Blurts

The many inexpensive tools for media production have opened up opportunities for professional development. Gone are the days of having someone visit your school for a day or two, teach you something in a concentrated dose, and then leaving. I was one of those people driving from small school to small school in North Dakota for these two day workshops. I started with the introduction of the Apple IIs and would usually haul four computers along in addition to demonstration software because this was necessary to offer educators some opportunities to actually try out the software and methods I was describing. This method is now shunned with good reason, but it was better than nothing at the time. Times have changed.

I think we are still struggling to find effective approaches to professional development. Maybe the problem is we assume that a given method must be determined to be the best and perhaps more accurately an approach that schools will spend money for. I have written about this many times but I want my own learning opportunities to come at me straight on from an expert. I don’t want time to discuss the person sitting next to me. I am perfectly happy listening, watching, and perhaps exploring along on a device in front of me. Others despise this approach and come up with derogatory descriptions – e.g., sit and git, sage on the stage. Maybe the lesson is we have different needs, interests, and tolerances.

Technology offers multiple ways to meet individual needs. It offers an alternative to the cost and time of congregating in a given location – now also a health advantage. It allows for time shifting. The easy digitization of presentations – audio and video – allows content to be stored and examined in the sized chunks that suit the needs and opportunities of learners. It is easy enough to use and inexpensive enough that it allows the sharing of experiences and expertise from a wider variety of individuals and it breaks down the barriers between expert and practitioner.

OK – I have been a critic of some forms of PD for educators. I don’t find much value in peer Twitter chats even though some seem to find them enjoyable and perhaps useful. I don’t find the density of what I consider information to be very time efficient. I have tried to offer some suggestions that would improve my own experience but at a basic level I just find the experience to be very inefficient.

I see great promise in video conferencing (translate that as Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams). One of the long-term residuals of our pandemic teaching experiences is likely to be heavier and hopefully more flexible use of such tools.

Podcasts offer another great option. I have listened to podcasts (TWIT.tv) for many years as a way to follow technology developments when immediate access to others with similar interests was just not possible. I have added podcasts relevant to education (EdTech Situation Room, Check this Out), and current events (The Daily, Pod Save America). I had not really thought much about the potential of podcasts for professional development for those not involved with technology.

Our daughter, Lynn Tanner, was involved as a guest on a podcast today and this caused some reflection on the topic of podcast PD. Lynn is a physical therapist and has done ground-breaking work focused on combating the physical damage done by long-term chemotherapy to children. This is a kind of speciality (the unique damage done to individuals whose bodies are still changing) within a speciality (physical therapy for cancer patients). She does focused work on a type of patient many other physical therapists may encounter on occasion and very likely did not learn about in their graduate training. This is a perfect example of the reason for professional development. You can read the journal articles if you are so inclined, but this tends to be relatively rare among practitioners. The most common opportunity for practitioners to pick up this type of background previously was probably the professional meeting/conference.

I think we are at the point that podcast PD (perhaps with video) should be promoted by more professional organizations. I like the format of the podcast series Lynn was a part of. I assume there is person or a couple of persons who host from week to week and then there are guests who contribute through interaction with these hosts. The ins and outs of various podcasts would be interesting to try to study and categorize. I have never been involved in podcasting. I have spent many hours teaching online, but podcasting is a little different so I will stick to writing. Teaching in this format could be a new skill to develop within many professions.

I haven’t thought about StoryCorps for years. StoryCorps is an effort to record, organize, and share the stories in all of us. Perhaps it might be thought of as a massive oral history or interview project. I remember becoming interested in StoryCorps after reading about this strange project that involved positioning simple recording studies in various places inviting people, usually two, to enter and record their stories. We were involved in a major technology project at the time and the concept of collecting oral histories fit well. Imagine students interviewing their grandparents or relatives about their life experiences. I remember one effort involved interviewing someone who had taught in a one room school.

StoryCorps continues to exist and the physical mini-studios have given way to apps for phones and tablets. The apps obviously make it easy to take the recording studio on the road. The StoryCorps project did not begin as a classroom focused project, but the project had obvious applications and the project has made a major effort to organize stories and develop resources related to the collection of oral histories and interviews that are available to educators.

The skills emphasized by StoryCorps fit well with history, listening and writing, questioning (interviewing), and if focused on interacting with experts and practitioners nearly any content area.

Whereas the printing press was the platform that gave birth to a society of readers, the Internet fashioned everyone as a publisher.

This article from Scientific American offers what I would describe as a history of social media and disinformation. It moves from the early optimism to the rise of disinformation and ends with a more hopeful perspective.

This is last minute, but I just found this announcement and PBS is providing live coverage tomorrow (Wednesday 7 ET). [see link in next paragraph]

PBS and several other news outlets have announced today that members of the Senate Commerce Committee will take testimony from the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Committee members of the two parties have very different interests. Republican members feel that conservative content does not receive equal coverage (despite the fact the companies do not produce content) and are particularly upset Twitter and Facebook have blocked direct access to the unsubstantiated New York Post story regarding Biden and the Ukraine. Democrats have concerns more related to the collection of personal information and monopolistic tendencies. Obviously, the Republican issue is more time sensitive and they would like their concerns promoted before the election.

This article from SFGate offers more political commentary.

I have been writing a lot on facebook for the past four years focused on politics. I don’t post on such topics here because most issues don’t have immediate relevance to education. The topic I address here does. The issue I address here is dated by a few weeks, but the way political controversies have been going I have not had time to address all topics that concerned me.

As part of a midsummer September address, President Trump addressed the teaching of history and had some very negative things to say. He described certain curricula such as the New York Time’s 1619 Project as “toxic propaganda”. Classroom materials from this source were designed to teach Black History and explained the slavery and ongoing discrimination that Black people face. Similar issues might come up in discussions of the “discovery” of America, the camps holding Japanese-American citizens during the Second World War, the treatment of Native Americans, and many other negative acts and policies that are factually accurate parts of the history of this country. I have provided additional content related to this topic in an earlier post.

Somehow the interest of those who study and teach history in providing an accurate representation of reality have been labeled as leftist and anti-patriotic. This was the President’s message in labeling the teaching the reality of our past as toxic propaganda. Academic fields like history and science have a way of self-correcting their facts and their ideas. Participants in these fields work from the data to constantly challenge and refine the positions taken by others. This attention involving argumentation is a good thing. The ideas and descriptions that come from striving for an honest representation of reality assumes that truth and accuracy are better than fiction. If there is something wrong with a theory of science or a representation of the way we think about ourselves, efforts to improve require an accurate understanding of the present or preferred view. Challenge educators based on issues of facts or disputes over instructional methods if you must. Meddling in the purpose of knowledge development to argue for a flawed representation of the truth misses the point of education.