Internet access as a basic human right

I’ve written before about education as a basic human right and about OER as a tool for advancing the equity agenda.

Today, I stumbled upon AHumanRight.org, a group that believes that Internet access is a basic human right and is trying to buy a satellite to increase access. Wow. In the midst of a holiday season that makes me more skeptical than usual about people’s capacity for good, this strikes me as an incredibly big (and good) idea.

In the current world, trying to ensure education as a basic human right might be best achieved by gaining universal Internet access.

For many kids in the world, access to Internet could be the greatest boost they get.

And in developed countries, like the U.S. where I currently live, folks in ed reform are debating the merits of formal education vis a vis its capacity to produce a generation prepared for today’s world’s challenges. No one argues that access to the Internet is essential to preparing a 21st century citizenry.

Not that I’m arguing that the Internet could or should replace traditional education…but achieving universal Internet access seems like a much more attainable goal than gaining universal secondary enrollment (let alone graduation) and/or fixing the current educational system.

Regardless of what you think about schools today, buying a satellite to increase Internet access for under-served populations is certainly a goal we can all get behind.

Tags for Common Core stds.

A variety of people are working on tagging content for the new Common Core standards, and I have been asked by several if there were any suggested tags in place for this (a controlled vocabulary).

Having looked and asked around and not found any, we put together this list of Common Core tags.

Please note that this is not “official,” but is what we are using to tag content absent anyone else putting something out there. (We’d love to see NGA put some tags on their own web site to ensure greater consistency and to facilitate searches across materials.)

If you see any inconsistencies in any of these tags (the original standards themselves have some oddities in them, especially in ELA), please let me know.

I’m also curious to see what the states do with these as they begin adopting and adding their own additional standards. My hope is that they use a consistent numbering scheme, again so that some synergies can be gained.

Tags for new Common Core standards

With several different groups (districts, states, publishers, etc.) working on tagging content assets — especially open ones — for the new Common Core standards, a group of us thought it might be useful to have a standard (no pun intended) tagging schema.

I don’t know much about what makes a “good tag,” but not being one to let ignorance stand in my way, I’d like to throw out a tag format to get input.

Here’s a first thought on this:

cctag-v1

One question I have is with regard to the suffix. My thought was that it would be nice to be able to search a repository and find all the content for standard G-1c that is open. However, another alternative would be to omit the -oer suffix or have a separate oer tag and then search on the combination. I guess you could also tag both with and without the tag (e.g.  both cc-8m-g-1c-oer and cc-8m-g-1c).

What other ideas, thoughts, comments, etc. do you all have?

[Thanks to Doug Sovde at Achieve for helping think this through.]

Don’t forget the teachers

It is an exciting time for OER in K-12.

The value proposition for K-12 education is high. There is a perfect storm of circumstances with the Common Core standards and forthcoming assessments, calls for more effective instructional models, and state budget crises. Federal and state policy is strongly calling for OER to be included in programs so that public funds result in materials that are available to the public.

There is considerable work being done by the OER community to make sure that policy continues to support these objectives.

As this work is done, I plead that the OER community also keeps in mind K-12 teachers. No matter how much policy progress is made and even how many district administrators embrace OER, it will be for naught if teachers are not included.

Currently, only a fraction of a percentage of teachers are familiar with OER, open, or even Creative Commons. Even fewer know about the great benefits of OER. We need to make sure this awareness grows. To do this, we need to keep in mind that the value propositions for teachers are quite different from those of policymakers. Teachers are concerned with:

  • Achievement, achievement, achievement (not only in terms of test scores but of 21st century skills and deeper learning as well)
  • Time (Teachers are very overburdened and don’t have extra time for a lot of new things.)

That helps set the agenda for OER awareness building for K-12 teachers:

  • Strong standards correlation is a must.
  • Show evidence of the ability of specific resources to raise achievement.
  • Keep it simple. (Innovation will follow.)
  • Provide lots of professional development focused on these areas.

If passion for OER at the grassroots level can be built to match policy level enthusiasm, we’ll have meaningful mainstream adoption.

Google Docs: A case study in K-12 adoption of innovation

When considering how to advance the adoption of OER by K-12, I often come down on the side of advocating for more traditional, comfortable formats, including open textbooks and fairly linear online course formats.While I agree that the big win for OER is as as a tool for reform that includes cultural changes, more innovative pedagogies, and new models of learning, I still think that a more mainstream approach is a wiser choice.

My reasons for this are numerous. K-12 educators, and even more so administrators and policymakers, are a fairly conservative group and are generally resistant to change. Open textbooks provide a comfortable alternative to traditional proprietary textbooks and provide an easier decision path. In my opinion, the OER movement has a big enough  challenge to reach mainstream adoption without taking on the whole ed reform agenda. Most of all, I believe that innovative educators will innovate even with more traditional materials. More mainstream educators are unlikely to adopt extremely innovative materials, but may use more traditional open materials and then innovate with them down the road. More conventional open materials provide an entree to innovation.

My thinking on this was shifted significantly though when I recently thought about school adoptions of Google Docs.

Google Docs is an innovative and progressive tool that has received the largest widescale adoption in K-12 in recent memory. And it is certainly a tool that has shifted pedagogy for the better.

Google Docs came onto the scene in 2007. Sometime after that, a handful of experimental educators tried it. Like many other tools of innovation, this was done behind closed doors often without the knowledge of (and even against the policies of) administrative staffs.

What’s different about this model of adoption? Now, just three years later, a huge number of schools are using Google Docs, and many have adopted it district- or school-wide with the full knowledge (and even blessing) of their administrators and IT staffs. It is really unprecedented in the slow-moving world of K-12 education.

How did this happen? I’m not exactly sure, but here are some factors at work:

  • Google Docs adoption grew up from the grassroots level.
  • Students were an important part of the adoption process. When kids in a grade level, for example grade 8, moved up a year, they asked their 9th grade teachers, “Why aren’t we using Google Docs?” Most teachers shrugged, and kids kept using it. Google Docs doesn’t require full teacher support or participation for kids to benefit from it.
  • Google Docs can be used in a very traditional (non-scary) way as an office suite. At the same time, using Google Docs naturally leads to more innovative uses that grow organically out of other uses.
  • Google is a big name, and enterprise institutions also began adoption Google Docs, lowering the risk factor.

Many lessons can be gleaned from this that can be applied to OER.

  • Grassroots enthusiasm is important. (I think that there is disproportionate attention being paid to the policy level in OER right now.)
  • Put the resources directly in the hands of kids. (This feeds right into my idea of preloading as much content as possible onto mobile devices.)
  • Give teachers a traditional, non-scary entry point. (Back to my original thoughts!)
  • Partner with known and trusted groups.

Thinking about how well Google Docs has done in schools in such a short time makes me optimistic for the future of OER and other tools that prompt more innovative models of learning.