News

Obviously the news today is about Nelson Mandela, as it should be.  I feel like saying anything about him other than "thank you" is unwise. Just open a window, or turn on the TV, and you'll hear a better version than any that I could write.

On to business. How can I tie this titan of a public figure in with education? Pretty easily, actually, and from my own experience.

I was in sixth grade when apartheid ended, and I was in a class that was trying something unusual. Every morning, right after the anthem, we would watch the news. It was prerecorded by our teacher on a VHS cassette with the commercials removed. He did this every morning at home, brought the tape to class, played it for us, and then we'd discuss it. Over the course of that year I watched the Berlin Wall fall, watched Eastern Europe democratize itself, watched the Soviet Union collapse, and yes, watched South Africa make maybe the biggest about-face in the history of peacetime.  It's hard to think of another year in anyone's living memory when so much happened in so many places that changed the way the world was.  1945 is the only other year that's even in the same league, I think. If you're younger than 23, understand this: 1990 wasn't a different time. It was a different planet.

Anyway. Education. The genius of this daily practice of watching the news is that no one knew at the start of the year that any of this was going to happen. All my teacher knew was that children become adults, and adults need to care about the world, and caring starts by knowing. He didn't know from day to day who would be in the news (to be fair, the same could be said for the actual people in the news). He didn't know what the lead story would be, or how it could be tied into a curriculum objective. He just knew that it mattered, and trusted that he could sort the rest of it out as he went.

I never had that sort of classroom experience before or since, and I don't know anyone outside that class who ever had it, and that's pretty sad. It was such an easy thing to do - the headlines and discussion together were usually 30 minutes - and yet that period of the day is almost the only thing I remember about that year. I remember seeing the news, and then talking about it - what does it mean? How does it make you feel? Do you think they made the right decision? What do you think will happen next? I remember being asked to think about what I was hearing and to decide if I thought it was accurate. I remember combing through political atlases at home, not because of an assignment, but because I wanted a strong mental picture of the places I was hearing about.

If you asked me what I learned from elementary school that I still use today, that's the winner. I'd struggle to even think of a second place. And so I wonder: how many sixth grade classrooms watched the news this morning, and then talked about it? How many children asked who Nelson Mandela was, or why we as a people let apartheid go on for as long as we did? I know it's not on the curriculum, but I still think it's a good conversation to have.

The No-Step Solution

After a year of heads-down tactical work, I've finally got some time to think strategy again. This is the fun part of the job, the part that makes the rest of it worthwhile. Sometimes I have the privilege of sitting back, thinking about the future, and calling that "work."

Today I'm thinking about attendance. Boring? Not really. It's not sexy, but it matters. Knowing whether our children showed up or not matters, both from a safety standpoint and an educational one. 90% of life really is showing up, and to change behavior we first need to measure it (two quotes in one sentence. A new record).

The question is not whether we can use technology to take attendance. Obviously, we can use technology for that, and nearly anything else. The question is whether we can use technology to actually improve people's lives - improve outcomes, reduce workload, or both. A digital version of a paper attendance sheet doesn't really help. It's a marginal improvement day-to-day with more setup and room for frustration and error. Maybe, net-net, a 5% improvement over paper. I'm not interested in that, and I'm sure teachers and principals aren't either. The real question is, can we take attendance without anyone doing anything? That's interesting. That would improve people's lives.

Let's unpack what an attendance system is actually supposed to do. It's answers this question: Who showed up for class today? Were they on-time, late or absent? That's it. Nothing in there about technology, or process, or people. If we can answer that question, we've got it.

Now let's look at what a database like, say, Thumbprint's, gives us for free. Through the Reporting tool we know which students are in a class (Who). Whenever a student does anything in the app we have a time stamp (When). If showing up means looking at a specific course or lesson, we know that too (What). We also, sneaky sneaky, know the IP block assigned to the school, so we can tell if the student was in class or working from home (Where). We had all that yesterday, before we even started designing an attendance system.

So rather than build a big, complicated tool designed to mimic an inefficient paper system, or an inefficient digital system, we look at what we have, then look at the real problem, and build what's missing. What's missing? Not much. We already have all the data we need to answer the question. What we need is a widget where the school can set their attendance policy, and a report where they can see the attendance for the class and date range they specify. Our reports tool already knows how to specify class and date range, so really we just need to settle on the layout of the report.

Now, building those two things so that they're both flexible and easy to use isn't trivial, but think of where that leaves the user. No steps. Just go about your day, get on with your work, and when you need an attendance report, just pull it up. That, I believe, is enough value for a school to consider changing the way it does things.

So that's attendance. What's next, teachers out there? What's a big nasty time sink we should be looking at eliminating? Ideas in the comments.

Assessment

There are so many nuances to education that sometimes I go for weeks without hearing some particular argument. That was the case with the validity of assessments, until last Tuesday.

Guy: "It seems that the only thing taking a test proves is that the student knows how to take the test."

There's something to that perspective. In many ways, I agree with it, certainly when we're talking about standardized tests, or summative assessments - tests where the point is to prove what you know to someone else.  But what about formative assessments, where the point is to prove what you know to yourself? When part of a particular lesson hinges on knowing things that have a correct answer, the student should know and care if they know the answer or not.

Us old folks think of tests as big, stressful, infrequent roadblocks that other people will use to judge us. And to be fair, when I was in school, that's exactly what most tests were. But when I play a video game, a card game, or even watch the clock as I swim laps - I'm testing myself all the time. I love it. It lets me know how I'm doing, whether I'm improving. It gives me goals to set for myself, teaches me to be accountable for my actions. None of these things require anything more than the means to test and the voices in my own head.

When we built assessments into Thumbprint, that was the core user story. Sure, we can funnel this data up to parents, teachers, principals. Sure, you can do old-fashioned testing with them, if and when that's necessary.  But the core experience, the indispensable experience, is the one the student has every time they click on an answer - immediate feedback, the chance to gauge themselves, to improve, to try again.  Instant, constant, informative, personal feedback. When you can fail without the stigma of a bad report card or being called out by your peers, failure becomes an opportunity to learn. An opportunity to push yourself, to set your own goals, to improve, not because you're being forced to, but because you want yourself to be better. Maybe it's me, but those are properties that every successful adult I've ever met possess.

So, yeah, let's do assessments, but let's do them right.

1000 words

There are lots of advantages to working from home in your pyjamas, but the biggest drawback is that you don't get to watch smart people work on a project and eat pizza. I think this is an important experience that everyone should have - if you're not doing this, go and find some smart people and give them pizza. In this picture they're working on creating a math lesson. Math! See? I told you it was fun. Enjoy your weekend.