WebedtecH

I’ve been thinking a lot about the recent chatter in the edublogsphere (made up word) about the “cocktail party” and “echo chamber” for writing and being read as part of this community. I think it’s time we shift our thinking. Rather than wasting time worrying whether the bloggerati (another made up word) are following what you have to say and the profound effect it is or is not having on the world at large, let’s focus on the the people we can truly make an impact with…the teachers and staff we deal with on a daily basis. Strategic planning and conceptual models are good for creating mission statements and visions but if they’re never followed up by operational discussions, implementation plans, and success reviews we’ve become nothing more than pointy-haired managers avoiding real responsibility and accountability for making a difference in education.

If you want something to write about of value, get away from the theory and “fluffy thinking” rampant in ed-tech and concentrate on the practical, tactical aspects of what can be done to deliver more value to the students and staff. Digital citizenship, immigrants vs. natives, and all the 30,000 foot discussions floating around the internet deliver little practical value to the students and staff members who are trying to make this stuff work day in and day out. If you want to be read write about something worth reading such as the successes you’ve had implementing certain technologies or better yet the challenges you encountered and how you overcame them.

Based on this I am stepping away from the theoretical discussions. I leave those to the experts. I’m a strategist with an eye for implementation and that’s where I’m focusing my time, my writing, and my blog from now on. As for the cocktail party…I’ll be down the street having a coffee at the diner.

Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune - Teacher e-mails made public Annotated

tags: management, policy, privacy, teaching

Teacher emails released to “make sure they’re doing their jobs.”

“Based on our interpretation of the current state law, the public interest demands those e-mails be released.”

Bubolz said in July he made the request to see if the teachers were doing their job “… the way it’s supposed to be done.”

“People will know this decision is out there,” Jonen said. “The effect will be any public employee that does a personal e-mail at work is subject to having that released.”

“There’s no misconduct at all; they don’t want the public to feel they were misusing resources,” she said. “These are e-mails they wrote to their friends, spouse or kids. It’s a little unsettling they will be for public view.”

Couple of key points to this in my mind.

1. If they were sending personal email against district policy they really don’t have any recourse.
2. If they didn’t do anything wrong (something the article fails to clarify) then their personal correspondence should not be publicly available (see item 1 for the counterpoint however).
3. If this is the case and a member of the public can request the emails of a public servant (which is a bit of a stretch to define a teacher as) be made public then why can I say with great confidence that this is far less likely to happen to the school administration?

So often the term “Digital Native” is thrown about when discussing students technical ability we fail to recognize what the connotation actually means.  By definition from Dictionary.com, the word “native” is:

It is the second definition of the word that causes us the problem.  Why do we believe there is a “native ability” conveyed upon our students just because of their birth decade?  They may have been born into a time of accessibility and lack the fear of the unknown but they still have to put in the time to learn the tools like anyone else.

I suggest a change.  This division of digital knowledge is not limited to age demographic.  Throw out the reliance on birth timing.  The new references should be “Digital Leaders” or “Digital Followers”.  Those students/parents/staff/people who lead into the digital space to explore and guide as compared to those who follow the leaders.  There is an equity to the roles since both have acceptance of digital technology.  By identifying whether a student is a “DL” or a “DF” you can guide their interactions and development much more effectively than dismissively saying, “They’re a digital native.  This should be easy for them.”

Thoughts?

Rights of a Digital Citizen

1. To speak their mind about what they feel and believe
2. To control the content they create and distribute it as they see fit
3. To comment on the content created by others
4. To access publicly available information
5. To share publicly available information with other digital citizens

Responsibilities of a Digital Citizen

1. To respect the rights of other digital citizens
2. To be a participant in the online society
3. To assist other digital citizens when possible
4. To set a positive example in behavior and action for other digital citizens

What am I missing?

This is the text of a speech I am presenting tonight for Toastmasters entitled, “Procrastination.”

I struggled for a while with the topic for today’s speech, looking for just the right one. The one that would have punch, passion, and practicality. Longer and longer it took until finally it was almost too late. Then it hit me…procrastination. That’s the topic I’ll cover. We all suffer from it at one time or another. The causes are varied but the result is always the same. Tasks are delayed until the last minute or far beyond when would have been best to address them. What causes this? How can we combat it? Is some procrastination good, or is it always bad?

The definition of procrastination is to defer action; delay: to put off until an opportunity is lost. Ironically it is a verb which implies action. So the act of procrastinating is the action of deferring another action. Ugh. By procrastinating you are expending more effort by the time you have completed the task than if you had just gone ahead and done the task.

So why do we procrastinate? The most common reasons gathered by the “experts” in the field are: fear of failure, fear of success, perfectionism, boredom, anger, lack of skills and information, poor health, distractions, and the task seems to large. Walk through these with me for a moment.

Fear of failure is easy enough to understand. People fear being chastised for failing to deliver what is desired upon the completion of a task and as such are hesitant to start it. This can be combated by having a clear understanding of what the end goal is before beginning the task. You need to know where you’re going before you set out on your journey so you know when you get there.

Fear of success seems counter-intuitive. After all, who would be afraid at succeeding at what they set out to do? The fear is derived not from the actual success, but from a concern the standards that will be set for them in the future will be unachievable due to this current success. “They needed it in two days but I was able to finish it in one…now they’re always going to expect it in one.”

Perfectionism. Perfectionists can procrastinate the start of tasks when operating under the assumption if they do not feel they have the time / resources/ skills necessary to complete the task perfectly it should be put off. It is a challenge for these types of people to understand there is often an “acceptable” level of completion as compared to the “perfect” completion.

Boredom. This is tied most often to the task itself. Cleaning out the cat litter. No interest there…put it off for a while. Phew that stinks now. Now you have a vested interest in getting the task done. Dealing with boring or distasteful tasks can be best summed up with the “Band-Aid” metaphor. Give it a yank and the pain ends quickly. Get the task done and over with and the pain ends quickly.

Anger. This one screams passive aggressive behavior. Your significant other has honked you off in some manner and your response / vindication is…I’ll mow the lawn tomorrow. You know it will get under their skin so that becomes your rationale for procrastinating on the task at hand. Dealing with this has nothing to do with the task, but rather the underlying issue. Go kiss and make up…then get to work.

Many procrastinated tasks in the workplace stem from a lack of skills or understanding. The person responsible for the task doesn’t have the skills or information necessary to complete the task at hand, or doesn’t think they do. In either case the underlying fear of telling someone they can’t do the job prevents them from proceeding while also inhibiting their ability to get the help they need to move forward. This is a tough one. You need to have a relationship with someone professionally who can give you the “permission” to find out what you need. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but in the long run it’s usually for the best.

Poor health is a valid reason to put off a task in many cases, but there is often a base reason to why your poor health is interrupting the task at hand. If you dislike mowing the lawn, it’s amazing how often your back can act up. Be conscious to recurrences of the same excuses that prevent you from proceeding with tasks and see if your health improves when you realize maybe it’s not your back but rather you just don’t like to mow the lawn.

Distractions. I was thinking about moving this to the top of the list. In today’s world there is no limit to the number of distractions trying to steal your attention away from the task at hand. Email, instant messengers, cell phones, radios, TVs, YouTube, MySpace, the thieves go on and on. So what to do? How do you defend your fleeting attention span? Set a time and stop the world. If you have a task you know will take an hour, set aside an hour actively. Make a meeting with yourself. Put it on your calendar. Then set the phone to silent, put the instant messenger on do not disturb, and close your web browser. Focus on the task for as long as you can. When you feel yourself bogging down, give yourself permission for a brief (and I do mean brief) distraction before jumping right back in. Your focus can be enhanced by setting a reward upon completion of the task. Finish updating your checkbook at home and earn yourself a half-hour of guilt free time on Guitar Hero. There’s no shame in bribing yourself.

Finally task size. The old saying of every journey begins with a first step is quite true. Any task, no matter how daunting, can be broken down into smaller tasks that are achievable. Experts like David Allen of Getting Things Done fame espouse the “Next Action” method of defining what is the next thing that will keep the task or project moving forward. This is easiest to explain using a practical example. When planning a birthday party for my middle daughter the goal was to schedule a bowling party. There are a number of steps in making this happen, not all of which were able to be done at the same time. Defining the actions and then identifying the “next action” allowed me to keep the project in motion without feeling overwhelmed. The tasks were identify a local bowling alley, call and schedule the party, send out the invitations. The next action was “get the phone number for the alley.” While this seems like an oversimplified task, it actually is the only thing that would prevent the next action “call the alley and set a date” from happening. It’s small enough to be easily accomplished and can be performed with a high likelihood of success.

Procrastination is many things. For most it is a burden, for some it’s a defense mechanism. There are times it is perfectly reasonable to put off a task until later, but often the delay has little in the way of rational cause. It is not the demon it has been touted to be. It is beatable and manageable. If you’re putting something off, take a second and ask yourself why and deal with that issue first…then get back to work. How else do you think this speech got written?