Sharing Reconciliation with the People Formerly Known as the Audience

Lately there have been a few words that have become ubiquitous in media discussions of education. That's right: standards and data are everywhere when education comes up as a topic. Everything in education is either "standards-based" or "data-driven" no matter what the topic is. Whether it's the adoption of a new set of standards or a supposedly well-intended instance of agitation, in education the words 'standards' and 'data' manage to resurface often. But in being given this opportunity to guest blog, the word that haunted the build-up toward approaching the topic of reconciling standards and 21st century learning was not standards but data. In a fit of 21st century research it can be found that data is defined as 

–noun

1.

a pl. of datum.

2.

(used with a plural verb) individual facts, statistics, or items of information: These data represent 

the results of our analyses. Data are entered by terminal for immediate  processing by the computer.

3.

(used with a singular verb) a body of facts; information: Additional data is 

available from the president of the firm.

In all of the angst that surrounds the lemming rush of educational systems surging to become standard-based data-driven entities the definition of data gains new importance.  If data is simply a set of items of information, educators need to keep this fact in mind when the word 'standard' is wielded as a weapon. It is this writer's fervent belief that educators everywhere really are doing good work with students every day. What has been lacking has been a succinct way to communicate this fact. Cynicism aside, testing and the use of data has arisen as a part of the problem that education wants for ways to articulate what it does. In the midst of heated editorial pages and town-hall levy meetings achievement testing has become a baleful blade possessed of precious few handles. But how much do those strident voices demanding accountability even know about what is on those tests? 

The debate surrounding accountability and standards is often presented within a frame of binary solutions when what is truly needed is reconciliation. Wanting more for students is no more wrong than wanting a real assessment of learning. If education is to move forward and repair relationships with all stakeholders it must be with a sense of reconciliation. As Daniel Pink shows us, some surprising things can be learned from data particularly in relation to motivation. 

But if the tests used to derive the data only reward lower-order thinking how can education survive when its very funding is tied to what some consider to be the antithesis of higher-order thinking? The answer lies within the word 'data'. If data is a body of facts, education must use standards as a basis of learning not as a myopic and duplicitous lens. Data is present in everything education does. Data does not stop with a test score. But then how is the picture to be properly painted to all involved? How can accountability, standards, and the need for 21st Century skills be reconciled for all involved? 

The roots of this repair are present within the very 21st Century skills that are required by a shifting modern world. In the book "Cognitive Surplus" author Clay Shirky calls digital media users "the people formerly known as the audience" because 

When you buy a machine that lets you consume digital content, you also buy a machine to produce it. 

The binary distinction of student and teacher loses focus in the context of 21st Century technology and skills. If education is to repair the schism between 21st Century skills and standards-based education it must come through the sharing of data. The items of information for such sharing can come from the activities already going on in classrooms today. Data doesn't have to come from a one-shot testing window; data can come from qualitative learning experiences that still use educational standards. But such sharing will require a change on the part of educators. 

If educators are to reconcile educational standards in the context of a 21st century world, the "four walls syndrome" must cease. The times of saying that "<insert educational initiative name here> is just a fad" and will pass must become the past. No more closing the doors to the world and teaching within one set of four walls. To begin this reconciliation educators don't have to be Scott McLeod, or Shelly Terrell, or Will Richardson. Your school doesn't need to be on a laptop initiative or have a seamless online class management system. Use your cellphone to record a great student discussion, create a Facebook page for a class, have students concoct a Twitter hashtag to conduct larger discussion, or join a PLN yourself. But educators must share what is going on in their classroom with all stakeholders within the community and world around them. Isolation cannot be the default for those that feel educational data selection is subjective. Karl Fisch and others are taking steps to change educational paradigms; all you need to do is start to share the good that you do. Share this reconciliation of education with the people formerly known as the audience. 

Google, Data, and the Problem of the Chessboard

Last week a rather impressive statistic was used by Google CEO Eric Schmidt - Tech Crunch has the figure and the quote: 

Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until  2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.

Schmidt goes on to say that the lion's share of this new data is user-created but the implications for all of us as learners is enormous. The immediate analogue is the proverb of the wheat and the chessboard. 

The short version is that an ancient ruler (some say India, others China) was quite pleased with one of his scholars who invented the game of chess. The ruler goes on to let the scholar name the reward for creating the chessboard. The scholar replies that he would like to receive one grain of wheat for the first square of the board and have the total amount of wheat doubled for each subsequent square. The ruler wasn't the mathematician that the scholar was but it works out to: 

To solve this, observe that a chess board is an 8×8 square, containing 64 squares. If the amount doubles on successive squares, then the sum of grains on all 64 squares is:

This equals 18,446,744,073,709,551,615.

To bring this back to Schmidt's quote it important to note that an exabyte is defined as: 

exabyte definition

unit 
 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes = 1024 petabytes or roughly 10^18 bytes. 

So what we're seeing nearly daily in data creation is something akin to the wheat & chessboard scenario. Again, a sizable portion of this data can be chalked up to the effluvium of life that comes in texts, tweets, and assorted blog postings - including this one. However, if even a fraction of this information is of merit it means that a drastic shift in pedagogy is needed. 

Often when people criticize education it's that recent graduates are woefully inept when it comes to remembering facts. Such a lack of memory has even been the subject of late night television segments and game-shows. With the aforementioned exponential increase in the creation and storage of data, how can something like the Common Core Standards hope to serve to prepare students for the future? Given the bureaucracy that surrounds the Common Core, and education legislation in general, keeping up with "all the facts that are needed to know" seems to be an almost foregone conclusion. 

Knowledge is needed to acquire any skill; facts are an indivisible part of learning. But the intertwined nature of facts and process in learning begs some important questions. Are educators supposed to strive to prepare their students for life, or for the next test? When looking at the chessboard are we approaching education as the ruler or the scholar? 

Hiring out "Milkshake Mistakes"

The Washington Post has an intriguing article posted today regarding college admissions that got my thinking connected to a post by Rob Jacobs over at Education Innovation. The article in the post is detailing how colleges are struggling to distinguish talent amongst the thousands of applications they are receiving. A money-quote:

"We felt that students who managed to come to campus were not reflective of the diversity of our applicant pool," said Maria Laskaris, dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth College. via The Washington Post

The article goes on to detail the pitfalls of the "to interview or not" conundrum and what kind of technologies (Skype, webcams, etc.) might be used to this end. This brought me to Rob's post and a book I, and it seems technology enthusiasts and educators everywhere, have been reading - Clay Shirkey's "Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age".

Rob does an excellent job of summing up what Shirkey dubs "The Milkshake Mistake." The problem occurred when McDonald's researchers, working to increase milkshake sales, were surprised to find that milkshakes were being purchased in the early morning contrary to their expectations. Shirkey goes on to point out how the customers were simply hiring out the milkshake to perform a needed service, regardless if it was contrary to its expected use. Rob's post connects this to education:

You “hired” the technology to help students consume. They “hired” it to help them produce. You hired the technology to help students connect. They “hired” it to comment and critique.

The question over what we're hiring technology to do in education is somehow both salient and elusive. Shirkey does provide a key quote in a later chapter:

The logic of digital media, on the other hand, allows the people formerly known as the audience to create value for one another every day.

When using technology in education, are teachers committing a "Milkshake Mistake?" How are the expectations in the use of technology being communicated in relation to adding value? If the prevailing progression of test well, do well in school, get into a good university now involves an interview process that is designed to have prospects demonstrate skills - how are the Common Core Standards or test-based teacher accountability systems preparing students for this possible future? All I can think of is this quote:

So what future action should be taken? One thing I'm thinking about is teaching my students about Bloom's Taxonomy as a foundation piece for the school year. If we understand what we value and how we add value, maybe we can avoid some Milkshake Mistakes.