School Board News

We love to tell stories about the “eureka” moments, the single instances when great idea occur. But most of those moments don’t really happen, according to author Stephen Berlin Johnson. Instead, most great discoveries are the result of what he called “the slow hunch.”

“Almost all great ideas have a longer prehistory,” said Johnson. “They come into the world as a half of an idea, an intimation, not a fully realized breakthrough.”

Johnson, author of six books, including the recently published Where Good Ideas Come From, was the speaker at the final general session of the T+L Conference on Oct. 21 in Phoenix.

Slow hunches can and should be nurtured, said Johnson. Google, for example, allows its engineers to spend 20 percent of their time on non-work-related interests. The company estimates that 50 percent of its new products come from this practice, called “innovation time off.”

Another misconception that we have about great ideas is that they occur in isolation with one individual. In fact, many people who have made great discoveries or scientific breakthroughs have collaborators. Those collaborators often are people from other disciplines or backgrounds.

“One implication of this is that you want to surround yourself with people from diverse backgrounds,” he said. “By exposing our own minds to other perspectives, we don’t just get more tolerant, we get more creative.”

Schools and the workplace need to make time for employees to connect across departments to form what Johnson called a “liquid network,” where different perspectives come together in “surprising ways.”

In his book, Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson talked about how video games actually help children learn in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise. He told the story about introducing his 7-year-old nephew to Sim City, an online game where you create your own city.

When Johnson showed him an area of rundown factories and told him that he wasn’t happy with this region, the boy said, “I think you may need to lower your industrial tax rates.” Johnson said he was amazed, realizing that the game had taught complex ideas about tax incentives and industrial development without the boy realizing it.

“Games allow us to think in this truly connective way,” said Johnson. “We are not learning in isolation. We are seeing results as we are experiencing them. The best way to teach is through the immersive environment of games.”

NSBA’s Secretary/Treasurer, Ed Massey introduced Johnson. He appeared on stage with a Superman hat, making reference to the recent documentary, “Waiting for Superman.”

“You are the Supermen and Superwomen of public education,” he told the audience. “Thanks you for all that you do.”

When considering your next moves in education technology, Julie Evans recommends you ask your vast, untapped resource – your students. “You have a valuable asset in your students,” said Evans, chief executive officer of Project Tomorrow.

Evans spoke at T+L session on what Project Tomorrow’s years of research in the Speak Up surveys reveals about what student attitudes and habits regarding technology, in and out of schools.

According to the project’s research, 82 percent of students would like to be more involved in school decision-making and share their ideas. Some of the ways they’d like to be more involved include:

• Have classroom discussions.
• Share ideas online with other students.
• Be part of a club that researches, discusses, and presents ideas.
• Be part of an advisory group for their principal.
• Set up a blog or wiki to share ideas.
• Make a presentation to the school board.

To see the results of Project Tomorrow’s annual Speak Up surveys of students, parents, and educators, go to www.tomorrow.org.

Everyone has had a student like Clint — a boy who seems to live on his own planet and who rarely follows directions. Richard Gerver, Wednesday’s keynote speaker at NSBA’s T+L Conference, met this boy when he was principal of a troubled U.K. elementary school.

Gerver was observing the boy’s class write a poem imagining what it was like to be a turtle — the completion of a lesson on empathy. The teacher was excellent, said Gerver, but she was frustrated with Clint because his poem instead voiced concern about war and ecological disaster in the future that would affect turtles and also the rest of the world.

Clint had clearly understood the concept of empathy, said Gerver, but his teacher was “under pressure to produce outcomes.” Much of Clint’s understanding of the world came from outside school — through the Internet and social media. “But in school, he was being called a failure because he couldn’t concentrate on one set outcome.”

Gerver, co-founder of the International Curriculum Foundation and former education adviser to Tony Blair, told the general session audience that many educators he’s encountered are passionate and committed to their jobs, but they’ve been trained to deliver systems.

“People had grown to resent the system, because they felt no real sense of empowerment,” Gerver said of the teachers at his former elementary school. “They knew what their students needed, but when they felt they had space to do something, it was taken away by another top down initiative.”

Governments and societies see education as a conveyer belt system, he said. Everyone joins the journey at the same stage. All are expected to be at the same stage, regardless of background, and have to come out at the same stage. Meanwhile, the government is telling you to be more creative.

“It’s like working in a factory that makes lemon meringue pie,” Gerver said. “The pie has to be the same — the ingredients are different, like children are different, but you must produce the same lemon meringue pie.”

Educators face challenges with using digital media, he said, which is designed around the essence of empowerment, because the education system works against empowerment. “We are working so hard to keep up — new technologies just get added to what we do.”

Digital technology can be a tool to boost the creativity of both adults and students, said Gerver, because it allows people to take risks.

How educators perceive risk is important, he said. “The greatest inhibitor is the perception of risk and how we avoid it as we get older. We close down our own possibilities. As we get older, we teach our children that’s the realm they have to live in, too.”

But in a digital world, students are taking risks all the time. When they die in a video game, they just start over, having learned something about the game, too. “You learn nothing new from getting something right,” he said. “You learn from mistakes — realization that you don’t know something.”

Gerver asked the audience: “How can we use technology to turn our children and educators into risk takers?”

NSBA’s Executive Director Anne L. Bryant, who introduced Gerver, welcomed the early morning crowd in Phoenix: “It’s great to see so many school leaders who are interested in learning how technology can help their districts do more with less.”

She continued: “Over the past year, I’ve spoken with many of your colleagues across the country and they have shared their challenges with me. Today’s public educators are expected to raise student achievement, reduce the achievement gap, prepare students for the global economy, and engage their students and communities, all with smaller budgets.”

The conference continues through today.

Looking to buy a MUX box? How about several tubas for your music program or perhaps even a couple of buses in your fleet?

BuyBoard can help.

BuyBoard is a Web-based cooperative purchasing program developed and sponsored by NSBA and state school board associations.

Joe Villani, deputy executive director of NSBA, led T+L session attendees through the features of the online program for school districts. Advantages to joining the national purchasing cooperative, said Villani, include saving money through discounts and saving the time and efforts of district procurement staff. “You can redeploy your procurement staff to do other things,” he said.

Villani used an example from his days as an administrator at a large district. The district wanted schools to link in with a county optic fiber network. This could be done, he found out, but the district needed to purchase devices called MUX boxes to translate the fiber optic signal.

“It took us another four months to make those connections,” he said.”We had to learn about them, write the specs, evaluate the choices, and defend the bid. If I had had BuyBoard, I would have gone online, see what it costs, order it, and have it three days later.”

Districts that become members of the cooperative can buy products without having to put out the products for bid. The cooperative analyzes and makes award recommendations for products and services that have been submitted for competitive procurement. All awarded items or catalogs are posted on the secure BuyBoard website so that BuyBoard members can search for and select items and order.

BuyBoard has a request for quotes (RFQ) function, as well. Districts can ask for price quotes on certain products and vendors will respond in a set amount of time. School staff can compare prices and also see volume discounts for purchases. “You can award it to however you want, and all of these prices are legal,” said Villani. “All have been bid and awarded to the vendors in the cooperative already.”

Purchases can be made 24 hours a day and seven days a week – it works like other e-commerce sites like Amazon.

It does not cost money join the cooperative, but districts must be members in good standard with their state school boards associations. School board members also should find out from their district lawyer if state law allows them to purchase in a cooperative.

For more information, go to www.nsba.org/buyboard.

Sexting, social media, and cyberbullying were the hottest of the hot education legal topics discussed by Sonja Trainor, an NSBA senior staff attorney, at a preconference session of the T+L conference Tuesday in Phoenix.

Several years ago, school leaders and educators asked why they needed to be concerned with cyberbullying, especially if it occurs off-campus, Trainor said. These days, no one asks that question. Cyberbullying lawsuits have resulted in school districts paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs and in legal fees.

Schools forming cyberbullying policies should look to their states’ anti-bullying laws. Forty-five states have such laws on the books, although many don’t have separate cyberbullying laws.

Cyberbullying is defined as bullying plus technology, said Trainor. It must be intentional, repeated, aggressive, or unwanted behavior with a power imbalance.”Your definition should start with state bullying policy, but your district policy must define bullying, taking in the state and federal laws and community input,” she said.

Many federal laws apply to bullying and cyberbullying as well, she said, including the Safe Schools Act, the Electronics Communication Privacy Act, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and the First and Fourth Amendment — all of which need to be taken into account when considering policies.

Schools are in a particularly hard place legally with regard to cyberbullying: “You could be sued by the perpetrator or the victim,” said Trainor. “You can get it from either side.”

Sixteen states are considering some form of sexting laws. Sexting, which means to forward sexually explicit images of oneself or peers via text messaging, is considered normal among preteens and teens, said Trainor.

To prevent texting and the legal problems that come with it, it’s important to reach out to the community to get members involved with the procedures the district has in place to deal with such behavior. It’s also important to document prevention efforts, said Trainor.

“Make it clear to students that [inappropriate images] should be deleted immediately. Don’t hold it on your phone,” said Trainor. That also goes for the adults, too. She cited a recent case where an administrator was prosecuted because he was found with phone images that he had saved in a student case.

In social media cases, Trainor recommended that districts have staff members who are fluent in the different varieties of social media: Facebook, Myspace, Xanga, Twitter, etc.

Acceptable use policies can be the key to being on solid legal footing with technology use and the law. A good acceptable use policy, said Trainor:

• Provides notice of the extent the district will monitor technology and network use.
• Establishes a clear expectation of proper use.
• Makes clear that district will conduct and cooperate with investigations.
• Makes it understood that the district is not liable for improper use.
• Requires students and parents to sign the policy.

“You are on much better footing” with such a policy, said Trainor.

Trainor’s presentation, along with a list of resources and sample policies, is available at www.nsba.org/tln.

Today, NSBA kicks off its 2010 Technology + Learning Conference in Phoenix, bringing together hundreds of school technology leaders and company representatives to learn about a myriad of topics and best practices.

Already, a sold-out group of 115 administrators has traveled to the Tucson area to tour the Vail School District for pre-conference site visits. The school district has implemented a one-on-one laptop program, where students use digital textbooks, at its high schools. Vail school officials have created a “Beyond Textbooks Initiative” which seeks to eliminate textbooks and provide digital content aligned to state educational standards, an initiative that has proven so successful that the district has helped 20 other districts and charter schools across Arizona build similar programs.

It’s also built an “internet bus” that turned a traditional school bus into a rolling study hall.

The enthusiasm for the conference was also shared in a press release announcing the visit from the district’s Chief Information Officer.

“When we opened [Empire High School] five years ago, we thought it would be pretty cool, but I could not have imagined that we would be here today,” Matt Federoff wrote. “These visitors are high-powered district leaders from across the country, and they’re coming to Vail!”

If you’re not in Phoenix, School Board News will have coverage of the top sessions and events throughout the week, and be sure to check the December issue of ASBJ and School Board News for highlights.

NSBA and e.Republic’s Center for Digital Education announced the top school districts in the seventh annual Digital School Districts Survey. The survey recognizes school boards and districts use of technology to govern the district, communicate with students, parents and the community, and to improve district operations.

The school districts will be honored at NSBA’s T+L Conference, held this week in Phoenix.

All U.S. public school districts were eligible to participate in the survey, and were placed in three classifications based on size of enrollment.  The top 10 rankings reflect those who have the fullest implementation of technology benchmarks in the evolution of digital education, as represented in the survey questions.

Cathilea Robinett,  executive vice president of the Center for Digital Education, said, “One of the most critical areas of effective school leadership for America’s school boards today involves the wise use of technology to provide better communication, support student learning, and track district results.  The 2010 survey responses reflect how boards and districts are embracing digital technologies in their goals and strategic plans, resulting in improved services, skill sets and use of digital content in their curriculum and classrooms. Congratulations to this year’s winners!”

“With rising expectations and shrinking resources, these districts have utilized technology to effectively serve their students, educators, and community members,” said NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant. “School boards across the country should look to these districts for ideas about using technology to make their work as a board more transparent and their district operations more efficient.”

The top 10 winners for each category of the 2010 Digital School Districts Survey  are listed below:

Large Student Population Category – More than 15,000 students:

1st Clark County School District, Nev.

2nd Prince William County Public Schools, Va.

3rd Frederick County Public Schools, Md.

4th Cherokee County School District, Ga.

5th Cleveland County Schools, N.C.

5th Colorado Springs School District 11, Colo.

6th Gwinnett County Public Schools, Ga.

7th Fayette County Schools, Ga.

8th Las Cruces Public Schools, N.M.

9th Denton Independent School District, Texas

9th Loudoun County Public Schools, Va.

10th Blue Valley School District, Kan.

10th Richmond County School System, Ga.

Mid-sized Student Population Category – 2,500 up to 15,000 students:

1st Howell Township Public Schools, N.J.

2nd Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, N.C.

2nd Oconomowoc Area School District, Wis.

3rd Geneseo Community Unit School District 228, Ill.

4th Fayetteville Public Schools, Ark.

4th Township High School District 214, Ill.

5th Lowndes County Schools, Ga.

6th Andover Unified School District 385, Kan.

6th Barrow County Schools, Ga.

7th Jones County Schools, Ga.

8th Vineland School District, N.J.

9th Marietta City Schools, Ga.

9th Roanoke County Public Schools, Va.

10th Jefferson City Schools, Ga.

10th Madison County School District, Ky.

Small Student Population Category – Less than 2,500 students:

1st Springfield Public Schools, N.J.

2nd Springville-Griffith Institute CSD, N.Y.

3rd Hanson School District, S.D.

4th Maine Regional School Unit 21

5th Gooding Joint School District #231, Idaho

6th Tornillo Independent School District, Texas

7th North Mason School District, Wash.

8th Chickamauga City School System, Ga.

9th Orange City Schools, Ohio

10th Fremont County School District 24, Wyo.