Live Blogging of the Ed-Tech Conference at WCU

Introductions are starting...Michael opened us up emphasizing the importance of the WNC EdNet.

Currently introducing Dr. Willard Daggett
-has been consultant and in school district, author, researcher, speaker
-few attendees (by show of hands) have heard him before

9:10 am - Dr. Daggett takes the stage

-Claims that America has the finest education system in the World

-Notes that the public school system takes in all children - committed to equity AND excellence

9:15 am
-Concerned about other nations passing us
-Notes the difficulty of making changes in most anything in the school's structure
-He was charged by a group of govenors to find the best 25 high schools in the country (1/3 rural, 1/3 suburban, 1/3 urban)
-What are they doing different?
-Where is the problem with lower performing schools?

9:20 am
-What do we need to do to make improvements ourselves?

-State tests measure knowledge, but our goal is to make students able to apply knowledge to real world predictable and unpredictable situations
-That's just the limitation of the tests, which are not bad but we must understand what they measure and what we want.
-What group keeps pushing school reform? Businesss putting pressure on elected officials (not substantiated - I'm somewhat skeptical of this claim)

9:25 am
-shows video showing two people "stuck" onan escalator and seemingly helpless to get off
-How many of us are like this? Unable to think and solving problems - how many students?
-Note that today we're facing competition from China & India
-Claims that a Chinese company owns IBM's PC manufacturing (note that this is true for the laptop manufacturing - I'm not sure about desktops)
-Brings out many stats about companies moving to China and India (some of these sound suspect from my keeping up with the news - true in a sense but somewhat overblown)
-Notes that China has over 100 cities with over 1 million people, US has 9, Europe has 36.

9:32 am
-Even so, India will have the most people - claims that Indian children will have to have more math and science to enter 9th grade than students in NC
-Yet, Daggett is still glad to live here
-Claims that in China, a 3 year old with autism would be euthanized; same for his other child who was hit by drunk driver
-We have amazing freedom here in US
-Yet, we have to compete with China

-Notes that Technology is a major driving force in our global world.
-Notes that technology is developing at a super fast rate
-(some of his figures are overblown & inaccurate)
-Notes that very few attendees own a PDA - claims that 71% of 21-30 year olds own a PDA type device - but that is a major discrepancy with the teaching profession
-Even the PDA will become obsolete "soon" - due to NanoTech - claims they are building computer chips from the atom up (somewhat inaccurate)
-SPOT Technology = Smart Personal Object Technology

9:40 am
-what is SPOT? Mix if nanotech and current PDA ish thing
-Microsoft is putting SPOT into a watch = putting a whole computer in a watch
-how do you interface, integrated projection & keyboard?
-notes the new projection technology (PALM) to project a keyboard they can type

-We don't let students have PDA's or such devices in state tests
-They might look up resources and work with others (laughter) which we consider cheating, but is what we think we want our students to do
-Discrepancy?
-Technology is getting so small, it can be in watches, jewelry, lapel pins, etc.

9:45 am
-Proposes that students take tests naked (laughter)
-The IBM Goggle - translates words for you on the glasses - what does that change in our foreign language programs?
-Talks about how our keyboards are using QWERTY standard, but it is inefficient for typing - should we change?

9:50 am
-A major problem we have is reading - teaching reading to students is a problem and leads to students failing other content areas because they can't read effectively
-notes that we teach French far more than Chinese - but we're going to compete with China in the 21st century - can we make a policy here?
-Someday we'll learn that students don't need the summer off to work in the fields
-Corporate and government leaders (he claims) are close to giving up on public education
-He claims that public school will never go away because no one else wants the disabled kids, the poor, the minority
-but confidence is eroding because the "outside world" thinks we can't keep up

9:55 am
-inaccurately states that e-mail was not around before the WWW (not true - was much before)
-Notes that e-mail is super popular, but the writing for e-mail is much different than literature class
-if e-mail is a primary means of written communication - do we teach that?
-claims that standard english is usually only used in schools
-but we also must teach them to use e-mail
-Web pages - also relatively new, ipods, etc. (lists other things not around in 1983, even new since 2000)
-Claims vast majority using blogs and wikis
-Problem: authenticating information, evaluate what's on Wikipedia

-Uses "digital native" to describe current k-12 kids
-Claim that all these students are using media, technology, etc. all the time outside school
-then, in classroom, the teacher seems slow and boring

10:02 am
-claims we are losing an entire generation of kids
-These kids are different - early and intense interaction with video technology
-Claims that kids are laying different brain pathways due to their use of media and technology - consistent with the skills they will need in 21st century - inconsistent with what we do in schools
-Claims we are boring the kids.

-shows the basketball video with the guy in gorilla suit - what do we notice?
-He will e-mail us the powerpoint from today - includes notes behind each slide - gives away for free.

10:09 am
-Also has monthly briefing e-mails about trends he and his staff track
-Final observation about gorilla/basketball video: in elementary schools, 5-10 year olds, over 90% notice the gorilla & get the number of passes correct; over 25 years old, les than 5% both see gorilla & get number of passes correct

Wrapping up:
-Kids are different today! We have to move instruction to get to them today.
-Technology & globalization & demographics are going to really impact our country
-nations we compete against don't have retirement programs (his claim)
-Values/Beliefs are different
--"Greatest Generation" - economically conquered the world for US
--1925-41 - silent generation
--1946-1960 - Baby Boomers (now aging and becoming caregivers to their parents)
--1961-1981 - Gen X - best education of anyone in the world (claim) have more college degrees than any group - however, have greatest probabiliy of being at least partially dependent on parents financially (aka, boomerangs)
--back to boomers: took drugs as kids, now give drugs to kids (ha ha!)
--notes sexual mores have changed & many other things
--Millenials: overprotected, media driven, into every organized thing (music, sports, etc.)
-Daggett is worried for grandkids - thinks we have used up most of our assets, US has more debt than all the rest of the world combined (claim - not substantiated)
--kids consider it a birthright to have what mom and dad have
-we have to change!

10:23
How do we do it?
-Reading is important
-references study using Lexile framework he did (no reference)
-looked at reading level of materials of a set of students through high school & college
-study indicates that reading requirements are higher for most areas (college, military, government forms) than high school literature readings
-Claim: elementary kids are 1 or 2 in the world in reading; reading problem is not in elementary; by 8th grade we are in middle & by 12 we are bottom
-We don't teach reading at higher levels

10:33
-notes that higher ed complains about the remediation required in students they take to fill the seats and make budget
-his claim is that the universities must simply not keep accepting the lower students
-claim: reading requirements of jobs right out of school exceed those of higher ed

-need: train the middle and high school teachers to teach reading
-claims that "rigor/relevance" are his terms
- claims that we must push students to higher levels of Bloom's & higher levels of application
-Claim that real-world application helps you apply and learn better the knowledge (I think this accords with research)

-We need to take something off the teacher's plate
-Claim: high performing schools dump 1/3 of the standards to concentrate on high performance on the others
-high performing schools focus on real-world application, focus on esssential 2/3 of standards
-encoruages audience to attend a group in Florida (soon - missed date) that will share their practices.

10:43 am
-wrapping up