as usual I'll be handing out free hugs. To claim yours, just hug me.

ISTE's annual conference is something I look forward to every year, and I've written lately about the innovations I've participated in there. I wonder what we will, all together, innovate this year? Hint: 10 minutes with the Occulus Rift at the VE Playground? Take your ticket and wait your turn. Hint: Your picture in a virtual world (courtesy of greenscreen photography) in the same venu? Hint: 11 speakers in just under an hour at the Online Network Extravaganza?

All this and more, and with that, I'm done with my little series on Innovation. I hope to see as many of you as can make it at my EdWeb.net webinar at 4pm EDT tomorrow, Thursday; and I hope I'm not done innovating, since doing so within a community of educators dedicated to student learning, empassioned about eliminating the dread of the desk in the row in the lecture that has for so long held a stranglehold on students' school experiences, and just plain good folks--doing so is the jam on my PBJ.

See you at ISTE!!! And drop by our booths at the Professional Networking Fair Sunday afternoon. Look for the Virtual Environments Network and the Online Learning Network, and you'll find me at one of them!!!!!!!!!

"Innovator" Reflections, Part 4

Thanks for tuning in, and in advance (as well as in retrospect), my apologies for long posts. Prose has always been my downfall.

So in connection with my being chosen as "Education Innovator of the month at THE Journal, a leading educational technology publication, I'm writing here another little reflection on something I have done over the almost two decades during which I have defined myself as a teacher, something innovative that I can reasonably claim to have "innovated." A bit more evidence of my "innovativicity" (there, I just innovated that term, though I'm not really happy with it) than I'll cover in either my upcoming edutalkradio show or my EdWeb webinar next week. Here are dates and times:

Education Talk Radio (will be linked there Thursday, June 19, and live at 11:00am CDT).
Starting and Maintaining a Virtual School, Thursday, June 26, at 3pm CDT. You can register now!

I struggled a bit for today, thinking I might share something called "SLedupotential," a 3 hour "9 educators from 9 states" event that shared some groundbreaking work in virtual environments, back at NECC in 2008. But I'll save that one and get to another virtual worlds experience, my work with 4th graders in Indiana University funded "Quest Atlantis." Quest Atlantis, re-imagined as Atlantis Remixed, now resides at Arizona University, along with its creator, Dr. Sasha Barab.

My dear friend Bron Stuckey (whom I first met in Second Life, btw) was then Quest Atlantis's international face, coming to NECCs and trotting around the globe sharing its successes and challenges; its student-centered, social responsibilities-focused, plain and simple fun; and its educational validity with anyone who would listen. In 2009, I brought my first 4th graders into Quest Atlantis, after training as a teacher online within the platform (my teacher was none other than Bron) and performing the detailed permissions-getting/registering and account creation requirement to include my students in the Questers. Here's part of a blog post from my computer lab:

 USN Lower School Technology blog at http://usnlstech.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html:

This morning (Tuesday, January 27th) marked the first 4th graders' (Ms. Hunt's class) entrance into Quest Atlantis. My goal this week is just to hand out the usernames and passwords I've set up for the kids and to have them log in and begin to become comfortable with the user interface. Though the initial distribution process (handing out slips of paper to the kids with the information printed from a spreadsheet) was a bit clunky, we got in, and we didn't crash the internet connection! Yay! I did meet our network administrator in the hallway afterward and he said there was some slowing down, and we'll be testing over this week to see if I need to perhaps stagger the logins during that period more than I did today.

4th graders in Quest Atlantis!

The kids did GREAT! I asked them to find me at the clocktower and they did, then they moved about the OTAK island exploring and laughing. The excitement in our lab was palpable. This is looking good, very good, and look for ongoing communication about the process. Here's a picture of some of our virtual citizens in their "n00bie" shorts and teeshirts.

Over the rest of the school year, and into the following one, my students quested, explored,  leveled up, and learned. One of the most compelling reasons to take your students into Quest Atlantis is its foundational commitment to what they call the seven critical dimensions. Each element of every quest is designed to reinforce understanding of one or more of these. Here's a graphic screengrabbed from a portion of their Mission Statement:

If you can argue against 4th graders spending time immersed in those concepts and soaking them up into their core value systems, you're a better (and potentially vastly more evil) rationalizer than am I. 

So this Quest Atlantis experience is not something I made up, but making the effort and taking the time to bring it all into our K-4 computer lab, I would argue, qualifies as innovation. It resulted in many moments of epiphany and beauty in that learning and teaching experience, and I'll share one on my way out today. Louie and Gabe, one the son of a highly prominent rock-and-roll songwriter performer, the other the son of a schoolteacher, had risen in skills to the level at which they could modify their avatars. Take a good look at the picture and its insert, rasta hair and all, they made themselves twins. In the physical world they never could have done this, but in the virtual one, surrounded by meaningful positive experiences that they themselves have chosen from among the many available, they are twins. Life(s) is good...

Thanks for reading. More later!

THE BEST ISTE EVER: Reflections Day 2, continued

Okay, this is taking longer than expected, but I have made a promise and I intend to keep it.

When last we saw one another, we had just finished up the amazing and action packed EPIC LEADERSHIP: Beyond the Hype of Gamification. I’ll continue Day 1.

We moved out of the Hyatt Ballroom A and into the Ballroom next door, where a lovely buffet awaited us in preparation for the “Making IT Happen” awards ceremony. Several folks were awarded this in-our-circles-prestigious pink or black jacket, actually kind of a lifetime achievements award. This year they were:

Lisa Perez

Mike Lawrence

Julie Lindsey

and Kecia Ray 

Jane McGonigal and Andy Wheelock

Congratulations to all of the  recipients this year! I was so-honored in Philadelphia two years ago, so I clearly I do have a vested interest in its being accepted as prestigious. Think of this, though—ISTE Has over 20,000 members, and the affiliates’ and vendors’ connections number tens of thousands more human beings. Each year at an event like this one, only three or four of these awards are handed out, through a nomination and approval process, out of that pretty vast pool. This year, my dear pal Dr. Kecia Ray finally got hers, after years of dedicated service and in the year that she steps into the presidency of ISTE, arguably the most powerful EdTech organization in the world. Lunch was great, and we had a chance to line up for pictures with Jane McGonigal. Unfortunately she had to leave before we got ours, but we were issued VIP passes for the keynote address later. We were also told that we could jump to the front of the after-keynote book signing for that photo opp with Ms. McGonigal. I never got mine, though Andy did. I hate him.

Just kidding. Andrew Wheelock, salt o’ the earth, is a brother to me. He rocks. 

Straight from the Making IT Happen awards, it was me and Andy trucking  down to the main staging area to line up in order to accept the “President’s Volunteer Service Award.” Dear friend Helen Crompton handed them out backstage in the opening ceremonies and we marched out with the certificates in hand, posed, and smiled for the camera. When I arrived backstage, I’d had my own Black Jacket on for over an hour and when I took that off I felt, and looked, like I’d taken a shower with my pink dress shirt on. I cooled off over the hour or so introduction and welcome and I marched out onstage with a fair level of confidence, mostly dried off and proud to have received this award in front of 5 or so thousand people (seating capacity in Hall A of the Convention Center is officially 5,500.

I obviously did not take a photograph at that event, but I later tweeted out asking for one and thanks to Anita Harris for this pic:

From that event I had to book it again, once offstage, for the SIG Open House. Thankfully, Anita and Mike were responsible for the SIGOL one and Bob and Kae and crew had set up for SIGVE. The place bustled just as soon as the Welcome event let out and we hope that we inspired some new members to check out both SIGs. I had a fun reminder of the old days as I commandeered the Smart Board which was for some reason turned on, directly across from our poster session. I shared our Flickr stream, our Weebly and our Wiki with the steady stream of passersby. As a side note, I accepted this year's Vice Chair role in the Special Interest Group for Online Learning, ISTE's oldest and I believe largest SIG, at ISTE13. What am I thinking?

BEST LAID PLANS

I had determined that after all the above I was going to catch the opening Keynote from a monitor at some quiet lounge in the Convention Center, but what with the VIP pass Andy and I headed on over and found our way to row three center. You must understand. There are perhaps 200 rows in this huge Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center’s mainstage. The only people in between us and the star presenter were two rows of Board Members. To sweeten the experience, old blogger pal Ann Truger (left) popped in the seat next to me.

Aside: This is one of the very best things about ISTE annual conferences. I see Ann only at ISTE. I could say that about many many of my personal/professional learning networks. But at least I get to see them at all. For me, always and forever, it will be about hugs and sharing appreciation and encouragement. For the first time in ISTE history, there was a “house band.” Check out the band's website and pick up their CD at http://daraniemi.com/. Wow. these talented highschoolers from several schools in San Antonio performed masterfully and entertainingly for all the keynotes. Just wow.

After some warm welcome remarks by ISTE CEO Brian Lewis and President Kecia Ray (a dynamic and personable team if ever I saw one), the beautiful Jane McGonigal took the stage. Calm and self-possessed from the outset, she proceeded to win over the ISTE keynote record crowd with her charm, her humor, and her story. Toward the end of the session, entitled "Learning is an Epic Win," she bade everyone stand and after brief background and instructions had everyone in the hall play what was the second largest record setting game of thumb war. Now there's a way to engage a room!
Here are some brief clips from her talk:
As the session description states, "Her book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World," is the definitive book on gamification."  I have read this one cover to cover and I'm currently listening to it via a checkout from the Nashville Public Library. I highly recommend it, especially if you are in the majority (though its numbers are dwindling, certainly) who simply don't get this convergence of game design and instructional design. McGonigal has done her research and it's compelling. If we imagine every convincing presentation, book, or celebrated activity as putting another chink in the wall of denial, Jane McGonigal's work is a roadside IED of immense impact and effect. Her TED Talks continue to receive millions of views and once you've seen them you'll understand why.

I've described in an earlier post McGonigal's moving answer to our Rosie Vojtek's question requesting a description of her greatest Fiero Moment, and if you haven't seen that, click on over and then come back. There's more the first day, but we're almost done.

Heck, I'll give you the first one right here. Save you some clicking:
 

With the Good Dr.. Helen Crompton

Following the keynote I headed over to the hotel and changed clothes for the President's Reception, an invitation only bash for a few hundred of my closest colleagues. It was an open bar, and I had a tequila or two while hobnobbing with other invitees, including a fun (and dedicated) young group from Nashville's Antioch High School and our own math teachers, Anna Harris and Christine Van Loon. Doug Renfro and his lovely wife Jeannine (wrangler extraordinaire for the immensely overbooked ISTE President, my dear dear friend Kecia Ray). I also ran into my friends Helen Crompton, Shannon McClintock Miller, and many more dedicated and very very smart people I  for the most part only get to see once a year. 

My MNPS Virtual School crew were heading out for a late dinner and they texted me the location so I could join them. Once I met up with them at "The Original Mexican Restaurant" I realized I was starving so I ordered a quesadilla, joined them in a tasty adult libation, then headed back to the hotel with them, parting and collapsing for a bit of rest. 

There. I have achieved closure on reflections from the first day of ISTE13. Yay.

Only three more amazing days to go! Stay tuned!