Performance Pay for Teachers

Performance pay for teachers based largely on test scores = inequality and strong incentive for drill & (s)kill (teach to the test). We should not be discouraging risk taking by teachers. To the contrary, we should be encouraging innovative teaching and learning methods. 


So says our new Iowa Department of Education Director, Jason Glass (@jasonglassbfk), who recently wrote on his blog: 

We need to do whatever we can to introduce more risk-taking, experimentation, and use of technology in schools. We should expect some failures, applaud those who fail in pursuit of bold dreams, and help them get up to try again.

Our schools are in trouble, and we need to do a better job of preparing students for their futures. I'm not opposed to performance pay for teachers. I'm opposed to the simplistic idea that we can measure teacher performance based largely on students' standardized test scores. That's how the general public and too many politicians seem to interpret it. Doing so completely ignores the realities of socioeconomic and demographic disparities between schools, not to mention individual motivational factors. What incentivises students (or their families) to perform well on those standardized tests? What incentivises a good teacher to work in an inner-city, impoverished, or otherwise struggling school?


Tying salaries to arbitrary test scores will encourage teachers to focus less on children and more on tests. Let's come up with more sophisticated and accurate ways to measure how well teachers teach and students learn.

Preschoolers and Mobile Technology

A November 2010 report describes the affects of new media and mobile technologies on young children and their families. The report, Learning: Is there an app for that?, touts the educational benefits of well-designed mobile apps for preschoolers. It also cites the reality of preschoolers using mobile devices--often, their parent's device passed to them in the backseat, a phenomenon labeled the "pass-back" effect. I'm familiar with the practice.

This Tech & Learning article summarizes the findings of the report and provides additional information. For example, a 2009 content analysis of the iTunes App Store (education section) revealed that 60% of the top-selling paid applications targeted toddlers and preschoolers.

When I upgraded my smartphone recently, I removed the sim card from my old iPhone and Magda set it up for Lucy to use as an iPod Touch. When I commented about this recently in a backchannel during class, one of our students (future teacher) asked what does a 3-year old need with an iPod? Well, Lucy loves to...

• Take pictures--even photo essays of sorts of her dolls and environment. 
• Swipe thru pictures she has taken and also of our family and friends
• Watch movies--home movies from our Flip camera, episodes of her favorite shows, movies downloaded from YouTube (her channel and others)
• Record and listen to herself singing songs--sometimes to recall the melody of a song to begin singing it. 
• Listen to music
• Play--some apps support cognitive development while others build fine motor skills (psychomotor) or appeal to her emotionally (affective domain).
• Explore. She's just curious to figure out what the device can do. I believe this is particularly important, because she is developing a fluency with new interfaces and input devices (gestures, voice recognition, etc.). 

Now, we just need to mount one of these interactive displays on the wall in her preschool classroom!

Update:
Lucy's teacher, Donna, just directed me to this related Sesame Street video. :-)

Help me choose new glasses

It's time for a new look. Please help me choose from these three frames. Use the poll in the sidebar to the right to vote for your preference. Thanks!

Update
The results are in. With 44 votes, it seems Frame A was the favorite. Thanks to everyone who participated! I'm still not convinced to go with Frame A--seems a bit boring to me overall. But your input is persuasive. I think you might be a better judge than me. :-)

Google Reader Play

Thanks to a tweet from Stephen Ransom, I just discovered Google Reader Play. It displays the RSS feeds you've subscribed to via Google Reader in a nice slide show format, and it encourages you to star, like, or share the things that catch your eye. You can trigger it either by clicking the link above or choosing "View in Reader Play" from the folder settings as pictured here.

ITEC 2010 Conference Ticker

The annual Iowa Technology & Education Connection conference (Twitter hashtag #itec10) is underway! To keep up with the events and dialogue, I've created this CIL Ticker. Join the conversation! To add comments, click the icons below to sign-in with your Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace account. Or just include #itec10 with your tweets during (and after) the conference.

Be sure to stop by the University of Northern Iowa booth in the vendor area to say hi, speak geek, or learn about our masters degree program in Instructional Technology.