• streamline technology-enhanced methodologies
• facilitate cross-curricular units
• target visionary technologies
• exploit efficient curriculum integration
• and the list goes on…

While the Jargon Generator provided a nice distraction from the arduous task of strategic planning, it also gave me pause to reflect on the prevalence/overabundance of buzzwords in the world of instructional technology.  In addition to timeless standbys such as paradigm, authentic, and best practice, we have made 21st century the prefix de facto of this decade, and 2.0 can seemingly be appended to any type of noun.  This marriage of farcical numeracy and argot root words has created an entirely new lexicon de jure.

Lest I sound an aloof linguistic curmudgeon or dictator of diction, I readily admit my occasional use/overuse of these popular words and phrases. Every profession has distinctive vocabulary that its practitioners must employ and I am no exception. Education, however, and especially technology education, has raised the buzzword bar to the height of nonsensical.

Common language ideally leads to shared understanding, but there is considerable disparity in how we have come to understand and define catchphrases like 21^st century learning or School 2.0. This collective lack of clarity is not due to the subjective art of teaching but rather our indiscriminate use of labels. In our heedless rush to modernize education, we have deemed anything technology-related to be 21^st century and/or 2.0 in nature.

Somewhere Noah Webster is spinning in his grave; perhaps it’s time to start bringing some meaning to the jargon.

N.B.  If you feel so inclined, you can add your favorite bit of education lingo to this form and see all the results here.

1. Although I live in a major metropolitan city (St. Louis), I grew up on a small farm in rural Minnesota.  My youth was spent caring for livestock and working in the fields; I keep a tractor calendar in my office to remind me what a real day’s work feels like.
2. Despite my protests, my parents made me join the school band, I played the tuba for eight years, and marched in the 1986 Fiesta Bowl parade.  To this day, the Beer Barrel Polka makes me shudder but I have a deep appreciation for music and musicians.
3. For two summers in college I worked as the maintenance man at Camp du Nord near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  I lived in the tool shed and spent many wonderful, underage evenings at the infamous (and sadly now defunct) Chainsaw Sisters Saloon. I always make a point of saying “thank you” to the maintenance people at work because I know how difficult their jobs can be.
4. I severely disliked science in high school and entered college with the intent of majoring in journalism.  Four years later and thanks to the influence of one extraordinary professor, I graduated with a degree in geology, went on to earn teaching certification in physics, chemistry, biology, life science, earth science, and physical science, and eventually served as the Department Chair at my current school.  One person can change your life.
5. I’m a certified archery instructor and had the privilege of meeting the legendary Ann Hoyt, widely regarded as one of the finest female archers in history.  I own a custom recurve bow, handmade in her small shop, and it’s a testament to true excellence.
6. If given the chance, I would go into space without a moment’s hesitation.  I’ll probably never realize that dream, but some students and I were fortunate enough to participate in Project Aria and send passive experiments up on STS-106.
7. In 1999, I was involved in three automobile accidents, on two continents, within the span of 24 hours.  The first occurred when the shuttle I was riding between LaGuardia and JFK was side-swiped by a semi truck that knocked off the right rear-view mirror and a good deal of paint.  After landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, I was hit by a bus while carrying my luggage to the parking lot; the real wheels rolled over my right leg and did a fair bit of damage (I was later given snow and vodka for the pain/swelling and diapers to stop the bleeding).  Later that evening, the taxi taking me from the Bolshoi Theatre to my hotel crashed into some construction barriers, jumped the curb, took out a lamp post, and left a nice bump on my forehead (Russian taxis don’t have seatbelts).  That said, I still love to travel, firmly believe flying is much safer than driving, and am grateful for each day I live to see.

I apologize for breaking tradition, but given that so many of my friends and colleagues have already participated in this meme, it would be difficult to single out individuals still waiting for a turn.  Consequently, I hereby invite any/all who read this to have a go and share a bit of yourself.  It’s good fun and I would encourage you to enjoy the experience.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/

I don’t consider myself a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but the process of putting thoughts into words has helped clarify my thinking and sense of purpose.  We all have ideas and opinions; how we articulate and share them is our choice.  When I speak with students about the concept of writing for an audience, I now do so from a position of experience.  When I hear colleagues lament the need for change, I can honestly say I’ve made an effort to collectively move us forward.  No matter how small our voice, we all have the capacity to make a difference.

To all those who have taken the time to read, respond, and contribute to this space, thank you for helping shape me as an educator. I look forward to continuing the journey in the coming year.

Consider this article excerpt describing a specific decade of American education:

“…rejecting both traditional curricula and traditional methods of teaching … educators in this crucial decade developed important new ideas about educational practices—ideas founded on a new understanding of the nature of child development and grounded in new insights suggested by advances in psychology. Most centrally, these … educators advocated moving the child in school from the background to the foreground of classroom life. They assumed this fundamental shift in focus would be accomplished by creating new opportunities to engage the child’s cooperation and imagination.  Not surprisingly, old-fashioned rote learning was discouraged in the new, child-centered curriculum.”

Sound familiar?  Sound contemporary? It’s a synopsis of the first decade of the 20th century taken from “1900′s Education: Overview.” American Decades. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Richard Layman. Gale Cengage, 1996. eNotes.com. 2006.

Let’s not forget that this time period also saw the development of the automobile, airplane and radio, and schools shifting to a “corporate model” with efficiency being quantified and measured.  Are Dewey’s thoughts on education, the invention of life-changing technologies, and looking to the business world for guidance all that different from what we read and hear in today’s professional circles?  Constructivism is back in style, technology has never been more dominant, NCLB is on everyone’s mind, and we can’t seem to read enough “improvement” books from the corporate world like The World is Flat, A Whole New Mind, and, Wikinomics.

Granted, the world has changed quite a bit in the last 100 years.  The world is becoming flatter.  Creativity is as important as logic. Mass collaboration can produce wonderful results.  However, the notion that the challenges we face are unique to the 21st century does not acknowledge our profession’s history; we’ve been there and done that.  Perhaps it’s time to look past the “2.0″ panacea hype, recognize that we are eight years into the new millenium, and take a cue from Dewey in regard to preparing students for the future: “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

While I haven’t touched a tuba in more than 20 years, I thought of Gordy yesterday while attending a workshop on campus given by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis.  As they shared their insight into flattening classrooms, they made a candid point regarding the importance of school administration.  Simply put, when it comes to progress, “administrators can either be the obstacle or remove the obstacle”.  It was an interesting assertion to say the least….

I am not an administrator, but I do encounter my fair share of obstacles in my position.  For better or worse, however, I typically focus on getting around obstacles, and in that I am not alone.  When websites are blocked, are students more likely to ask the school to consider opening them and state their rationale or simply use the Tor network to bypass the filter?  When an application doesn’t work properly and a lesson fails, are teachers more likely to pursue an after-the-fact solution with the IT department or simply forgo using that program again and opt for the low-tech “Plan B”?  When updated equipment is required to provide an optimal learning environment but the budget request is declined, does the technology staff demonstrate the undeniable need or prepare to make do with what is available?

Regardless of our roles and responsibilities, we have obstacles in our path, and how we choose to approach them is no small matter.  Some are truly impossible to remove, and to progress we must circumvent.  The majority of barriers, however, can be eliminated though the forces of intellect and conversation.  For my part, I don’t want to be an obstacle and I have no desire to continue going around what shouldn’t be there in the first place.  I may have lost all my musical inclinations, but thanks to Julie and Vicki, I was reminded that being part of the solution is the only viable option.

Let the band play on.

Their final game, however, did not begin particularly well. The conditions were horrendous; mud and standing water covered most of the field, the wind gusted from every direction, and the temperature fell rapidly as evening set in. The Angels, unaccustomed to such an environment, quickly fell behind 0-2. Their coach, suspecting the cause of the girls’ poor play, finally yelled across the field, “Angels! Stop worrying about getting dirty and start playing the game! Sometimes soccer gets a little messy!”

Whereas their opponents had no concerns about running through water or kicking up mud, my daughter’s team was focused on staying clean and couldn’t adapt to the situation. Although they did manage to score a goal thanks to a mistake by the opposing keeper, they largely ignored their coach’s advice and trailed 3-1 at the half. Things were not, as they say, looking good for the home team….

As I paced the sidelines waiting for play to resume, I couldn’t help but compare the Angels’ plight to that of our algebra-geometry students who have been learning Scratch for the past several weeks. They, like my daughter’s team, have been well “coached”; they understand the fundamental principles of mathematics and generally have solid problem-solving skills. When asked, however, to apply their abilities in an environment where there is no one “right” answer or single model to follow, many have floundered.

The issue for the struggling students was/is not a lack of understanding but rather a lack of experience learning in messy conditions. They vastly prefer the “blue skies and freshly cut grass” of structured problem sets and finite answers to the untidy process of designing programs. A learning environment in which each student is working on a different task is a truly messy, yet essential, academic experience; life requires thinking and thriving under diverse and sometimes less than ideal conditions.

Just as the Angels’ coach could not take the field for his team, the math teachers and I could not and cannot personally fix every student project. As adults, whether coaching or teaching, we sometimes need to “stay behind the line” and remind our young charges that if they use what they’ve learned and aren’t afraid to jump in and get dirty, they will succeed. Encouragement, coupled with good instruction, can go a long way….

As the girls lined up for the start of the second half, my daughter ran over to me and said, “Dad, you’re gonna have to do some laundry tonight.” She wasn’t kidding around, and neither was the rest of her team. When the final whistle blew, they had prevailed 4-3 in what was probably their best-played game of the year. She was covered in mud from head to toe, soaked completely though, and went home wearing nothing but my over-sized sweatshirt.

Later that night she called her grandparents to tell them about the game. They were very proud of the two goals she scored, and while I shared their enthusiasm, I was probably more pleased with the mess in the laundry room. Hopefully, the Scratch projects that are due in a few days will also reflect the efforts of kids who were able to adapt and not afraid to get engaged in a messy environment. Much like grass stains, a challenging, effective learning experience can leave a lasting impression….

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a discussion on “the future” with a group of third graders. As the children shared their visions of flying cars, living on the moon, and McDonald’s home delivery, one child turned to me and asked, “What do you think the future will be like?” After a moment’s consideration I replied, “Well, Bobby, I don’t know for sure. It has been said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Upon hearing this he promptly declared, “Cool. I’m gonna build a robot that will do all my chores for me.” Take note, Alan Kay; these kids have ideas.

Listening to those young minds trying to imagine what lies ahead gave me pause to reflect on how much my profession, approach to education, and the world itself have changed over the last 17 years. When I began my teaching career in Texas, the World Wide Web was in its infancy, educational software titles were limited, and multimedia authoring left much to be desired. The textbook was our primary classroom resource, learning activities revolved around my content-area expertise, and assessments typically involved pencil and paper. Although I believed I was a fine science teacher, I failed to recognize that my students had limited options for acquiring knowledge, processing information, and demonstrating understanding. We were working in a vacuum and none of us knew it.

I continued to apply my well-intentioned but ill-informed approach to teaching as a department chair. Shortly into my tenure at my current school, however, I was presented with a set of laptop computers and a networked classroom. In addition to Bunsen burners, scales, and test tubes, I suddenly had a new array of equipment at my disposal…and no idea how to use it. As my students and I slowly began exploring technology’s potential, I came to the realization that they were being empowered, as never before, to take ownership of their learning. They were no longer dependent upon my finite knowledge or limited teaching techniques; current information and alternate explanations were only a click away. Media-rich, creative projects found a place alongside tests, quizzes, and research papers. A truly student-centered environment was being formed; the vacuum was preparing to burst.

In my current role as a technology coordinator, I step into classrooms each day that are without limitation. Students and teachers have ubiquitous access to information, concepts can be discovered and explored in myriad ways, and ideas shared through a variety of forums. The challenge today is not a lack of choices but rather how to select and implement the appropriate tools and strategies to make collaboration global, instruction more individualized, and assessment truly meaningful and relevant. If deployed without purpose, technology, like any methodology, will not promote critical thinking and self-awareness. My charge, my passion, is to facilitate the integration of technology while honoring the fact that the heart of education still lies within the human interaction between children and adults.

For Bobby to one day build his robot, he will need teachers who can spark his imagination, nurture his development, and foster a love of learning. If he is to invent the future, he must first come to appreciate the rapidly changing world around him. Although I cannot predict what is to come, I do know that it is my obligation, and privilege, to assist in preparing his generation for the challenges, and opportunities, that surely await.

This I Believe.

To continue the meme, I hereby tag the following and hope they will accept the opportunity to participate:

Matt Montagne

Ann Oro

Derrall Garrison

Scott Meech

Lisa Parisi

**Photo courtesy of Xeni on flickr (Creative Commons, non-commercial).

Technology in the Middle has three primary goals: highlight the work of the Middle School faculty as they infuse technology throughout the curriculum, provide resources for teaching and learning in the 21st century, and encourage all who read it to actively participate in conversations about the education profession.

At present, Technology in the Middle consists primarily of recent examples of Middle School technology utilization. In time, with your input, it has the potential to become a gathering place for sharing ideas, exchanging stories, and recognizing the good work that happens in our classrooms each and every day.

Happy New Year and Good Reading.