Jeremy Aldrich

Curious about cryptocurrency?

2021-01-27T20:28:00.003-05:00

I mean, I'm the kind of guy who loves to browse The Economist and listen to Planet Money and The Indicator, so I've definitely heard about cryptocurrency before. But, if you tried to get me to explain it more than a week ago, it might have been a stammering mess. "Uh yeah, the Bitcoin is in the blockchain with the...uh...rotary girder?"

I have been exploring the world of cryptocurrencies for the past week, and want to share a few things that I, a novice to the field, wish I had found written down somewhere. Take it for what it's worth. Which, in cryptocurrency terms (or let's just say crypto to be cool), can be anywhere from a worth of nothing (like Dogecoin - which despite its current moment in the sun is not actually worth anything) to an astoundingly high value (like Bitcoin).

The basic question is, what is crypto? Like US dollars, or Japanese yen, or gold coins in Robin Hood movies, or cowry shells in ancient intertribal economies, cryptocurrency is essentially a token of value that can be traded back and forth between people who are buying, selling, or donating. In the developed world, we've become quite accustomed to the idea that currency is something the government prints and controls, but it hasn't always been this way and the "fiat currency" system has plenty of inherent problems. Many cryptocurrencies are attempts to address the problems of an economic system based on fiat currency. The underlying technology of most cryptocurrencies is the blockchain, which is information sharing between computers around the world that allows the list of who owns what to be constantly updated with correct and verifiable information, and blockchain technology has many cool applications beyond just currency.

You keep your crypto in a digital wallet, which is what you use to send or receive the crypto. The wallet can be online (called a hot wallet), or for more security the wallet can be offline and stored in hardware (these are called cold wallets). But beware, if you put your crypto in a wallet and then forget the password you may want to jump off a cliff.

There are lots of types of crypto. Like, thousands of types with new ones popping up all the time. Bitcoin and to a lesser-but-growing extent Ethereum are the most well known. Various crypto projects have their own specific goals and teams working on them with all kinds of different skill levels and motivations. The most solid crypto projects get listed on trustworthy exchanges like (in the US) Coinbase or Binance.us or Gemini, where you can trade your fiat currency (US Dollars) for some of the types of crypto, and trade your crypto for other types of crypto or for fiat currency. It's a day trader's dream with incredible volatility that leads to all kind of legendary stories of fortunes gained, and plenty of sob stories of fortunes lost too. Even if you're risk averse, you can find a crypto you like and hold on to it (or as the cool kids say hodl it) for a future cashout.

If you're interested in dipping your toe in with little or no fiat currency involved, read on for some things I've learned in the last week. Now, the world of crypto moves quickly so it's possible that some of these links might be outdated by the time you read this (if so, please comment and let me know!), but here goes.

Ways to earn (very little) crypto with no US dollars involved

One way to earn (very) small amounts of free cryptocurrency: Cointiply offers a roll-to-play game hourly and coins for watching ads or completing surveys. You have to collect quite a few before you cash out into your wallet but it can be done!

Another way to earn (very) small amounts of free cryptocurrency is to download the Brave internet browser. You earn fractional Basic Attention Tokens (BATs) for watching occasional ads. You need to earn 25 BAT to transfer it into a wallet. Beyond the reward of earning crypto for your attention, this is a really cool project that emphasizes both privacy and rewarding content creators, founded by one of the co-creators of Mozilla Firefox.

A third way to earn (very) small amounts of free cryptocurrency is to use Presearch as your default browser search engine. It's available as a Chrome (or Brave) extension and delivers quality search results. Every search earns a small amount of PRE tokens, and when you have 1000 PRE tokens you can withdraw into your wallet.

Even better ways to earn crypto

I've saved the best for last. The very best way to earn free crypto (that I have found so far, anyway) is to sign up for Coinbase and go to the Earn section. You can receive crypto for learning about new cryptocurrencies via short explainer videos and then taking a short quiz. I easily earned $40 in crypto which I could trade or transfer immediately.

The second best way to earn free crypto is to use CoinMarketCap's Earn. Like Coinbase, you watch videos about new cryptos and complete a quiz. But unlike Coinbase, the quizzes are harder, even nitpicky, and the payouts don't happen until the campaign closes. Plus, they pay into your Binance account, which is not currently open to US citizens (who are directed to Binance.us instead).

The world of cryptocurrency is quite a rabbit hole, and these suggestions barely scratch the surface but should get you started. Hope you remember me when you're rich!

What will it take for Kai to win in 2016?

2016-06-04T20:46:00.005-04:00

I was thrilled to learn today that one of Harrisonburg's best civic leaders, Kai Degner, will run for Congress this year. Kai has served on City Council since 2008 and is someone who brings people together to talk and listen, through his OrangeBand Initiative which started at JMU, through leading multiple community summits on important issues, and through his podcast Hello Harrisonburg. He's intelligent, thoughtful, and kind - certainly the kind of leader I want representing my community in Washington DC.

But make no mistake: this will be a tough one to win. Our incumbent congressman, Bob Goodlatte, has won every election since 1992 and because of his seniority is a political powerhouse within the Republican Party, chairing the influential House Judiciary Committee and holding onto a campaign war chest of over $1.3 million with plenty of potential to call in national donors if he thought his seat were in danger. In a heavily red congressional district, Goodlatte has never had less than 60% of the vote (and has even won with more than 99% of the vote twice!).

The path for Kai to break Goodlatte's 12-election streak can't just be from energizing the Democrats, or even from uniting the independents...there aren't enough of us. The path has to include convincing around 50,000 people who usually vote for Goodlatte to vote for someone else. As I see it, that happens in one of two ways:

SPLIT the vote: an appealing conservative candidate runs in the general election to Goodlatte's right (although Goodlatte votes 95% of the time with the Republican party agenda, so it would be hard to cast him as a RINO).

FLIP the vote: give at least 50,000 people a reason to vote for Kai instead of Goodlatte. In addition to creating positive vibes about Kai, that kind of large-scale deprogramming of an entrenched voting habit will probably also involve giving people a reason NOT to keep voting for Goodlatte. As you look at Goodlatte's record and his positions, what are the areas you see that might give pause to typical Goodlatte voters in the 6th Virginia Congressional District? Here are a few that strike me as potentially influential:
- Goodlatte esteems party over principle by supporting Trump's campaign (though it is likely that most of the people in the 6th district will vote for Trump even if it means holding their noses).
- Goodlatte's powerful committee is largely responsible for our do-nothing Congress. He has been called the "guardian of gridlock" and criticized by 9-11 first responders and families of gun violence victims for his role in smothering needed legislation.
- Goodlatte supports ineffective and unpopular policies like mass incarceration, US as policeman for the world, and continuing the war on marijuana.

Kai will almost certainly win in Harrisonburg, Lexington, and Roanoke City, but he also needs to win in the other cities and counties of our district like Rockingham, Augusta, and Lynchburg. What advice would you give candidate Kai to maximize his chances this November?

History of "Happy Holidays"

2011-12-23T16:14:00.002-05:00

As something of a history nerd, I decided to investigate the use of the term "Happy Holidays" in US history, especially given some recent controversy over whether it is an appropriate term or not. To me, the answer is obvious: yes, it's appropriate, and so are other more specific greetings like "Merry Christmas". After all, there are a number of holidays celebrated by most Americans during this season (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years') as well as those celebrated by sizable minorities such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.

"Happy Holidays" is a phrase that's been around the US for more than a hundred years. Here's an ad from the Philadelphia Inquirer on December 5, 1863:

Here's one from the Duluth News-Tribune of January 6, 1890:

And another from the Macon Telegraph on December 21, 1890:

As you can see, early on it was used more to describe the season as one of happy holidays than as a common greeting, but that seems to have changed by 1913, when on December 21 a letter in the San Jose Mercury-News appeared with this ending:

And in 1915, a note appears in the December 23 edition of the Lexington Herald about a card someone received with the inscription:

As you can see from the geographic spread of the above clippings (Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Georgia, California, and Kentucky), "Happy Holidays" has been in widespread use for a long time. It is not the recent creation of anti-Christmas secular liberals.

Ultimately, the meaning of "Happy Holidays" is separate from the phrase "Merry Christmas", not a replacement for it. In fact, when you think about it, it's weird to say "Merry Christmas" weeks before it happens, kind of like saying "Happy Birthday" weeks ahead of time or "Happy 4th of July" in June. Maybe if you say it referring to the future, as in "We wish you a Merry Christmas" or "Have a Merry Christmas," it makes a little more sense.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Update: Summary of "The Five Disciplines of PLC Leaders"

2011-10-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

The Five Disciplines of PLC Leaders is a book by Timothy D. Kanold. I'll be adding to this post as I read more of the book.

Introduction: You can train to get better as a leader, and that training will help you make wiser decision. "How do you know if you are a well-disciplined PLC leader? A well-disciplined leader is someone who can discern when silence, healing words, low tolerance, empathy, grace, humor, gentleness, or tough love is needed. He or she assesses each situation promptly and responds with urgency, positive energy, and grace - day in, day out, month in, month out, year after year." (p. 6)

You must consciously resist the natural "drift" towards superficial commitment.

Chapter 1 - The Discipline of Vision and Values: Having a clear vision to share with others is a foundation of PLC leadership. Vision paints a picture of what the future could be like. First, leaders need a personal vision that is "an expression of the principles you are so passionate about that you will defend them, teach them, and lead others toward them. These principles allow you to lead with energy, consistency, and coherence." (pp. 15-16)

A collective vision is also needed, and creating it should be a process that involves many stakeholders. True ownership of the vision is superior to simple "buy-in", which may feel like manipulation. Ultimately, the vision should be considered on a daily basis when making decisions.

The author describes the creation of the vision for the Adlai E. Stevenson High School District 125 when he was director of math and science and later superintendent: 5 E's were identified (Excellence, Equity, Educating as a PLC, Environment, and Engaging) and 10 adult-action statements were identified. However, it became clear that they weren't being deeply implemented and people seemed to have lost the central focus. The ten items were reduced to four "main thing" principles, which became "the voice of authority for our work and actions." (p. 27) Over a period of decades, student performance on the ACT test rose from a composite score of 22 to 25.1 (in 2005) and 26.2 (in 2010), scores which had seemed impossible in the past. By creating an effective PLC culture you too can accomplish great things one step at a time.

A vision should be periodically improved through a double-loop system that not only monitors whether the vision is being carried out, but also whether the vision itself needs to be tweaked.

Chapter 2 - The Discipline of Accountability and Celebration: Although typically accountability is thought of in negative terms and celebration is thought of in positive terms, both are critical aspects of effective leadership. Leaders must have the the courage to do more than silently monitor; they must focus their accountability and celebration on the "right things" that are critical to moving the vision into action. There is a balance between "tight" and "loose" leadership - be directive about the core "right thing" components, but be loose by defining boundaries and providing needed autonomy within those boundaries in the areas of what people do, when they do it, how they do it, and whom they do it with.

It is critical to reject "victim speak", which blames poor results on others and is an impediment to positive action. Instead, people must be accountable to themselves, their peers, and their supervisors in a three-tiered system.

To carry out continuous improvement, a six-step process is recommended:

Set student learning goals at each level of leadership which are written down.
Create an action plan to achieve the goals. The plan should be within the boundaries of the vision that has been set.
Take action on what works and what is best for students. Check to be sure that action is being taken throughout the year, rather than waiting until the end of the school year!
Collect and analyze appropriate data.
Provide intentional corrective feedback in an "immediate, effective, nonjudgmental, and celebratory way" that supports a "culture of candor" (p. 68)
Provide intentional celebration. Encouragement is cheap and easy, and should include effective identification of the people being celebrated, effective criteria of what is being celebrated (such as any "above and beyond" actions that fit with the school vision), effective rewards, and effective storytelling that connects the action to student success.

Chapter 3 - The Discipline of Service and Sharing: "The theme of this chapter is creating a relationally intelligent school culture in which the cycle of continuous improvement is seamlessly maintained. Such a culture is one in which individuals accept responsibility for their action; they hold themselves accountable, and they become aware of others in the social sphere of the professional learning community." (p. 80) Leaders build relationships with the people around them in their N-S-E-W Sphere of Influence (North=leaders they report to, South=people who report to them, East and West=colleagues/peers). In the book Good to Great, Collins describes "Level 5 Leaders" as combining personal humility with a fearless professional will for their school or district. They are driven, hard working people who are willing to accept personal responsibility for poor results. We want to be and produce level 5 leaders. Kanold suggests ten practices to grow in relationship with others:

Share (or don't share) your thoughts. To avoid some people dominating meetings, Kanold once had a team where each person received three toothpicks at the beginning. When you shared, you put a toothpick on the table. By the end of the meeting, quiet people were the only ones with toothpicks left who could talk.
Exercise good judgment. And when you don't, learn from it and apologize.
Use good judgment criteria. These criteria include tying actions to results, empathizing with others, taking time to listen, create a team of advisers, and gather all the facts.
Be "interruptible".
Establish personal intimacy.
Build communities of practice. Here is a survey to gauge areas of needed development.
Build the relational capacity of the team. Know your team history.
Measure and teach the softer side of team sharing. Treat each other with respect and care. Use "and" instead of "but".
Choose to be an inequity eraser.
Accept others.

Chapter 4 - The Discipline of Reflection and Balance: To endure with effectiveness, you must purposely engage in and disengage from high-energy activities. You cannot create more time in the day but you can plan to preserve your high energy levels for full engagement in your work.

Multi-tasking doesn't work. One way to plan for which tasks should get your best energy is to use a six-by-six list and compare it with team members. You must use technology strategically too. Here are some guidelines for email use to help you avoid hurry sickness. Do not blame others for your lack of strategically reflecting and balancing your life. Avoid talking about what "they" make you do.

Pay attention to all students and adults in your sphere of influence. Avoid victimizing either students or adults for the exclusive benefit of the other. Motivation 3.0 "seeks engagement that produces the desire for and the pursuit of 'what really matters'". (p. 135) Seek to have the people in your sphere "in the flow" where the tasks they have are appropriately challenging for their skill levels; otherwise you will create boredom or anxiety. Five strategies for keeping work "in the flow":

Establish clear goals.
Limit the number of goals.
Provide direct and immediate feedback.
Monitor for balance.
Support autonomy.

Monitor your energy so that it stays positive. To manage highly positive, high energy work you must choose to occasionally fall back to low energy but highly positive time. Wandering into the territory of negative energy leads to fear, anger, and burnout. Create balance by planning for and protecting times to be in "Quadrant II" reflection and peace.

Chapter 5 - The Discipline of Inspiration and Influence: What will your legacy be? It will be defined by your encounters with others. It will be defined by your "intentional and positive response to failure at all levels of the school organization." (p. 163) Support and embrace risk-taking through your language, who you choose to champion and promote, in your relationships, and by choosing to give up things that have failed. Prevent deep regret by having a growth mindset, paying attention to others deeply, and building trust. Consider carefully how you respond to skeptics, cynics, opposers, and trust busters. Choose to endure by surrounding yourself with inspiring people, working with a team of inspiring people, forgiving gracefully, participating in inspiring events, and paying attention to physical disciplines. Positive leaders give trust, compassion, stability, and hope. Legacy is built upon what you do for others.

Epilogue: How is your team doing in embracing the values and actions of the PLC movement?

Best restaurants in Harrisonburg, VA

2011-10-16T13:49:00.005-04:00

UPDATED January 2021
Honestly, Harrisonburg has a surprisingly deep roster of great restaurants driven by both the large hospitality industry and the diverse immigrant population, but here are some of my favorites:

#1 - Taste of Thai. Beautiful ambiance, friendly staff, and outrageously delicious food. My favorites are Tom Kha Gai Soup (I can't even say it without my mouth watering, and that's not hyperbole) and Pad Thai Tofu. When I recently did a survey of teacher colleagues, this was by far the most popular restaurant for locals.

#2 - Local Chop House. Harrisonburg's best "fancy" restaurant, with a great food selection at the bar if you're not feeling like the fancy restaurant experience.

#3 - Vito's Italian Kitchen has great Italian-style pizza in a classic restaurant ambiance. Our family favorite is the classic margherita. Their sister restaurant Vito's Pizza Pie a bit east of town (on the way to Massanutten) has a drive thru window and a white pizza that can't be beat.

#4 - La Morena is located in a half-restaurant half-convenience store that was once a 7-11. So if you don't mind watching people buy lottery tickets and beer while you eat, you will be rewarded with the best Mexican food in town.

#5 - Indian-American Café. This is the Indian restaurant I go to more often because of its proximity to my office. The staff is friendly, but to be honest the place feels dirty and makes me smell to high heaven. But, I love their paneer saag and eat it every chance I can.

#6 - Mr. Sato. There are two Mr. Sato's within a block of one another, owned by the same folks. The newer one is a bistro with more of a sit-down, lights-low dining experience that focuses on ramen. The older one, still my favorite, offers sushi in a casual dining environment along with a good selection of soba and udon noodle dishes.

#7 - Jack Brown's has burgers, beer, Battlestar Galactica. Wait, not that last thing but this little dive is both a great place to hang out and the best greasy little burgers you'll eat in town.

#8 - Corgan's Publick House. Irish and English food and drinks. My go-to is the generous serving of fish and chips or if I'm ravenous the Corgan's Nachos.

#9 - Vietopia has the best pho is town but the cramped quarters make it a bit claustrophobic when crowded. Second best pho with a little more elbow room is Thien-An Pho located just off JMU's campus.

#10 - Taste of India is a hidden gem, with high quality Indian food. The same family (different branch) also owns Taj of India downtown which has a great lunch buffet.

#11 - The Sub Station is a Mexican-ish restaurant in an old Waffle House building

#12 - El Sol. Basically it's an indoor taco truck (and for me, that's a great thing). Some amazing quesadillas.

#13 - Mashita was (and is) a great Korean-inspired food truck that now is also a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Great taste, small portions.

#14 - Ciro's Lasagna House. Good pizza, good calzones, good subs. Don't bother with the garlic bread, though.

#15 - Golden China. I've tried pretty much every Chinese buffet in town and this is the best combination of freshness and selection.

#16 - El Charro. Not only did I have to include it because it was where I went on the first date with my future wife, but it's a fast, decent American-palate Mexican restaurant with three convenient locations.

Image courtesy of cielokatie via flickr.

Where to get free Kindle books

2011-10-16T13:27:00.001-04:00

Things have changed a lot since I complained in 2007 that Kindles were too expensive, didn't hold enough data, and didn't allow access to pdfs and other books. I adore my Kindle, and am seriously considering getting a second one to take advantage of the great special offers they display as screen savers. I've even read and reviewed so much I'm in the top 1000 Amazon reviewers.

One of the great things about the Kindle is how many free ebooks there are. Here are some places you can get them:

Project Gutenberg and ManyBooks.Net have quite a bit of overlap, but check them out for out-of-copyright books (like all those classics you've meant to read but haven't gotten around to yet).

Books On the Knob and Kindle Review publish the latest and greatest (and often, temporary) deals and steals.

If you're willing to do a little data mining, eReaderIQ will help you find the best price for the title you're looking for.

OverDrive has been making deals left and right with public libraries. Find out if your local library has ebooks available for borrowing (ours does).

Finally, Amazon itself lets you see the 100 most popular free ebooks alongside the 100 most popular ebooks for sale. I check this every once in a while to see what's burning up the charts.

Best feeds for news and resources

2011-10-16T12:46:00.000-04:00

There's a constant stream of information being produced every day. I use Google Reader to follow my favorite blog and website feeds so they're delivered to me rather than me needing to go to each of those sites regularly (if you're not already using an RSS reader, check out this video for an explanation of why using one will save you time and energy). Here are some of my favorite feeds:

Lifehacker provides tips and tricks to improve your life every day. Not as fruity as my description makes it sound.

Audrey Watters' Hack Education is from the perspective of an ed tech reporter who is both thorough and skeptical.

Scott McLeod's Mind Dump is a constant stream of thought-provoking and challenging links he has discovered. He also created a good deal of content (mostly geared towards school administrators) on his blog Dangerously Irrelevant.

Even though I'm not a math teacher, Dan Meyer's dy/dan provides some great examples of a core content teacher who is choosing to think differently in the way he delivers instruction.

WIRED Magazine's Gadget Lab keeps me up to date on the newest gizmos I don't own.

Larry Ferlazzo's site is called Websites of the Day for Teaching ELL, ESL, & EFL, and it is an amazing archive of teacher-selected links on pretty much every topic you can think of. He must be one of the most productive teachers in our nation.

Richard Byrne's Free Technology for Teachers will remove any excuses you have for not using Web2.0 with your students. A similar feed (with different content) updated a bit less frequently is iLearn Technology.

Our school division's Instructional Technology Resource Teachers produce a Play of the Week with a bite-sized, easily applicable tech integration idea for classroom teachers. Great for people just dipping their toes into the water.

Emily Richmond is The Educated Reporter, with a good eye for national trends in K-12 education.

Alexander Russo's This Week in Education is a good roundup of education news.

Speaking of good roundups, SmartBrief will email the most interesting news stories in your field to you for free. I subscribe to the SmartBrief's for ASCD, ACTFL, and Rosetta Stone.

Finally, I hope that if you don't already do so you'll subscribe for the feed to this blog. I also love reading comments and hearing about your ideas. What other feeds should I be following?

Image courtesy of godutchbaby via flickr.

Understanding language levels

2011-10-15T17:04:00.000-04:00

As a language teacher and learner, I hate it when people ask if I am fluent in a language. What the heck does "fluent" mean, anyway - able to speak smoothly and with fluidity? In that case, I'm often not fluent in my native language English. So let's reject the term "fluent" when we're talking about language skill. I prefer to speak in more precise terms about what I, and my students, can do with our language knowledge.

There are many systems for judging language proficiency, but one of the most widespread (in the United States, anyway) is the ACTFL Guidelines. It divides the process of learning a language into ten steps - Novice Low, Middle, and High; Intermediate Low, Middle, and High; Advanced Low, Middle, and High; and Superior. At the superior level, you can communicate with ease and total understanding in any situation, regardless of dialect. Needless to say, not everyone has that level of skill even in their native language and few learners achieve that rank.

The levels can be conceptualized as being able to use words (novice), sentences (intermediate) and paragraphs/discourse (advanced). This chart (courtesy of tsdwlstandards) breaks it down well:

Notice that the ability to survive and cope in an environment using that target language begins at the intermediate level, and the ability to use the language as a primary work language is more of an advanced level skill. Wherever you are on the continuum of language learning, it's a good idea to set challenging but realistic goals and to strengthen the skills you have while also stretching a little bit into the next level you want to reach.

If you're interested in more information about the ACTFL guidelines and a breakdown by mode and language skill, check out the LinguaFolio Self-Assessment Grid, a handy tool for seeing where you are and what the next skills to develop might be.

iPad apps for the intermediate or advanced Spanish learner

2011-10-15T17:03:00.001-04:00

Intermediate learners are at the "sentence" level of using language, and advanced learners are at the "paragraph/discourse" level of using language. These iPad apps will help you develop your language skills at those levels, but may not be terribly useful for novice language learners.

Busuu Spanish is a well-designed app which complements their website, but you don't have to use one to appreciate the other. After an in-app purchase of $3.99 to get the right level for you (according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), you'll find a series of listening and matching exercises on a variety of topics. I recommend you also go to their website to try writing and communication (with live native speakers) exercises too.

BrainPOP: Película del Dia is great, with a free daily video clip (usually between 2-4 minutes) about an academic topic, targeted at a K-12 audience. Recent topics have included Simón Bolívar, el Internet, and Fundamentos de la Construcción. A great way to expand your academic vocabulary while also picking up some conversational language in the exchanges between Tim and his robot friend Moby.

teleSUR is a Latin American news app with lots of short videos.

Univision is the app for the US-based Spanish-language network. It includes lots of articles to read and quite a few video clips.

Verbos Spanish Verb Trainer lets you select which verbs and which tenses to review. It's a fairly straightforward flashcard system but having the verbs preloaded is nice.

Image courtesy of liewcf via flickr.

iPad apps to get you started in Spanish

2011-10-15T17:02:00.003-04:00

Novice Spanish learners are at the "word" level, and these apps will help you build your vocabulary.

ABC MÁGICO Abecedario gives the letter sounds and a word for each letter. Strangely, it doesn't give the names of the letters, only the sounds they make.

Busuu Spanish is a well-designed app which complements their website, but you don't have to use one to appreciate the other. After an in-app purchase of $3.99 to get the right level for you (according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), you'll find a series of listening and matching exercises on a variety of topics. I recommend you also go to their website to try writing and communication (with live native speakers) exercises too.

Fetch It Spanish has a neat premise of a dog running around a yard trying to gather the objects named. You move the iPad to direct where the dog runs, and click on the object when you find it to "collect" it.

Flash Cards Spanish Free is exactly what the name suggests, with quite a few flashcards for basic categories like food and animals.

Kidpedia Interactive Shapes has options for English, Spanish, and French. It is specific to shape vocabulary but if that's what you want to learn or teach, this is a great app.

Lectura Mágica suffers from too many options on the home screen (and too many instructions to read considering the target audience), but once you're in you find a great program for learning words and for breaking the words into sounds.

Image courtesy of liewcf via flickr.

Summary of "Leading Change"

2011-10-15T12:54:00.000-04:00

Leading Change is a book by John P. Kotter.

Chapter 1 - Transforming Organizations: Why Firms Fail: Change is happening more now than ever, and for many organizations change leads to pain. Here are some common mistakes that make the pain of change worse: allowing complacency, not establishing a powerful enough guiding coalition to overcome inertia, underestimating the power of vision, not communicating the vision enough, allowing obstacles to block the vision, not creating short-term wins, declaring "victory" too soon, and not embedding the changes in the organizational culture. These result in lower results, extra costs, and wasted time and effort.

Chapter 2 - Successful Change and the Force That Drives It: Globalization is driving change even for seemingly immune organizations. But organizations can succeed in change through the efforts of excellent management and, more importantly, excellent leadership - an important distinction. Successful change follows a typical eight-step process:
- Establishing a sense of urgency
- Creating the guiding coalition
- Developing a vision and strategy
- Communicating the change vision
- Empowering broad-based action
- Generating short-term wins
- Consolidating gains and producing more change
- Anchoring new approaches in the culture

"Successful change of any magnitude goes through all eight states, usually in the sequence shown...Although one normally operates in multiple phases at once, skipping even a single step or getting too far ahead without a solid base almost always creates problems." (page number unavailable on Kindle edition, location 403)

Management keeps things running smoothly. Leadership creates new things. Successful transformation required more leadership than management, but most organizations value management more than leadership.

Chapter 3 - Establishing a sense of urgency: People need to cooperate to make change happen, but complacency kills cooperation. Sources of complacency include:
- The absence of a major and visible crisis
- Too many visible resources
- Low overall performance standards
- Organizational structures that focus employees on narrow functional goals
- Internal measurement systems that focus on the wrong performance indexes
- A lack of sufficient performance feedback from external sources
- A kill-the-messenger-of-bad-news, low-candor, low-confrontation culture
- Human nature, with its capacity for denial, especially if people are already busy or stressed
- Too much happy talk from senior management

To increase urgency you must remove complacency. Ways to do that include:
- Create a crisis by allowing a financial loss, exposing managers to major weaknesses vis-à-vis competitors, or allowing errors to blow up instead of being corrected at the last minute
- Eliminate obvious examples of excess
- Set targets that can't be reached by conducting business as usual
- Stop measuring subunit performance on narrow goals
- Send more data to more employees, especially information that demonstrates weaknesses vis-à-vis the competition
- Insist that people talk regularly to unsatisfied customers
- Use consultants and other means to force more honest discussion
- Put more honest discussions in internal communications and stop management "happy talk".
- Bombard people with future opportunities and their potential rewards, and on the current inability to pursue those opportunities

Chapter 4 - Creating the Guiding Coalition: Despite the myth of the individual leader who creates significant turnarounds, major change requires the powerful force of a group. Isolated CEOs and low-credibility committees can't do the trick. Key characteristics of a strong guiding coalition are: position power, expertise, credibility (good reputations), and leadership. Avoid including people with big egos or "snakes" who create mistrust and kill teamwork. Build trust and a common goal.

Chapter 5 - Developing a Vision and Strategy: Authoritarian decree and micromanagement are both inferior approaches to establishing a compelling vision. A compelling vision can move beyond the forces of status quo like expensive but ineffective diversions, short-term interests, and nonstop meetings. An effective vision is imaginable (a strong mental picture), desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and communicable (explainable within five minutes). The process of vision creation includes a first draft (usually from a single individual), a guiding coalition who models it and works well together, using both the head and the heart, and developing it over a long period of time and being willing to shift as needed before arriving at a final product.

Chapter 6 - Communicating the Change Vision: Key elements of effective vision communication:
- Keep it simple.
- Use metaphor, analogy, and examples.
- Take advantage of multiple forums. Don't think it will stick from just one "big introduction".
- Repetition.
- Lead by example; make sure the behavior of important people is consistent with the vision.
- Explain seeming inconsistencies.
- Allow and encourage two-way communication.

Chapter 7 - Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action: Sometimes, employees understand and desire the vision but feel boxed in. Structural barriers should be removed, such as those that fragment resources and responsibility, provide too much middle management, spend money unnecessarily in a cost-cutting environment, or put information into silos that slow down efficiency. People need training not necessarily in skills but in attitude - communicate that "we will be delegating more, so we are providing this course to help you with your new responsibilities". (page number unavailable on Kindle edition, location 1643) Align systems with the vision. Deal with supervisors who block empowerment.

Chapter 8 - Generating Short-Term Wins: A useful short-term win is visible, unambiguous, and is clearly related to the change effort. Publicizing such wins give evidence that sacrifices are worth it, reward change agents, help redirect strategies, undermine cynics, keep upper-level leaders on board, and built momentum. Short-term wins should be generated by strategic planning, not luck. Keep leadership and management balanced. One without the other doesn't result in meaningful change.

Chapter 9 - Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change: Resistance is always in the background, waiting for an opportunity to stall change efforts. Change in highly interdependent organizations is difficult because to change one thing, you have to change nearly everything else. Urgency is needed, and a guiding coalition, and all the other steps in the process too. Eventually it may be necessary to reduce some of the interdependencies. At this stage, successful change breeds more change, more help is brought in or developed internally, senior managers keep a shared purpose and sense of urgency, lower level leaders lead and manage specific projects, and unnecessary interdependencies are reduced.

Chapter 10 - Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture: Culture is about the common ways of acting and that persist in a group because they are taught to new members as well as the shared values that reflect concerns and goals of the group in general. If the desired new practices aren't consistent with the current group culture, it will take extra effort to ground the new approaches, such as:
- Showing evidence of performance improvements because of the new practices
- Eulogizing the old culture while describing why it was no longer helpful
- Offering people committed to the old culture early retirement
- Making sure new hires were not indoctrinated into the old culture
- Making sure promoted leaders were not committed to the old culture

Anchoring change in a culture comes last, not first. It depends on results, required a lot of talk, may involve turnover, and makes succession decisions crucial.

Chapter 11 - The Organization of the Future: The rate of change will speed up, not slow down. There will be a persistent sense of urgency (which doesn't mean ever-present panic, but a state of non-complacency with an orientation towards immediate action). Teamwork will be required at top levels. Successful leaders will create and communicate vision. Employees will be empowered to manage their own work groups. Information will be shared widely as leadership is delegated. Unnecessary interdependencies will be dissolved. Corporate cultures will become more adaptive.

Chapter 12 - Leadership and Lifelong Learning: Leadership is not just nature, it's nurture. Continual, compounded growth will win the day. Mental habits of lifelong learners include risk-taking, humble self-reflection, collecting the opinions and ideas of others, careful listening, and openness to new ideas. People will need to be flexible to master volatile career paths quite unlike typical career paths of the last century. Embrace the future. "And those people at the top of enterprises today who encourage others to leap into the future, who help them overcome natural fears, and who thus expand the leadership capacity in their organizations - these people provide a profoundly important service for the entire human community." (location 2782)

How sick is too sick?

2011-10-11T20:24:00.000-04:00

Teachers often struggle with knowing when they're too sick to go to work. On one hand, we work around people all day, and many of those people may have weak immune systems. On the other hand, writing a decent sub plan at 6 a.m. can feel just as taxing as going in to work. Well, friends, here's a very clear guide to help you decide whether your sickness merits a quarantine. Stay healthy!

Image courtesy of mcfarlandmo via flickr.

The perfect device for schools

2011-09-25T10:46:00.002-04:00

With the impending announcement of Amazon's tablet, I'm thinking today about what kind of device would be a big hit with educators. It would need to have:

A price point allowing for one per student - somewhere in the $75-$150 range. If it's not something that can be used every day by every student, it loses a lot of value.
Battery life of at least one school week (5 days) or a very quickly recharging battery.
Ability to use Flash websites, store video and apps, and store and edit text. Storage is necessary so students without internet access at home can use it beyond the school day.
A clear indicator for when wifi is on (schools usually prefer students to log in through their filtered school networks rather than a less-controllable cell network).
Ability to require logging in for security and to manage accounts with only school-approved apps (with the option for separate accounts for use outside of school).
Available apps need to be excellent for K-12 education in a wide variety of disciplines.
Useful for enhanced electronic textbooks and ebooks in general.
Consideration of teachers and administrator who need to manage dozens or hundreds of the devices.

The iPad isn't "there" yet, and the Amazon tablet likely won't be either. Some netbooks are getting close, but I don't know of any that currently fit the bill. K-12 education is a HUGE market and a device like the one I described would catch fire with minimal or no advertising.

What else do you think a school-friendly device should be and do?

Image courtesy of kodomut via flickr.

Hispanic Heritage Month

2011-09-17T12:34:00.002-04:00

It's Hispanic Heritage Month now (and every year) from September 15 to October 15. Should schools recognize it? If so, how?

On one hand, I worry about the message of celebrating ethnic heritage without giving it much thought. The unfortunate tendency of teachers and schools is to bring middle-class assumptions and values to the table, and to emphasize primarily heroes and holidays and then call it a day. Hispanic Heritage Month shouldn't just be putting up a poster of César Chávez on the bulletin board; what's the point of that? It's sad to see historical figures simplified to the point of becoming caricatures, as has happened too often to folks like MLK, Jr..

But schools must do something about the persistent achievement gap between white and minority students, and events like Hispanic Heritage Month provide us an opportunity to focus our thoughts and energy on improving the education of our growing Hispanic population. In my district, where Hispanic students make up about half of our elementary school students, we need to face some harsh facts and ask ourselves what we're going to do about them. Are we going to encourage greater participation in things that are working (like Dual Language Immersion classes, AVID, and Spanish for Heritage Speakers classes), or not? Are we going to help our students and families plan for a realistic path to college when they may not know any adults in their lives who graduated? In other words, what is our goal and what's the plan to get there?

Some ideas:
- Elementary school assemblies focusing on local Hispanic people who are community helpers and leaders.
- Focusing on career dreams and the education needed to get there.
- Connecting with parents, who may have limited English abilities, to hear their stories and find new ways to partner together.
- Finding ways to validate and build on the cultural and linguistic knowledge that many Hispanic students bring to school (in other words, culturally responsive teaching).
- Making sure all school programs represent the population of the school: sports, the arts, clubs and organizations, advanced classes and gifted programs.

What are you doing to commemorate Hispanic Heritage Month this year?

A modest proposal for improving NCLB

2011-07-15T15:58:00.000-04:00

Simply put, we should try to better compare apples to apples.

Currently, No Child Left Behind requires schools to present their test results "disaggregated" by several subgroups including race/ethnicity (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian), Limited English Proficient, Special Education, Migrant, and "Free and Reduced Lunch" recipients. Many children are in multiple categories and count for or against their school's "report card" multiple times, and one of those variables (free and reduced lunch, which indicates household poverty) looms huge as a factor for student success. So the data provided by the current disaggregation is of limited value.

My proposal: keep the categories except for free and reduced, and divide each category out into household income quintiles. Then, you'd be able to compare one district's White students in the lowest quintile with another district's White students in the lowest quintile, instead of only being able to compare their White kids (most of whom are poor) with another district's White kids (most of whom are in the fourth or fifth quintile). It would be a more fair comparison in other categories, too: is the English language learner child of visiting professors succeeding at the same rate as the English language learner child of manual laborers?

This change would also address another problem: although currently "free and reduced lunch" kids are lumped into one group, evidence suggests that there is a significant difference in performance between kids who receive free lunch (because their families are very close to or under the poverty line) and those who receive reduced lunch (which can be given to kids whose families make 185% of the poverty limit, and thus would be in the second income quintile, not the lowest one).

This kind of change would require collecting some more data from students' families, by either pulling the info from students' free and reduced lunch applications or having parents check off a box indicating which range of household income they have and how many people are in the household. But the payoff would be huge: a better comparison of which school divisions are actually succeeding at meeting the needs of at-risk students. Can you imagine the implications?

Image courtesy of dano via flickr.

7 things to do instead of buying a SMART Board

2010-03-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

From my POV, SMART Boards and similar interactive whiteboards are the most overhyped pieces of educational technology out there (see a previous piece about the topic here). Don't spend $1000+ on them unless you are going to get $1000+ of value out of them! Evaluate your desired pedagogy (teacher-centered or learner-centered), your desired access to technology for students (occasional or ubiquitous), and your desired educational outcomes (emphasis on content or on learning school-specific tech tools). Once you've done that, here are some purchases to consider instead:

1. An ELMO document camera ($500+) - Instead of YOU creating SMART Board tasks for students to do, have student work at the center of your whole-class instruction. Share successes, suggest improvements, and collaborate on problem-solving. You're going to use it very often and for more real-world tasks than most interactive whiteboard lessons.

2. A magnetic board ($35) - All those great sorting and classifying lessons you see on interactive whiteboards can be done on the cheap with a magnetic blackboard (or other board) and some magnetic tape, which can be found at any supply store. And when kids bump the board, you don't even have to stop the lesson for three minutes to reset your projector!

3. A set of small whiteboards and whiteboard markers for your class ($20 if you buy showerboard at a local hardware store) - Cheaper than a PRS unit, a small whiteboard for each student allows for constant feedback on what they already know, their opinions about the topic, and what questions they have. Old dress socks work great as whiteboard erasers.

4. A few iPod nanos ($450 for 3) - Imagine having students work in small groups to watch videos on topics that are relevant to them, or being able to borrow a personal video player (which is really what nanos are) to extend their learning outside of class through teacher-selected resources. You can even record class sessions (on audio and/or video) for kids who miss a lesson.

5. Binders for each student (approximately $1 per student) - I am amazed at how much great work gets tossed out, never to be reviewed or seen again, simply because teachers don't encourage students to organize and file their work in a binder. When students leave your semester or school year with a binder full of their accomplishments, their graphic organizers, and their notes on learning, they have a permanent record of your course's value.

6. Google accounts for all students (free) - Students can keep in touch with what you're doing through a class blog and calendar, collaborate through Google Docs, and keep up to date on content-relevant RSS feeds through Google Reader. If your school blocks Gmail and other webmail, consider creating dummy Gmail accounts from home to set your students up with a Google account outside of the school filter.

7. Classtools.net (free) - If you're buying an interactive whiteboard, it's assumed you also have a projector and a computer since those are required to make your big expensive new toy do anything. But if you have a projector and a computer already, you don't really need the board it's projected on to be interactive. Just have students interact on the computer while it's on the projector! Classtools.net offers many great tools for creating graphic organizers, conducting class games, and so much more.

Photo by Duplicom.

Outsourcing for teachers?

2010-03-07T14:10:00.005-05:00

This weekend I'm reading Tim Ferriss's book The 4-Hour Workweek, which describes a process of eliminating unnecessary tasks, automating essential tasks, and outsourcing most of the rest. It's not exactly geared towards teachers, but the author does raise many interesting points. One of them is the possibility of outsourcing (usually to a highly-educated but low-cost overseas company or concierge) and how it can be used for personal and professional advantage.

Ferriss says that the kinds of tasks which should be outsourced are those which are 1) time-consuming and 2) well-defined. Most teachers make around $20 per hour, and finding someone who can take some of that work and do it for $5-$15 an hour could be a big help to overworked instructors and administrators. Which teacher activities fall into both of the categories Ferriss outlines AND can ethically be performed by non-teachers?

Grading is probably out, as is contacting parents (unless it was sending them a form letter, which is a task better automated than outsourced). Researching background for new lessons is one possible use of a personal assistant, as is offering homework help (some families are already paying helpers in India and elsewhere for homework assistance). What else?

Photo by dgrobinson.

My favorite Droid apps

2010-03-06T18:59:00.000-05:00

This isn't directly related to any of my usual topics, but I am sometimes asked which Droid apps I find most useful. Although Android-platform phones have a long way to go before they catch up with the great apps on iPhone, there is still a lot of great stuff out there. Here is a list of my favorites (which can all be found in the Android Market):

- NewsRob pulls your Google Reader feed onto your Droid. In the (for pay) Pro version, you can also share and comment on the items in your feed.

- Evernote, which is also available on several other platforms, has become my go-to application for personal organization (my own system is based on David Allen's Getting Things Done). It is easy to uploads snapshot or text or audio notes, or to pull down the notes I already created on my laptop.

- Aldiko is a book reader. The Droid screen isn't big enough to qualify it as a real e-reader, but this app is handy for downloading and reading public domain books for when I'm on the go and have a few minutes to read.

- Phone Flicks is great for seeing and editing your Netflix queue. This is handy when you're away from the computer but get a movie recommendation, or when you realize you'd like to move something at the bottom of your queue up to the top.

- Plink Art allows you to learn about art as well as identify art by taking a snapshot of it.

- Yelp is one of many apps that will find restaurants, stores, and gas stations around you based on your location. Yelp has the added advantage of a rich network of reviewers who provide detailed information on each location. The Droid version is lacking an ability to add reviews, but it's still a great asset.

- Sketch Online (Beta) is a fun game that connects you with other players who try to draw and identify pictures, much like the party game Pictionary.

- LOL Sites is great for a laugh, allowing you to access feeds of some of the most popular humor blogs like People of Walmart, Failblog, Engrish Funny, and many others. Of all my apps, it's probably the one I spend the most time with.

What other apps do you have and recommend for those with Android phones?

Image by Cramit.

What the students say about Global Citizenship

2010-01-19T07:00:00.002-05:00

It is now my fourth year teaching Global Citizenship, and I continue to update the lessons and units to reflect the changing world and the shift from teaching 6th graders to 5th graders. I have pared down the themes to Environment, United Nations, Poverty, War, Human Rights, and Sustainability with a focus in each unit on a significant figure (Al Gore, Eleanor Roosevelt, Muhammad Yunus, Gandhi, Rigoberta Menchu, and Wangari Maathai) and frequent use of magazine articles and short documentaries.

The first semester wrapped up last week and I asked students to reflect on what they learned. Here are a few responses:

"In Global I learned about povverty how to help the planet. I had a lot of fun in Global yeah sometimes it can be boring but I sorta enjoyed it my favorite part was learning about poverty. It was really sad. And I didn't know how good my life was."

"I learned what sustainability means. I learned where stuff comes from and how much it effects the earth. I learned about the 7 wonders of the world. I learned about how many people are in extreme poverty."

"I leared in Global Citizenship of poverty, solders and my faverite thing was we heared the song called, 'The priece of Silecen'. I love that song."

"I learned that think about more people than your self! You should think about people in poverty!"

"What I learned in Global Citizenship is that alot of countries that need food, water, and homes. About people that live in the streets, some about people that work looking for trash. I learned too about children that do not go to school."

"I lerd that if you do not take care of the wourld it will go bad."

The Unknown Legacy of MLK, Jr.

2010-01-18T07:40:00.006-05:00

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and schools in many parts of the country are closed. Although few people take part in public tributes or actions to commemorate the day, many will at some point at least remember the man behind the day off. But do teachers and students know about what compelled the Rev. Dr. King in his last years, or do they only know his earlier work for civil rights and his famous 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech?

The truth is that King's final years saw him boldly speaking out on issues that made many Americans and their leaders uncomfortable and even angry. For one thing, he spoke boldly against the Vietnam war and against American militarism generally. Although at the time the White House was held by a civil rights-friendly Democrat (Lyndon Johnson), King did not feel beholden to the Johnson administration and was quite specific in his criticisms of US conduct. That brought him in for criticism from the Washington Post, the New York Times, and even the NAACP who said he shouldn't be muddling the issues.

Even more controversially, though, King came to see the root problems of injustice as being that of a class conflict rather than a primarily racial one. He called for the elimination of poverty and in his final months worked to organize a "multiracial army of the poor" to march on Washington, D.C. Sadly, his Poor People's Campaign was stymied by his death just weeks before the planned rally.

Here are some quotes from Dr. King that you may not have heard before, but which are worth thinking about and teaching about:

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." - 1967

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." - 1964

"The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty." - 1967

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation." - 1963

"I am aware that there are many who wince at a distinction between property and persons--who hold both sacrosanct. My views are not so rigid. A life is sacred. Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man." - 1967

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority." - 1963

"Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten....America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness--justice." - 1967

Deciphering Rosetta Stone: A Case Study

2009-08-19T16:35:00.002-04:00

Rosetta Stone seems to be everywhere. Bright yellow advertisements grace the pages of national magazines appealing to a variety of audiences. Television ads run day and night on cable television. Kiosks in malls around the world beckon customers. In the last few years, the language software has become for many synonymous with the idea of language learning, even replacing foreign language classes in some cash-strapped school districts (Guevara, 2009). Where did this software come from and how did it become so popular? What is the future for the company behind it, and how might educational technology for language learning develop?

Emergence

The company behind the Rosetta Stone software began in 1992 in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Allen Stoltzfus, his brother Eugene Stoltzfus, and their brother-in-law Dr. John Fairfield envisioned a program that would allow students to immerse themselves in language in the same way a baby learns their native language. Allen compared his frustrating experience with learning Russian in a classroom with his more fulfilling experience of learning German by actually living in Germany. For him, the classroom experience felt forced and unpleasant, while the immersion experience felt relaxed and natural. Their company, Fairfield Language Technologies, began producing a software product they dubbed “Rosetta Stone” after the famous artifact that helped linguists unlock Egyptian hieroglyphics (Rosetta Stone, n.d., Our History).

Adoption

An early difference between Rosetta Stone and other CD-ROM language learning products was the emphasis on “natural learning.” Unlike programs which drill vocabulary or rely on repeating common phrases until they are memorized, Rosetta Stone tapped in to the communicative approach to language learning which had been advocated by Stephen Krashen and James Asher. In this approach, students first encounter simple spoken language with lots of visual cues and feedback, and the production facilities emerge naturally (Stoltzfus, 1997). A typical feature of this approach has been the use of the target language almost exclusively, with very little explanation or translation into the native language of the learner. The software embodied the “natural learning” approach by presenting students with a series of short cues accompanied by four pictures. When a student selects the correct picture, the program responds with a pleasant noise and an affirming visual cue like a check mark (Kaiser, 1997).

Foreign language educators were impressed by the theoretical foundations behind the software, and many colleges and libraries began to adopt the program for use at their institutions (Kaiser, 1997; Macrae, 1997). A typical course requirement for college language courses is to spend time reinforcing language skills in a “language laboratory”, which usually offers a variety of software programs, video and audio offerings in the target languages, and other language learning technology and multimedia tools (Kaiser, 1997). The Rosetta Stone software was a natural fit in college language labs.

The company also struck deals with government agencies and non-governmental organizations to increase the product’s visibility. NASA astronauts used the Russian version of the program to prepare for life on the Mir space station, and an agreement with West Point to use the program in training cadets helped build a bridge for a contract with the United States Army to provide access to the program for all military personnel (Derber, 2006). By targeting respected institutions for reduced rates or even for free product licenses and then using those institutions as examples of clients using their product, the company was able to brand itself as both popular and well-established.

Adaptation

As the program became more widely used, not everyone gave it rave reviews. The company adapted its offerings by releasing subsequent versions of the software with significant modifications.

Some early users had technical complaints about early versions of the software, saying that the non-linguistic interface was confusing and that the speech recognition functions were underwhelming (Brown, 2002). Over successive versions, the company modified the interface and added proprietary speech recognition, as well as offering their program online and in CD-ROM format.

Other concerns have been of a pedagogical nature. Numerous critics have noted that the vocabulary and pictures are not culturally contextualized. Every language follows the same sequence of pictures and sentences, whether or not the particular vocabulary (like “elephant”) or grammatical structures (such as “The boy is in the car”) fit with the language as it is commonly spoken (Kaiser, 1997; Farivar, 2006). Because of the way the program is produced, the company has only made minor modifications for individual languages, though it has introduced four different picture sets for its programs: Western, Latin, Swahili, and Asian (Farivar, 2006).

Some educators have warned against the idea that the program can or should replace instructor-led courses. During the course of encountering language in the program, students will have questions about the grammar rules at work which the program will not be able to answer (Macrae, 1997). Additionally, some students may lack the discipline to pace themselves for the time-consuming task of language learning, and would benefit from the structure that a classroom experience provides (Mossberg, 2005). Furthermore, the effectiveness of the Rosetta Stone in rivaling classroom instruction is unclear. The company commissioned a study of adult language learners and found that after 55 hours of time using Rosetta Stone Spanish, most students would not be able to test out of a one-semester course, though the author of the study hypothesized that after 70 hours of instruction most of the students would have attained enough language proficiency to equal a semester of classroom study (Vesselinov, 2009). It is worth noting that this study dealt with college-educated adults and it is unknown whether similar results would be obtained with younger students (those likely to actually be taking classroom courses at the secondary or tertiary levels). Nonetheless, some schools are beginning to use the program to replace elementary-school foreign language courses (Guevara, 2009).

Diffusion and Integration

The early diffusion of the product relied on increasing acceptance of the software as a legitimate tool and a worthwhile expenditure for individuals. From early on the software was generally recognized by language educators as having a strong, sound theoretical foundation which helped sell the product to educational institutions (Saury, 1998). It is also a widely-held belief that use of the program helps motivate students for language learning. This belief seems to be borne out in student surveys such as those conducted by a Japanese teacher who says Rosetta Stone helped reduce his course attrition rate (Rosetta Stone, 2004). The company also targeted the government as a potential client, and has hired lobbyists to push its ongoing relationship with the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, among other federal agencies. Around 70,000 soldiers use the company’s product for training purposes (Schlosser, 2007).

The story of Rosetta Stone’s success is not, however, completely explained by its technological or pedagogical superiority to other similar products. The company behind the software has shrewdly positioned itself to dominate the field through advertising and brand awareness. When Tom Adams joined the company as CEO in 2003, he embarked on a “global brand-building” campaign that jump-started the company’s growth (Baar, 2004). His approach emphasized wide-run ad campaigns and sales kiosks in airports and malls, where likely consumers would see the product prominently displayed (Schlosser, 2007). The company now operates 155 kiosks around the world and has recently started opening larger retail locations to let consumers try the software before committing to the significant purchase price of $395 (Ruth, 2009). Thanks to aggressive advertising, the company has had a 69% compound annual growth rate, growing revenue from $25.4 million in 2004 to $209.4 million in 2008 (Rosetta Stone, 2009). Of that, approximately 20% of sales are generated from institutions, 22% from kiosk sales, and 58% from direct-to-consumer sales through the company’s call center and website (Rosetta Stone, 2009).

Future Implications

For the time being, Rosetta Stone seems to have cornered the market in its field. According to the company, awareness of the Rosetta Stone brand was over 40%, which was more than seven times any of its U.S. competitors (Rosetta Stone, 2009). However, the field has changed quickly in favor the company and could just as quickly change again.

The company recognized in its recent prospectus that its competitors include not only other brands like Pimsleur and Berlitz language courses, but also online services which provide language learning solutions very similar to Rosetta Stone for free. The company notes that, “If these free products become more sophisticated and competitive or gain widespread acceptance by the public, demand for our solutions could decline.” (2009, p. 15). Better artificial intelligence can make these free courses more responsive to individual student needs, and open source alternatives based on common technological standards could become the norm for creating instructional units (Godwin-Jones, 2007). In the meantime, competitors like Babbel are already gearing up by creating free tutorials around public domain images and user-generated content. Babbel recently secured venture capital funding to continue its progress and to continue its fight for dominance among other free online services like Mango Languages, LiveMocha, and LingQ (Butcher, 2008).

Conclusion

Rosetta Stone has had a meteoric rise since its first days in 1992, and much of that rise has been in the last few years. While the increasingly interconnected world provides a vast potential market for products like the Rosetta Stone software, technological advancements are making it likely that the company will have to reshape its product to offer something more than what can be found for free online. If the company can manage that while continuing to put its product front and center in the minds of consumers and institutional buyers, it may have a shot at continued growth rates that make other companies drool. In any case, Rosetta Stone has shown the world that computer-assisted language learning is a serious competitor to traditional classroom learning, both in popularity and in results.

References

Baar, A. (2004, Sept. 2) Martin is Runner-up in Rosetta Stone Review. Retrieved May 3, 2009 from Adweek website: http://www.adweek.com/aw/google/article_brief/1000623679

Brown, K.S. (2002, April 19). Language software thorough, but aural technique is limited. Retrieved May 3, 2009 from Silicon Valley Business Journal: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/04/22/newscolumn4.html

Butcher, M. (2008, July 29). Babbel secures funding for language learning. Retrieved May 3, 2009 from TechCrunch UK: http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/07/29/babbel-secures-funding-for-language-learning/

Derber, Mark (2006) Language Training at West Point: Developing Future FAO’s. Retrieved

May 3, 2009 from Foreign Area Officer Association website: http://www.faoa.org/journal/Lang_USMA.html

Farivar, C. (2006, January 16) Rosetta Stone 3.0. Retrieved April 13, 2009 from MacWorld website: http://www.macworld.com/article/48966/2006/01/rosettastone3.html 

Godwin-Jones, Robert. (2007). Emerging Technologies: Tools and Trends in Self-Paced Language Instruction. Language Learning & Technology, 11(2), pp. 10-17. Retrieved April 13, 2009, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol11num2/emerging/default.html

Guevara, E. (2009, April 19). Schools face teacher shortage, language barriers with computer program. Retrieved May 3, 2009 from Beaumont Enterprise website: http:// www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/schools_face_teacher_shortage__language_barriers_with_computer_program_04-17-2009.html

Kaiser, M. (1997). Review: The Rosetta Stone for Russian. Retrieved April 12, 2009 from CALL@Chorus Web Site: http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/chorus/call/reviews/rosetta_russian/rosetta_russian_2.html 

Macrae, D. (1997) Review: The Rosetta Stone for German. Retrieved April 12, 2009 from CALL@Chorus Web Site: http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/chorus/call/reviews/archives/rosettagerm.html 

Mossberg, W. (2005, September 7). Language Learning, the Natural Way. Retrieved April 13, 2009 from http://webreprints.djreprints.com/2057660580889.html 

Rosetta Stone (n.d.). Our History. Retrieved April 23, 2009 from Rosetta Stone website: http://www.rosettastone.com/global/history

Rosetta Stone (n.d.) Research Basis for Rosetta Stone Dynamic Immersion Method. Retrieved April 13, 2009 from http://www.plato.com/Secondary-Solutions/ELL-World-languages/~/media/Technical%20and%20White%20Papers/2Rosetta_Stone_Research_Basis_pdf.ashx

Rosetta Stone (2004). Study on High School Japanese Program Attributes Lowered Attrition Rates to Usage of Rosetta Stone. Unpublished Manuscript obtained via email from Rosetta Stone representative.

Rosetta Stone (2009, April 16). Form 424B4 - Prospectus. (SEC Accession Number 0001047469-09-004213). Retrieved May 3, 2009 from U.S. Securities and Exchange

Commission website: http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1351285/000104746909004213/a2192325z424b4.htm

Ruth, J (2009, April 29). Rosetta Stone opens doors at the mall. Retrieved May 3, 2009 from NJBIZ website: http://www.njbiz.com/article.asp?aID=77962

Saury, R. (1998) Creating a Psychological Foundation for the Evaluation of Pre-Packaged Software in Second Language Learning. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED428718). Retrieved April 13, 2009 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/

Schlosser, J. (2007, March 13) Parlez-Vous Profits? Fortune, March 19, 2007. Retrieved April 14, 2009 from CNNMoney: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/03/19/8402331/index.htm

Stoltzfus, A. (1997, February). The Learning Theory behind the Rosetta Stone Language Library from Fairfield Language Technologies. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Bilingual Education, Albuquerque, NM. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED404883). Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/

Vesselinov, R. (2009, January) Measuring the Effectiveness of Rosetta Stone: Final Report. Unpublished Manuscript obtained via email from Rosetta Stone representative.

Annotated bibliography for modeling and simulation in middle schools

2009-06-29T10:25:00.011-04:00

This is a work in progress which is to help me store and share info about the articles I'm reading as part of my coursework.

Bodzin, A., & Cirucci, L. (2009, March 1). A Land-Use-Planning Simulation Using Google Earth. Science Scope, 32(7), 30-38. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ831458) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

The authors describe an activity for a middle school science class which asks students to use real-world data to recommend a site for a new shopping center that would have minimal ecological impact. Principles of smart growth are interwoven throughout the exercise, which culminates in a simulated planning commission meeting. The computer simulation aspects are minimal and Google Earth is used primarily for gathering real-world data rather than testing hypotheses. The computer piece was, however, central to modeling both the problem posed and the possible solutions.

Canada, D. (2008, November 1). The Known Mix: A Taste of Variation. Mathematics Teacher, 102(4), 286-291. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ819057) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

The author used a combination of a traditional hands-on simulation and a computer simulation to lead preservice math teachers in an exercise exploring variation. First they did predicted what would happen and had a discussion of their reasons for their predictions, then they did a few rounds of pulling chips out of jars (with a known mix of colored chips) and graphing their results by hand. During another discussion, they made more predictions on what would happen given more rounds and then went to a computer simulation that was able to show them what would happen if they repeated the exercise 30, 100, or 180 times. It strikes me that this combination of hands-on and computer simulation would be great for younger learners who may not clearly understand what real-world actions the computer might be simulating.

Dunleavy, M., Dede, C., & Mitchell, R. (2009, February 1). Affordances and Limitations of Immersive Participatory Augmented Reality Simulations for Teaching and Learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18(1), 7-22. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ829255) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

This article describes the use of an AR simulation called Alien Contact! with middle school students. Students travel around their school grounds in teams, with each team member gathering individualized information to help the team as the simulation progresses. The activity was designed to promote math and English skills. Most positive student outcomes were related to the novelty of the simulation and the kinesthetic movement, as well as collaboration with classmates. Technological hurdles were persistent and teachers reported that without researcher help the activity would have been unmanagable.

Fortner, R., & Jenkins, D. (2009, March 1). Simulated Sampling of Estuary Plankton. Science Activities: Classroom Projects and Curriculum Ideas, 46(1), 26-32. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ827700) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

This article isn't about computer simulation at all, but rather a reprint of a pen and paper classroom simulation originally published in 1983. What struck me on reading it is how much easier it would be to use the same types of data in a computer simulation, and how much greater the affordances would be for posing questions of the data rather than simply doing the activities suggested to fill out a worksheet.

Foti, S., & Ring, G. (2008, January 1). Using a Simulation-Based Learning Environment to Enhance Learning and Instruction in a Middle School Science Classroom. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 27(1), 103-120. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ780484) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

Researchers conducted a small study with two Indiana middle school science classes using a product called PSI Sim modules which offer simulated science experiments on topics like electricity and chemical mixtures. A focus of the article was the use of simulations in a learner-centered environment. One interesting finding was that students were not engaged in the video modules explaining the methodology of the experiments and wanted to jump right into the simulations, which reduced how much of a conceptual framework they had and likely caused them to learn less from the simulations. The PSI Sim modules were a redesign of a previous product, modified to fit into 50-minute class blocks.

Gehlbach, H., Brown, S., Ioannou, A., Boyer, M., Hudson, N., Niv-Solomon, A., et al. (2008, October 1). Increasing Interest in Social Studies: Social Perspective Taking and Self-Efficacy in Stimulating Simulations. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 33(4), 894-914. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ813142) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

In a simulation of international conflict resolution, middle school students around the country were assigned to different countries (by class) and different issue groups from the perspective of their adopted country. The computer-based portion of the simulation was limited to online communication with peers from other "countries" to achieve consensus and work on proposals for action. This study examined several hypotheses relating to student motivation and interest and found that this simulation most likely increased motivation because of its level of challenge and because of the affordances for social perspective taking (SPT), an emerging and powerful skill for adolescents. An effective computer-based simulation might incorporate the opportunity for social perspective taking.

Lee, H. (2007, November 1). Instructional Design of Web-Based Simulations for Learners with Different Levels of Spatial Ability. Instructional Science: An International Journal of the Learning Sciences, 35(6), 467-479. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ786782) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

Korean students were presented with computer-based science simulations. The variable was the degree of visual information in the simulation. Researchers found that students with high spatial ability (as measured by an identical pictures test and a card rotation test used in previous similar studies) scored similarly with or without the visual information. But students with low spatial ability benefited significantly from having visual information readily available, lowering cognitive demand of remembering and linking learned information.

Simpson, E., & Clem, F. (2008, March 1). Video Games in the Middle School Classroom. Middle School Journal, 39(4), 4-11. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ788303) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

Describing a three-week unit in a middle school computer class which used a restaurant management simulation game to teach state standards for vocational education, the authors describe traits of "digital natives" (such as increased reliance on just-in-time information, preferred use of visual information, and comfort with failing and retrying) and suggest best practices for integrating games into the classroom. This was an effective, persistent use of a simulation activity that was well integrated into the goals of the course and was structured to include plenty of collaboration and authentic assessment opportunities.

Stern, L., Barnea, N., & Shauli, S. (2008, August 1). The Effect of a Computerized Simulation on Middle School Students' Understanding of the Kinetic Molecular Theory. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 17(4), 305-315. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ810393) Retrieved July 2, 2009, from ERIC database.

133 Israeli 7th graders were divided into control and experimental groups as they learned about the kinetic molecular theory. The experimental group received lessons that included a computerized simulation of molecular movement. They scored significantly better than the control group on post-tests of understanding, though neither group scored wonderfully. The authors discuss the limitations of the curriculum and point out the need to explicitly discuss the limitations of any simulation with students so as not to develop incorrect generalizations.

Villano, M. (2008, February). When Worlds COLLIDE. T H E Journal, 35(2), 32-38. Retrieved June 29, 2009, from Business Source Complete database.

Augmented reality (AR) is the use of invented storylines and information superimposed on the real world. In some of the simulations mentioned in the article, middle school students use handheld GPS units to travel around their campus finding information about alien invaders. When they reach different locations, their devices show them pre-programmed video, audio, or text files to help them solve the mystery of where the invaders came from. Names to watch in the AR field - Matt Dunleavy at Radford, Handheld Augmented Reality Project from MIT and University of Wisconsin-Madison. Article includes blurbs about a few AR games in different content areas.

Metaplace holds educational promise

2009-05-15T16:55:00.003-04:00

Customizable and integrated with other tools like Second Life? Check.

Fast like Kaneva? Check.

Fun like vSide? Check.

Browser-based like Habbo? Check!

Metaplace is a great leap forward for virtual worlds, and may be the synchronous learning solution that K-12 educators have been looking for. It entered open beta this week, and it's free.

Come meet me sometime there - MrAldrich is my name and my first world there is "Paris by MrAldrich".

What I learned from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic

2009-04-30T16:11:00.011-04:00

There are a lot of misunderstandings about what the real dangers are due to the current H1N1 (Swine flu) outbreak, not only by those who are fearing it too much but also by those who are not taking logical precautions. Perhaps we can take a look into the past to get a glimpse into our future.

Over the last several days, I've been doing some research in the collections at James Madison University as well as reading the book Influenza 1918, based on the PBS documentary that appeared of the same name. I wanted to find out what the Spanish flu outbreak looked like in my city (Harrisonburg, Virginia), as well as how people reacted and what lessons we can take from it all.

First, let's set the scene. The 1920 census lists the population of Harrisonburg at 5,875. In the fall of 1918, America was completely gripped with patriotic fever as World War I reached a crescendo. In the town of Harrisonburg, German Street had been renamed to Liberty Street. The Fourth Liberty Loan campaign was in full swing and hot debate raged over whether banks should publish the names of people taking part to shame their non-lending neighbors into supporting "our boys". News of the spreading Spanish flu began to come through the wire services, and on September 28 the local newspaper (the Daily News-Record) reported that the flu was in surrounding Rockingham County, with forty cases reported in nearby Dayton where the outbreak began at Shenandoah Collegiate Institute.

By October 8, the disease had spread in Harrisonburg and the DNR reported

that the Normal School (now JMU) and the public schools would be closed for two weeks: "It developed that out of one hundred and thirty pupils at the High School there were only forty present yesterday, the absentees being in the great majority of cases either being ill themselves [or helping sick family]. The percentage of sickness, it was stated, was not so great in the graded schools as in the High School, and was least of all among the pupils of the colored school." In the same article, it was mentioned that it was "confidently expected" that classes would resume after the two-week period was over.

In the same issue, the newspaper's editor apologized for shortening the normal six pages to four, noting that six of the small paper's staff were out of commission from flu.

The next day's paper said that half of the hospital's staff were out sick, and that there were as many as five hundred cases of sickness in the city already. By October 17, that number had jumped to 1,500 cases, including thirteen named deaths. One death was Cecil Burtner who, delirious with flu, shot himself.

Churches and the local theater had closed, too, as well as several local restaurants and businesses whose employees were out sick. The local Red Cross organized an Emergency Influenza Committee to deliver food to sick families. Although the paper repeatedly declared that the worst seemed to be over, the numbers of sick and dead continued to rise and even more serious outbreaks were reported in nearby cities and towns like Strasburg and Elkton. By October 22, the paper reported that 2,500 of the town's residents were sick, and by the end of the month 26 dead were named as victims of Spanish flu.

There was a lot of medical misinformation dispensed during that month, both by the federal and state governments (who thought the disease was bacterial rather than viral) and by drug companies hoping to hawk their products, like Calomel and Vaporub. One local chiropractor, Dr. Albert Souder, even boldly proclaimed that flu was caused by pinched nerves. "Remember, if your spine is right you will not have the influenza nor any other disease," he advised, adding, "Go see your chiropractor." Many families stuck with old home remedies like asafetida and mustard plaster, which had varying degrees of effect and side effect.

Ultimately, the disease weakened its hold on the city just in time for the November 11 armistice, which sent jubilant crowds into the streets and set off a series of thanskgiving ceremonies. Schools reopened in early to mid-November, and life continued on. There were a few other outbreaks locally in December of that year, but nothing so big as the October epidemic.

Besides the sad stories, like the family of five that suddenly died in nearby Goods Mill (reported in the October 4 DNR) and the family at Naked Creek where a woman buried two daughters and two grandchildren on the same day (told in an oral interview with Benjamin Coffman), there were stories of neighbors doing their best to help neighbors, and health workers giving their all to serve their communities. Elmer Atkins, of nearby Sperryville, spoke in an interview conducted in 1979 about his entire family, except for his dad, being sick. A neighbor would come by twice a day, "no closer to the house than I'd say 200 yards," to see what supplies were needed. The Red Cross chapter in Harrisonburg reported that it had visited four hundred, distributed two hundred gallons of soup or broth, and deliver fifty gallons of milk in the preceding weeks.

So what does all this have to do with the current outbreak and potential future outbreaks of infectious disease? First and foremost, take it seriously. There is a tendency to downplay these kinds of stories, even in the midst of clear epidemics, which works against taking sensible precautions. Second, don't expect that things will function normally during an outbreak - things will close, and you will not have the same access to supplies as usual, especially if you are sick yourself. Third, don't worry that everyone will die. In the end, even the Spanish flu only killed a small percentage of the people it struck.

I implore everyone reading this to have a plan to deal with disrupted food supplies and overwhelmed health care systems. Don't blow it off as media hype, but use it as an opportunity to reflect and prepare.

If the schools close...

2009-04-26T10:39:00.003-04:00

The swine flu currently spreading around the world has the potential to become a pandemic, according to the WHO. Back during the last flu pandemic in 1918, which was more deadly than all the wars of the 20th century combined, schools in many places shut for long periods of time. Already, individual schools in Texas and New York where outbreaks are suspected have been ordered to close, as well as all schools in Mexico City. If schools in more areas were ordered to close even for a relatively short period during April or May, it would create a significant disruption since most schools conduct end-of-year testing during those months. What could/should schools do to avoid disruption in the event of mandatory school closures? Are any school districts you know of capable of using online instruction as a serious alternative for most students?