Blurts

Cindy scans IndieGoGo to find small projects she invests in. Some turn out and some do not. This is the nature of investing in innovations. I am not certain I have ever understood her selection criteria, but many seem to combine her interest in education and technology.

Nearly two years ago now, she invested in Bird Buddy. The project proposed the development of a combination bird feeder and motion-activated camera that would use AI to identify birds that were photographed, link to related information, and share this information with the owner of the feeder and designated buddies. This sounded like a tool that had great promise for teachers who could use the buddy for all kinds of science and writing projects.

We knew the Buddy was in production when we saw marketing to attract new customers. Finally, we received ours and got it set up. It takes a few days to get birds to come to a new feeder and ours is now attracting birds. The reviews on the product have varied with some having positive and some negative experiences. We have been among the lucky ones if product quality has been an issue, but it is a new product and attracting interesting birds can be challenging which contributes to the adventure.

Our first photo.

This is a great photo. We were probably lucky, but Cardinals are common visitors to our other feeder and frequent the pine trees near our house. So, the system works.

The system does correctly identify birds and it does provide additional information (some examples follow). The software that supports the feeder also allows the sharing of images with those you connect via an access code.

A little more about our setup. The other equipment was purchased separately and focused on limiting squirrel access. The Bird Buddy is plastic and squirrels will gnaw through plastic to get at food. The peppered seed is interesting. Evidently, birds must not have taste buds that sense spicy. This stuff must be really hot as you are not supposed to handle it without protection. The baffle on the pole is a second squirrel defense.

I realized with the exception of a few books I have purchased to get signed copies of books from author friends, this is the first paper book I have purchased in a decade. I no longer find the experience of reading a book with my yellow highlighter productive. I read digital books so I can alter the size of text and so I can highlight and take extended notes connected to source material. When you read something I have written on one of my blogs, it is often based on the digital notes I have taken, stored, organized, and retrieved at a later date.

I purchased this book because I made an error in ordering from Amazon. Reading it has been a reminder of the advantages digitized content allows.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab offers digital resources and tools to the public. The lab promotes it functions as Discover, Create, Share, and Learn and offers resources hoping that educators will share how they use these resources and instructional materials created with these resources with peers.

The Create function offers educators tools they can use to repurpose existing resource collections or create a new collection from scratch. The tools go beyond selecting resources and allow the educator to annotate, add quizzes, and incorporate assignments.

ACT scores continue to decline with 40% of those taking the test (supposedly interested in college) not meeting any of the standards for doing college work (performance in English, reading, math, and science). While the ACT organization says that COVID plays a role in this decline, the downward pattern has existed for some time and COVID only increased the rate of decline.

I encountered this source arguing there are at least three common misconceptions when it comes to K12 curriculum. The false assumption that caught my attention involved the belief that the most effective teachers create their own curriculum materials. In arguing the contrary, the source suggested that teachers average 7-12 hours per week searching for or creating curriculum content and this time either extends the workload of educators or cuts into the time educators spend with students or providing feedback on work completed. With present concerns over teacher workloads and related stress and the competing suggestion that educators should “ditch the textbook”, educators and the public are getting mixed messages. The source proposes that modern commercial curriculum offerings offer far more than content to read and worksheets to complete and these resources are prepared with an eye to solid learning theory, content quality, and a plan for how learning experiences fit together to meet standards and assure learners are prepared as to what is to come. 

My professional work included teaching in a graduate-level instructional design program and while I am an applied cognitive learning researcher by training and experience, exposure to the issues that educational designers address in generating learning materials and procedures has been enlightening. There are so many important things that go beyond authoring lesson plans. I have tried to identify and explain many of these considerations in a resource I have written for interested educators titled “Designing instruction using layering services: Educators and students guiding learning”. For those educators interested in instructional design and wanting to build instructional content based on online resources, my focus was on identifying the issues that are important in curriculum generation and how the issues can be addressed in creating learning resources. So, I see both sides of this issue. If you want to “ditch” the use of commercial materials and act as an instructional designer, I explain what the design process involves.

The resource on commercial curriculum and educator time I reference identified one issue that requires consideration. A high proportion of educators complain that they receive inadequate professional development when it comes to the implementation of modern commercial curriculum materials. My personal reaction to complaints about professional development tends to focus on the challenge of continuing support as what are perhaps initially explained as good ideas are put into practice. Who to blame? This is a tough call and much ends up being a function of financing. To me, this would seem the point at which “curriculum coaches” and teacher collaboration should be the emphasis.