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This (from Space.com) should help us keep it all in perspective. Don’t sweat the small stuff? It’s all small stuff compared to this.

What does it bring to your mind? NCLB? Standardized testing?

The newly repaired Hubble Telescope gathered light from 5 billion light-years away to resolve intricate details in the galaxy cluster Abell 37.

ISTE recently published the “refreshed” version of the National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-A). I went to the web page where they are presented and found a lively discussion, but the discussion is only visible, it seems, if you have joined Diigo, a social bookmaking site with a variety of useful features, and have activated the highlighting and sticky note functionality. So, join in on the page,  comment here or do both.

Think about the what, so what, and what next questions.

1. What – how do I make meaning out of NETS-A?
2. So what – what are the implications of the words, phrases, and standard statements?
3. What next – what does ISTE and I, we, need to do to move to the next step toward where we want to end up?

On October 27, 2007, I wrote a blog post, “K12Online Educators Community Thank You or Claiming What We Imagine,” that called for what a coalition of twenty-five superintendent in Texas has just declared:

Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas

Here is some of what I wrote in that post.

In some way what I am going to ask you will initially be perceived as a Declaration of Independence from our past, but like all learning of significance, it actually is an affirmation of the positive intent of our past motivations; educators always mean to do well by students; however, the profession now knows that, to be faithful to our trust with humanity, we must commit to the transformational behavior necessary for shaping a new generative, integral, balanced, inspirational learning landscape for educating whole children. If we do not commit, the downward spiral for too many children and schools will accelerate. If we do commit, some day each child will go to bed each night with recollections of a healthy, safe, challenging, engaging and supportive day. Like the Declaration of Independence that gave birth to America, there is no other way. This is the courageous choice that has been our songline for years; now it is ready to be born.

Here is the opening of an Associated Press article that appeared on www.Chron.com, the Houston Chronicle online edition, “Administrators Share Vision to Change Schools,” Linda Stewart Ball, Associated Press, Jan. 26, 2009, 3:16PM

DALLAS — Skip the piecemeal education reform. A group of Texas school superintendents are calling for a complete transformation of public schools to better prepare students for the future in ways that aren’t boring.

They’ve laid out the framework in a 48-page report called Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas.

Nearly two years in the making, the document spells out school leaders’ thoughts on six key issues, including the use of digital technology, abuse of standardized testing and designing accountability systems that inspire excellence instead of punish perceived shortcomings.

The 35 superintendents from Dallas, Cypress-Fairbanks, Fort Worth, San Antonio and numerous rural and suburban school districts are responsible for educating about a quarter of the state’s 4.7 million schoolchildren.

I want to complement everyone who worked on “Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas” for their vision and courage. What a great story and document.

The conversation they have started is what our children, our adults, our communities, our nation and our planet needs. I hope their colleagues and communities will see the light they have shined on the critical themes in their report and join the expanding community of educators, parents, students, politicians and other community leaders who are advocating and working for a better learning and leading environment for adults and students.

Here are a few touchstones for my thinking on learning and leading for the 21st Century that may be useful as they continue their conversation:

• Stephanie Pace Marshall’s The Power to Transform

• ASCD’s www.wholechildeducation.org

• http://k12onlineconference.org

• Philadelphia’s Educon 2.1 (see http://educon21.wikispaces.com) and

• Personal Learning Networks of educators throughout the world they can cultivate through Twitter.com (I know Twitter.com scares some people, but for me it has been an incredibly rich source of creative, innovative and practical ideas and information.)

Hope is never having to say it can’t be done. Yes we can. This report is on the right path. I hope you will do what you can to share their story and document with everyone in your network. It is time to stand up, speak up and advocate loudly for children.

The challenge is a lot larger than most people realize. Most, I suspect, don’t even think about this issue much.

Are the educational leaders in your community actively learning about, using and promoting web 2.0 tools and pedagogy as natural complements to skillful teaching and learning?

I was recently perusing my state superintendents’ web site (Massachsetts Association of School Superintendents) and noticed a PDF in the technology section. Our technology committee issued a PDF in the Documents and Reports section titled M.A.S.S. Best Practices in Technology that is worth reading if you want to gain an insight into the mindset of an influential group of educational leaders on pedagogy and technology. (Note: I had to right click on the report link and save the document on my computer to view it so I have inserted it at the end of this post. ) The twenty page “report” has nothing about web 2.0 tools or pedagogy. What you do find in the report, which is actually a listing, are plenty of references to schools using student management systems, biometrics, school security, one-to-one computing, wireless technologies, testing and student assessment, etc., a total of 21 headings.

I hope this is not the case for educational leaders throughout the world, but I suspect it is for many if not most. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Australia and some individual schools come to mind as exceptions I have encountered in my online network and self-directed learning on the web. I respect my Massachusetts colleagues, but their education in this area has a long way to go. To their credit, this fall, 2008, their technology conference is advertised as an attempt to reach out to the latest knowledge on technology best practices. They approved me as a presenter to speak about web 2.0 tools and pedagogy so I am optimistic.

The real story is not about adding technology; it’s about a vision of technology as a way of life infused throughout the application of the knowledge base of skillful teaching and learning in all our schools and classrooms. Until educators and influential people such as parents, school boards, teacher union leaders, and politicians understand what this vision of teaching and learning looks and feels like by experiencing it themselves, our progress will be limited to a few courageous souls fighting the status quo to no significant avail.

I hope organizations like CoSN and The MacArthur Foundation can help to significantly and rapidly advance the understanding and aceptance of web 2.0 tools and pedagogy by educational leaders and influential people who make the key decisions in this area. Here is a CoSN video Changing to Learn, Learning to Change.

The web is now about learning, dialogue and community. Speak to us. Let us know what the status is in your school or district.

This post was prompted by a press release on August 28, 2008 issued by the MacArthur Foundation:

The CEO of the Consortium for School Networking and a Professor Emeritus at Western Michigan University discuss a new initiative designed to assess how school leaders are affecting the use of Web 2.0 applications in schools. To read the full release, click here.

M.A.S.S. Best Practices in Technology 07

To all the educators across the world:  What does this September mean to you?

In September 1970 I began my career as an educator in Massachusetts as a high school English teacher in a parochial (Catholic) school for girls in South Boston, Cardinal Cushing High School. Subsequently, I started school in September over the years in a variety of other places.

• North Andover, MA as a High School English Teacher
• Wayland, MA as a High School English Teacher
• Hopkinton, MA as a Junior-Senior High School English Department Head
• Harvard University Graduate School of Education as a Teacher on Sabbatical and graduate student
• Andover-Lawrence, MA as Director of the Collaborative School Project
• Nashua, NH as Educational Supervisor
• Reading, MA as Assistant Superintendent
• Reading, MA as Associate Superintendent
• Falmouth, MA as Superintendent

Today, September 1, 2008, thirty-eight years after my first September as an educator, I will am not be starting school. For a variety of reasons I have decided to leave full-time employment as a public school educator in Massachusetts. The loss I feel is palpable. I will miss my colleagues. Good friends in Falmouth need to focus on the new school year, not me. I will miss the students and their families. They will be busy this week adjusting to the new school year after a beautiful Cape Cod summer. I will miss the people of the community. They have generous hearts and I will never forget their spirit of community.

What the future holds remains to be seen. My professional life feels like a puzzle right now. All the pieces are scattered about. Over the next 12 months I will continue to learn and teach as I always have, but now I have to discover new spaces where that can take place. So far five themes seem to be emerging: Technology Enhanced Learning; Family; Poetry; Skillful Teaching and Learning; Influence and Advocacy. We’ll see.

Tomorrow I will publish my first post of the new school year. True, I am not going to be associated with a school district this year, but since my heart and mind will always be devoted to working with educators to understand what we do well and how we can do better, I will continue to organize my life around the school year.

In the coming months I am going to work on finding ways to have conversations and establish connections with educators who have interests similar to mine. To that end, I plan to write more, using this blog to publish, and I hope to expand the number of people who subscribe to and comment on my posts. I want to nurture a community of like-minded educators using all the tools Web 2.0 provides. This is going to be an adventure that I will share with you at innovation3 and other spaces I will introduce you to over the year. I hope you will visit often and participate in what I hope will become a community of learners.

So until tomorrow…. Learn. Communicate. Collaborate. Create. Share.

Retirement Announcement (Click to read.)

Farewell Letter (Click to read.)