"21st Century Families" - My talk at Bloomberg today

I was honored to be invited by Elana W (protecting her digital footprint) to speak at Bloomberg today as part of their Innovative Speaker Series. I entered the beautiful lobby, showed my ID, quickly had a digital photo taken of me and put onto a badge with my name and "Hewitt School" emblazoned on it, and then was told to enter any elevator that lit up green (large lights above the elevator). I then went into the 6th floor where a receptionist quickly instant messaged my contact at Bloomberg (thanks, Jen!) and sent me off to the open coat room, and directed me to the free snacks, food, and drink area (which was buzzing). I took a seat on a modern sofa and looked up into the circular building with huge windows with light pouring in. I watched screens whizzing by with blips of news reports from around the world, and all around were Bloomberg terminals. This seems odd to say, but I felt like I was on a movie set for the future. The understanding and respect for technology was amazing. I was also lucky enough to meet their new social media director who has the daunting charge of overseeing social media for an enormous corporation.

When I walked into the 250 seat auditorium (which was beautiful) I noticed my Prezi slide deck on 3 huge LCD-powered walls. It was pretty amazing to see my name up there. It was also outside the room, and there were cameras at different angles recording the talk. Unfortunately, the recording was for internal use only, or I would have been happy to share it here. I wasn't able to use my laptop (obvious tech hurdles, resolution, etc), so I used the web version of my presentation. Thanks, Prezi!

Representing the school I teach at was a real honor. I am proud to be part of an academic institution that cares about helping students and families make good decisions about how they use technology. As Sir Arthur C. Clarke put it so well, "We need to educate children for their futures, not our past."

During the talk I referenced a few resources that I wanted to make note of here:

• My bookmarks on helpful read for parents
• Sugata Mitra and the Hole in the Wall Experiment. Watch his TED Talk here.
• John Palfrey, author of Born Digital, which talks about Jonathan Zittrain's concept of "digital bankruptcy"
• Department of Justice report on internet crimes against children

And finally, my "slides"

Photo credit: Jane Quigley

Mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc) should change education. But how can we do it well?

Mobile devices have become so powerful now it is hard to believe. All of the photos and video in this post were shot on my HTC Evo phone by Sprint. Most, if not all, of the middle and upper school students I work with have phones of this caliber. As a technology director I'm often thinking about how standardized systems support ease of adoption and support in schools. At my school every teachers in the middle and upper school has the same laptop, in the lower school, the faculty have the same laptop. Each student in grades 8-12 has the same laptop in each grade. This means teachers know what students have, and the tech team can easily support them as the knowledge needed is limited by the limited models.

But, if the real issue is certain generic capabilities of the tools (photos, video, writing, audio, Internet access), perhaps standardized equipment is not necessary. I am not convinced by this, but am somewhat enchanted by it. People using their own tools in ways that they are comfortable with. Will that meet the needs of teachers trying to utilize technology for higher-order learning? I don't doubt that it could, but I struggle with how to be strategic in an institution doing it.

Are you letting people bring any device to school? Giving them access to your network? Letting teachers manage dozens of different ways of approaching lesson objectives? What are the advantages? What are the drawbacks?

[video width="500" height="300" mp4="https://phaven-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/files/video_part/encoded/164679/bta45d8oYbhORclcihlSjUn48gw/VIDEO0008.mp4"][/video] Download VIDEO0008.3gp

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Enforcing free speech through military technology. Fascinating!

via switched.com

Switched covered a Wired story about how the military has the capability to put drones or planes into the air to restore Internet communication on the ground. This could be a way to keep dictatorial governments from repressing Internet-based communication. One major caveat, military futurist John Arquilla says it would be an act of war.

The scarier part of the story is that the United States most certainly has the capability to turn off communications as easily as it can turn it on. It's too much power, something the United States has had for a long time if you include nuclear weapons, and the like.

First Ever Panoramic View of the Sun Released by NASA

via bigthink.com

A great article on Big Think about NASA's new ability to take dual images of the sun giving them the ability to monitor sunspot activities and more. This is the first panoramic view of the sun released by NASA.

via @lenkendall

US Dept. of Ed guidelines for private schools

Download US_DOE_requirements_for_private_schools.pdf

Pat Bassett, President of the National Association of Independent Schools shared this private school regulations guide from the US. Department of Education.

I was surprised by a few sections in the New York guide including number of days required and the required curriculum. If you work at a non-public school, looking at this guide is worth your time. One of the oddest lines in the document (which is very general) is this one:

The course of study for the first eight years of public school must include...American history including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and may include a course in communism and its methods and its destructive effects. N.Y. Educ. Law §3204.3.

That line feels like a cold war relic. Odd, and out of place in the document.

Another that surprised me was:

Nonpublic school students are required to participate in the Regents competency testing program before graduation from high school.

I don't believe this to be true, but perhaps there is an exception somewhere.

This is a public domain document, so I am able to place the entire document here. You can also find a digital copy here.