Presentation Materials - Web 2.0 Presentation

I gave a presentation today to Instructional Systems Design students here at UK and these are the materials I used and some extra resources. 

Title: Implications of Web 2.0 on Educational and Training Organizations

Videos:

Ray Kurzweil - How Technology Will Transform Us

Information Revolution

Did You Know 3.0

A Vision of Students Today

A Wiki Where I Have Most of These Resources

Good Readings via Dangerously Irrelevant

Good Blogs via CASTLE

Here is the video of the presentation. The audio is a little uneven because I had to increase volume quite a bit across the board. Anyway, enjoy. 

Step Away from the Chalk ….

A graduate student at the University of Arizona was arrested this week after writing on school sidewalks (and perhaps other campus property) using, oh my, chalk.  Check out the story at the student daily paper, the Arizona Daily Wildcat.  According to news accounts, the chalk drawings merited a 911 call to report the incident and analysis by university police officers of surveillance tape to identify the offending student (perhaps the university CSI team also dusted the student’s hands for chalk residue). 

The university’s claims that the cost of washing off such chalk drawings—school officials put the tab at $1,000—and their interference with the campus’ aesthetics could arguably survive some type of First Amendment challenge (though a lot more facts are needed such as the exact language of the ordinances used to charge the student and if chalk is covered, whether the university has even handedly enforced such prohibitions on chalk drawing on its sidewalks, and why the dean of students can give permission to some individuals or groups to engage in chalk drawing if it is in fact so harmful).  But the school’s actions, even if legally permissible, strike me as just really, really silly.  The student made the drawings as part of an education rally to protest tuition increases and appeared to be engaging in exactly the type of political speech that campuses should embrace.

Even assuming that the university was warranted in taking action against this rogue act of chalking, calling out the university police rather than looking to other avenues of response such as the student judicial code strikes me as somewhat baffling.  Surely, a public university can find better ways to use its police officers’ time than responding to a student engaging in the very kind of speech/involvement that institutions regularly seek to promote on their campuses.  Even if (and this may be a pretty big if) this particular student got a little overzealous with the chalk, is this how a campus should respond to student speech, especially from an educational and student development standpoint?  Hopefully, university officials will take the incident as an opportunity to reconsider appropriate institutional responses to student speech issues, and how the institution can seek to support such speech, even if it legitimately needs students to hold off on the chalk.  Otherwise, I guess this means that Silly String warrants the campus SWAT team.

"National" Standards--First Draft

The Common Core Standards Initiative has released its first draft of the proposed "national" (NOT "federal") standards for language arts and math.  The draft standards are here, and the CCSI has requested that interested parties provide comments on the draft.  I will have more to say on this later, but if you are interested, feel free to reveiw my other posts on the topic. 

Students Don't Know Constitutional History ...

.. because their teachers don't know Constitutional history. 

Oklahoma study finding only 3% of high school students would pass U.S. Citizenship test and only 25% can name our first President. 

I get my students who are mostly practicing teachers and always start from scratch because I feel like I need to. I think a lot of the 7th grade history class comes back to them as a teach about the legal framework of education, but it would certainly be interesting to give my teachers the U.S. citizenship test. I don't think they would fare much better than the students. 

h/t @kyhistory

Twitter Primer for Professors

UCEA today decided to e-mail all the professors in their organization (all professors of education leadership) about their new Twitter page and encouraged them to sign up. And, lots of folks did (Welcome all). But, now what? 

So, since I get asked a lot anyway about Twitter, I decided to do a little post as a primer for professors using Twitter. 

Getting Started:

1. You have already registered and picked out a name, that's excellent. Your name is important on twitter because that's how people talk to you (sort of like in real life, I guess). To talk to someone use their username proceeded by the @ symbol ... to talk to me on twitter, type @edjurist. 
2. Follow some people. First thing is to follow @UCEA. But, see who else is following UCEA and you might want to follow some of them too. The posts from all the folks that you follow will show up in your feed when you are logged in - so you get to see what they are thinking in real time. To get you started, I put some interesting folks for ed. leadership down below.  
3. Post something. It doesn't have to be interesting. Probably 60% of my posts are not interesting - but what's interesting is the culmination of those posts because you actually get to know people, how they think, what they work on, etc.
4. Read. Click Links. I promise there is a lot of interesting stuff out there if you are willing to listen. While there is a lot of fluff, it is super easy to scan to the posts that contain content that interests you. We are talking about tenths of a second here, so you can probably fit it in your schedule. If you are not getting enough interesting stuff, then you are not following enough people (return to step 2).  
5. Check back tomorrow. You'll probably have some "followers" (how much more leadership oriented can you be, right?). Followers want to hear what YOU have to say ... so, return to step 3.
6. Repeat. This only works if you use it. I have advice at the bottom for making it easier.   

What's this for, anyway? 

Most educators use twitter to develop their personal learning networks (PLN's for short). A PLN brings the world to you and, depending on who you put into your PLN, it is more effective than you trying to go out and get your own information. It's more informationally efficient, believe it or not. Sure you might get 100's of posts per day, but within minutes you scan to the 10-15 that are really important to you. That information you wouldn't have found without the PLN ... and so your PLN (using twitter and other tools) can make you smarter. 

Secondly, once enough people from a given network get on board, the PLN starts to innovate on its own. The conversations on twitter, or some other Web 2.0 location, start to spill over into other networks and even into real life. I have written articles and presented papers based off of conversations I had on blogs, for instance. It becomes an extension of the professional organization and helps to break down the barriers of time and space (didn't know this would be so heady, did you?).  

Third, meet people. Lots of you reading this post probably didn't know me. Now you do. You may be better or worse off for it, but chances are we wouldn't have bumped into each other at the UCEA conference. Knowing more people in the field is always good, right? For instance, UK might have a position or two this fall and obviously I am more interested in the people I know (I'm also more interested in people not afraid of technology). 

Who do I follow? 

It's your choice. I recommend starting out by following fellow professionals and educators. Lots of folks follow celebrities or sports stars, but you are too busy to care about their lives. However, there are already people on twitter that you do care about (yes, there are lots of folks I didn't include, sorry if I missed you, let me know) - 

Fellow Ed. Leadership Profs like: @mcleod, @jonbecker, @courosa, @pabaker55, @dquinn, @jnash

Then there are policy insiders like: @PoliticsK12, @alexanderrusso, @KChristieatECS, @BruceatECS, @DianeRav
 
And lots of Organizations like: @EducationSector, @NatEdAssoc, @ISTEGlobal, @NAESP, @NASSP, @ASCD, @NASBE, @ NSBAComm, @WestEdTweets, @AACTE

Then there are thousands of educational practitioners like: @NMHS_Principal, @karlfisch, @budtheteacher, @JasonFlom

And, your university is there too, along with colleagues - here are some of mine: @universityofky, @mollyhfisher, @STEMeducator, @lahenry96 

And, lots of local folks (Kentucky centered because that's where I live): @kycommissioner, @stusilbermanfc, @KCSSnews, @ksbanews  

Anyway, the point is there are people out there for you. 

Make Twitter Better! 

Once you use it and your sort of intruqued by it, make twitter better. The beauty of Web 2.0 is that it goes with you and the data can be seperated from the form. So, get twitter on your i-phone or blackberry. You'll want to check out Tweetdeck - makes it all easier. Learn the letters RT (stands for re-tweet) - if someone says something useful, retweet it to your followers by copying the post and putting RT: in front of it. You'll also want to know about URL shorteners, like bit.ly, tinyURL, snipURL, and others. Then, and this is down the road, Twitpic and Vidly are nice for multimedia. And, there are lots of other extensions (there is no end to this rabbithole). 

What's Next,  

Well, get a feel for twitter first. Its daunting at first, but in a week or so you'll understand it better and understand how it either can or can't be a learning tool for you. But, whether you like it or not, don't leave the Internet behind. There are also blogs, wikis, podcasts, videos, social networking, and stuff we haven't even invented yet that can directly help you. If your an ed. law prof., for example, I hope you find this site helpful, but also check out my friends that blog on ed. law issues. Just make it personal for you. There is a whole world of knowledge out there constantly streaming. Hope you can join the conversation!    

We're Making Waves

Okay, small ones. Teeny ones. The kind of waves that result from, say, a spider walking on water. But waves nonetheless. 

Latest is that the Five Freedom's Project quoted The Edjurist and Scott B. in particular on the issue of national standards in their monthly newsletter. It referenced Scott's post on why "national" standards are not "federal" standards and the implications of those differences. 

Kudos Scott - always nice to see someone is reading our work. 

American University Law Review Symposium on Tinker

Our readers may be interested in a recent symposium issue on the Tinker case, which has its 40th anniversary this year, in the American University Law Review.  I was particularly interested in an article by Professor Kristi L. Bowman, of Michgan State University College of Law, entitled The Civil Rights Roots of Tinker’s Disruption Tests.  In it, she unearths and analyzes two Fifth Circuit cases arising from schools in Mississippi that were the direct precursors to Tinker.  In each of these cases, the political speech supressed involved the wearing of buttons to school opposing race-based vote supression, and the Fifth Circuit decided that the schools had to show "actual disruption" of the learning environment to suppress the speech (one student won and the other lost, due to "aggressive" handing out of buttons).  Professor Bowman's article helpfully reveals the links between the civil rights movement and the student speech rights movement.  The link to the SSRN download page is above, and I reprint the abstract below:

Abstract:     

This past spring marked the fortieth anniversary of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the landmark student speech case in which the Supreme Court held that three students were protected by the First Amendment when they wore black armbands in their Des Moines, Iowa public schools to protest the Vietnam War. Looking at Supreme Court precedent alone, it would seem as though the Tinker tests were created out of whole cloth: the substantial or material disruption, reasonable anticipation of such disruption, and rights of others tests did not have much of a basis in earlier Supreme Court decisions. But, the district court in Tinker had employed the first two of these tests. For authority, it had looked to the Fifth Circuit’s decisions six weeks prior in two cases involving high school students’ speech about civil rights: Burnside v. Byars and Blackwell v. Issaquena County. Aside from Tinker’s citations to Burnside and Blackwell, those two cases - the roots of Tinker’s disruption tests - have largely been lost to history. Accordingly, this Article scrutinizes Burnside and Blackwell, considers lower courts’ applications of - and retreat from - the Burnside/Blackwell actual disruption test in the student speech context, and analyzes the presence of Burnside and Blackwell in the Tinker district court opinion and in various drafts of the Tinker Supreme Court opinion. Struggles for students’ speech rights and battles waged by the Civil Rights Movement rarely are seen as intertwined strands of history, but this Article demonstrates that the student free speech rights articulated in Tinker are built upon the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement.

Gigs Up Anti-Bullying Laws

The AP is calling them out:

Forty-four states expressly ban bullying, a legislative legacy of a rash of school shootings in the late '90s, yet few if any of those measures have identified children who excessively pick on their peers, an Associated Press review has found. And few offer any method for ensuring the policies are enforced, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Anti-bullying laws have long been sort of a running joke amongst ed. law types who knew the laws had no teeth. They are a good political measure, and they may even be an adequate policy measure, but as a legal concept they are sort of like one of those "study groups" that gets formed in Washington ... pure window dressing.

It will be interesting to see if now that the secret is out these laws begin to toughen up. Legally it is a hard sell, which is why they were not tough in the first place, but I don't think we've really seen a super-creative anti-bullying law yet. I for one really hope we don't see them get tougher. We toughened up zero-tolerance policies only to loosen them later and I would expect a similar pattern here if these laws begin to have real penalties. The bottom line is that school officials just need the flexibility in this area and the weak anti-bullying laws keep that in place.

h/t Alexander Russo

Harrison and Harrison on the NCAA and Antitrust Law

Professor Jeffrey Harrison of the University of Florida Levin College of Law and Casey C. Harrison, a J.D./M.S. (Sport Science) candiate at the same school, have recently posted to SSRN an interesting working paper relating to the antitrust concerns of the NCAA, which they refer to as a "monopsony," a sole buyer in a market with multiple sellers (as opposed to a traditional monopoly, which would be a sole seller in a market with multiple buyers).  The working paper reviews several antitrust challenges that the NCAA has experienced and particularly takes the courts (including the Supreme Court) to task for failing to critically analyze the NCAA's primary justification for its anticompetitive practices--that the "amateur" character of the sport actually makes it more competitive than it would be if it were not an amateur pursuit.  This assumption is offered in the cases as the primary justification for the clear exploitation of top-talent players that results from compensating them far below their market value (i.e., through scholarships).  Among other things, the authors correctly point out that this assumption, as of yet, has no empirical support.  Very interesting read.  Here's the abstract and link to download: 

The Law and Economics of the NCAA’s Claim to Monopsony Rights 

Jeffrey Lynch Harrison and Casey C. Harrison

This article considers the legal and economic implications of the NCAA monopsony power with respect to players in the two most financially lucrative college sports - football and basketball. The principal means of doing so is through the evaluation of three recent legal challenges to the NCAA. Those challenges are to limits on payments to players, limits on the number of players receiving payment, and the rights of players under scholarship with respect to payments for commercial use of their images. The focus is on two questions. First, under current interpretations of the antitrust laws, what would the likely results of these cases be if they reached a final substantive resolution based on the strict application of these interpretations? More generally, what are the limits to the NCAA’s use of monopsony power? The second question is whether there should be liability under the antitrust laws. This is a more complex question with the answer depending, in part, on whether the antitrust laws are to be applied to affect allocative or distributive outcomes.

Did You Know 4.0

I know some of our audience overlaps (so sorry techies if you saw this twice) but to my legal interested folks out there, please check out Did You Know 4.0 from my partner in the CASTLE blogging network Scott McLeod and associated team members. A special shout-out goes to Laura Bestler, a graduate student at Iowa State who helped design parts of The Edjurist, who did a lot of the work on the video.

This version is in association with The Economist for a media related event they are hosting, so hence the heavier focus on media and not on education.

I'm really honored to have this blog under the CASTLE banner and associated with such great folks like Scott and Laura. In fact, I am so enthralled that ... well, watch for an upcoming announcement ...

Orange County Student Newspaper (probably better than real Orange County Register)

This is an absolute disaster of an article on the decision by the principal of the Orange County High School for the Arts to delay the publication of their student newspaper. The article is written with so much bias it is sort of hard to even read. The author called sources on only one side of the issue and clearly allowed that to sway him away from writing an objective story. To say, and cite references, that the First Amendment absolutely protects students' rights to publish a student newspaper is at best bad journalism or at worse consciously ignoring the facts. Even the Student Press Law Center, whom the author relies so heavily on, cites Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, which states in clear language that administrators can regulate student publications like school newspapers if they have a legitimate pedagogical interest. It is a highly analogous case that went the exact opposite way of what the author is claiming is established law! Had the author consulted any other First Amendment source, this would have been obvious.

My crusade against bad educational journalism continues.

h/t - @markkerr - Lots of good stuff today from him.

Utah & Feds Just Can't Get Along

One of the reasons I really like Utah is its open defiance of the federal government on some issues. Today, for instance, the Department of Education slapped a penalty on Utah's Office of Education for failing to use the right test in a couple districts. Not a huge deal, but indicative of the frequently contentious nature of the relationship. Just like a classroom, with 50 states you know one of them is going to act out from time to time. Who knew it would be such a conservative, religious and normally quiet state. 

h/t - @markkerr

A More Benign Use of the Spending Power

Is it just me or is anyone else sort of liking the Obama Administration's usage of the spending power in education. Now, granted, I sort of dislike any use of the spending power related to schools, but compared to the flashy, demanding, annoying law that NCLB was with deadlines and sanctions and public fights between the Fed. and states, the usage of the stimulus money in the Race to the Top fund has been sort of benign (but perhaps no less effective in creating policy changes?).

"Delusions of Adequacy"

Justin blogged earlier this week about the recent Missouri Supreme Court decision upholding the trial court's rejection of the state's most recent school funding lawsuit.  Now that I am beginning to emerge from beginning of the year course planning, conference paper preparation, and final dissertation edits, I thought I would chime in. 

The decision is part of what may be emerging as the new judicial approach to adequacy suits in state supreme courts.  In the three most recent decisions (Oregon, Indiana, and now Missouri) the courts have rejected the plaintiffs' claims, but rather than doing so based solely on the separation of powers concerns they present (as all courts rejecting such claims have done until recently), these courts have woven separation of powers-based objections together with lucid and thorough reviews of the text and constitutional histories of their education clauses. 

It is also interesting that, in two of these three states (Oregon and Missouri) the constitution's education clause is supplemented by a specific funding requirement.  In Oregon, the relevant provision requires funding sufficient so that students may attain state-defined content outcomes. In Missouri, the relevant provision requires that at least 25% of state revenues be spent on education.  The more specific clause did not help the plaintiffs in Oregon because the same clause allow the legislature to fail to meet the stated standard, as long as it explains why.  In Missouri, the more specifc provision did not help because the percentage of state funding already far exceeds 25% of state revenues. 

The Missouri case also contains an initially very technical, and then quite philosophical (and very readable) partial dissent that expresses a distate for the recent focus on adequacy to the exclusion of equity in school finance reform (citing the excellent recent academic work of Bill Koski, Rob Reich, James Ryan, Michael Heise, and Peter Enrich, among others).  The dissent argues that "adequacy" is an illusory delusion where huge inequalities exist (employing the quote that is the title to this post to describe what poor districts get in Missouri under the current system).  Although it is stated as a partial concurrence and partial dissent, the separate opinion joins the majority in holding that the constitution does not require any particular level of funding over the 25% of state revenues.  Nevertheless, the dissenting portion clearly sees the system as unconstitutionally inequitable in the way it attempts to "equalize" local assessed valuations. 

The unifying feature of the recent cases is that, even upon deep consideration of state constitutional provisions requiring the finding of education, courts are finding that they are not empowered to second-guess legislative determinations of the sufficiency of absolute education funding.  Taken together, I wonder if these recent cases are signaling a growing distate in state supreme courts for adequacy suits in general.  If so, will we see a swing back to equity or some new direction in education finance reform?   

This Kentucky thing is not going to be easy ...

Sometimes I love that I am in Kentucky, and some days I dread that I am in Kentucky. Today is one of those latter kind of days.

If you didn't see it splashed all over the Internet or in the comments earlier (thanks Matt Foster!), then I guess I should give you some background. A coach here in Kentucky, in Breckinridge County between Louisville and Owensboro, took his football players on a bus to the local church and baptized about 1/2 of them. Worse yet, the Superintendent was present, didn't stop it and is actively supporting the coach's actions in the newspapers. 

Here is what I want to see happen. This superintendent and coach may or may not lose their positions in the local districts because of political issues/favorable boards, but, our local professional standards board should reject their licenses. This behavior is simply unacceptable and irremediable ... as in they should never teach again. Period. This is not questionable legal ground here and the actions of the superintendent in openly violating established law should be enough to revoke her license. I hate to take such a hard stance against a local superintendent, especially female superintendents which we need more of, but it's inexcusable.  

Also, I want to know who taught that superintendent's education law class (and I am going to find out). They should be extremely embarrassed today.

Update: CNN has picked it up. (h/t @jonbecker). 

Get Schooled: You Have The Right*

*For promotional purposes only - no legal right to an education exists in the United States and neither the Gates Foundation or its affiliates nor Viacom or its subsidiaries or affiliates are subject to enforce or guarantee the lack of said right. 

Just helping out the Gates Foundation and Viacom on their new endeavor (via EdWeek). No thanks necessary fellas ... just want to see you get it right (pun intended).  

New DOE Online Digs

Liking the Department of Education site upgrades a lot. Their site was always one of the most difficult education sites to navigate and certainly set a tone that the rest of education sites followed (not a lot of great education sites out there). 

It would be really cool (and probably too much to ask) if they were to put up tutorials and maybe even videos of how they went about building the new one. For instance, telling folks the platform it was built on would be nice. 

We survived it.

Now, was that so bad ... 

It was dull (hello, not a campaign speech?), but I actually sort of liked it. I hope he does it every year and it becomes a tradition for all Presidents.  

The ELA Listserv Disaster

Something that a lot of you probably didn't see over the weekend, unless you are subscribed, was the disaster that unfolded on the ELA Administrator listserv. Here is how it played out:

1. An administrator asks what others are doing re: Obama's speech. 
2. A few folks reply with varied responses. 
3. A question then gets asked on study halls...
4. 1-2 people respond on study hall issues
5. Then 15 people asked to be unsubscribed (as of this writing, the unsubscribe requests are still coming). 

This might not sound disasterous, but since most administrators don't come to the annual convention, this listserv is one of their primary interactions with ELA. But, for at least 15 of those folks, they have decided that the annoyance of the listserv outweighs any possible benefit. And worse, while this is the worst case I have seen, any time something is posted to any of the ELA listservs (profs., lawyers, administrators) there are always at least a few unsubscribers.  

And, this is the trouble with listservs - they are sort of annoying. I personally was interested in the Obama speech issue, but like lots of others I was in no way interested in how best to structure study hall. I hope ELA recognizes this and provides alternatives for those that don't put up with listservs. ELA has a forum, but it takes passing though 2 levels of security (and several more clicks) to access it. Why not just put a forum right there on the ELA homepage?

Are Personal Emails of Wisconsin School District’s Employees Subject to the State's Open Records Law?

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to review a case dealing with whether the personal emails of employees of a school district sent using district email accounts and district-owned computers are subject to release under the state’s open records law, even if the emails did not in any way relate to the employee’s job duties.  Oral arguments in Schill v. Wisconsin Rapids School District are scheduled to take place in November.  The school district’s computer use policy permitted employees to use district email accounts for occasional personal use, and the district had not considered any of the individuals to be in violation of the usage policy.  The citizen seeking the emails, describing the request as a “fishing expedition,” wanted them to assess if it appeared employees were abusing the district’s occasional use policy.  Representing a question of first impression in Wisconsin, the case is of likely interest to observers in other states as well.