#5 Challenges in Educating the Millennium Generation

METS/S.  Finally! Something that works!  At last!  A clear, concise, concrete, credible, easy to understand, straight forward guide to what is expected.  How could anyone go wrong!  Whew!  I wondered if someone would ever tell us what they are thinking.

The METS/S is great.  It leaves no question in my mind what I should be doing with each student.  It was comforting to see exactly what is expected.  After all, if I am a teacher, you should be able to tell me what you expect me to teach and how I get there is up to me right?  As long as I meet your expectations we all win.

“Joes Non-Notebook” was very good.  It really emphasizes the perspective of a technologically savvy student whose mental comprehension far exceeds a text book.  Unfortunately a text is limited in its ability to convey knowledge by the boundaries of its pages.  Whereas a computer connected to the internet is boundless and left to explore on their own, a student could find additional information that helps everyone learn a lot more.

Sexting is very scary.  I have 4 children.  Two are teenagers.  They both have cell phones and while they know they are subject to my wife and I viewing their phone at any time, there is no guarantee that they won’t make this mistake.  I wish that someone would come up with software that could prevent this on a phone.  It seems that there should be something that would allow for the filtering of a message or picture before it is sent and if it didn’t meet the “settings” for the phone it wouldn’t send.  Wishful thinking I know!

The city that I work for has a very descriptive straight forward technology use policy.  It is easy to understand and you know what will happen if you violate it.  There isn’t any room for misunderstanding.  Most importantly it doesn’t take hours to read it.

http://www.ci.farmington-hills.mi.us/Intranet/HRReferenceDesk/PDF/StandardPracticeGuide.pdf

I think teaching the Millennium Generation is proposition rich opportunity.  Carefully guided, thoughtfully engaged, provided with some authority to make decisions on how they accomplish the goal, they could present to be the most intelligent generation yet!  The thought processes that they engage in at a young age is similar to that of the computer that they spend hours on researching, blogging, face booking, twittering, etc.

The Millennium Generation represents a change in teaching on a grand scale.  The only limit to their potential is from the teacher who teaches them.  Either it’s a “Joes Non-Notebook” scenario or it’s the Grand Canyon web page with video tutorials and associated links.


Picture Source:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/Blonde_Test.jpg

#4 Comparison of NETP, METP, and FHETP!

This is section 3.5 through 4.4 of The 2010 National Educational Technology Plan, located on page 21 of 124. (as seen through my eyes after reading the first 40 pages of the Plan)

The is a what I remember from The 2010 Michigan Educational Technology Plan:

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Educational Technology Advisory Group (ETAG), Michigan Department of Education (MDE), Michigan Educational Technology Standards for Students (METS-S) , Consortium of Outstanding Achievement in Teaching with Technology (COATT), Michigan Curriculum Framework (MCF), High School Content Expectations and Grade Level Content Expectations (HSCEs/GLCEs), Regional Educational Media Centers (REMCs), Local Education Agencies (LEAs), Public School Academies (PSAs), Gigabyte per second (Gbps), Megabytes per second (Mbps), Michigan Online Resources for Educators (MORE), National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators (NETS-T/A), Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Continuing Education Units (CEUs), Center for Educational Performance and Information (CEPI), Michigan Student Data System (MSDS), Longitudinal Data System (LDS), Registry of Educational Personnel (REP), Unique Identification Codes (UICs).

Having a Technology Plan is absolutely essential.  It must be clear and concise.  It should be simple, concrete, credible, easy to understand, and most important, memorable!

The NETP has absolutely none of the above.  The METP has fleeting moments of being memorable but falls short soon there after leaving the reader in a state of reading toxemia.  Why can’t it simply state what we want people to do?  Instead there are goals, goals with strategies, and goals with strategies and action steps.  

I ask all of you.  Who has ever read this on their own?  And assuming none of the teachers have read it, why not?  Is it not an important document related to the administration of technology to our children?  Is it or is it not crucial to know what is contained therein?  If it is so important why do most if not all teachers know nothing about it?

So the question is, exactly who are these monstrosities written for.  Who was the intended audience?  I assumed Mr.Umpstead had to have some involvement in the METP.  In fact Mr.Umpstead was on the review team.  Was the METP written for him to review?  He is the State Director for the program.  Did he fall asleep when he read the METP?  He had to when he read the NETP!

I have learned one thing.  If its not readily accessible, quickly read, easy to digest, and completely applicable to your job, it either goes unnoticed or gets filed in the circular file can in the corner.

The city that I work for does not have a Technology Plan.  They have a Standard Practice Guide.  Section 2.02 and 2.05 deal with use of electronic media and social media sites.  It is direct and to the point.  There is no doubt in your mind what they are talking about and what will happen in you violate the policy.   http://www.ci.farmington-hills.mi.us/Intranet/HRReferenceDesk/PDF/StandardPracticeGuide.pdf

If you want someone to listen.  You have to get their attention, keep it, and make your idea stick!  Some ideas survive and others die.  Need I say more….


Picture Source:
2010 National Educational Technology Plan, page 21

#3 Technology Standards

This is a picture of me in my classroom.  Professional standards mean you can handle shooting a ½ inch group of bullet holes at 100 yards.  It means knowing without a doubt in your mind that every tactic you teach has to be combat proven or it will cost your “student” their life or the life of someone else.  Respect is earned, credibility is bestowed upon the teacher by the student, and reputation is something you have to already have to get the first two.  No one cares about your degree, who you know, or how you found out about it.  They just want what you have, and that’s the knowledge of how to survive.

My undergraduate studies were a classic effort in futility.  The course content related to Law Enforcement was gleaned, regurgitated, and forgotten as it is never used in Law Enforcement.  In fact it only relates to Law Enforcement in the past tense as what could be done because it never gets done, it never changes, it just stays the same.  Crimes committed in the dark ages are still committed conceptually the same today, there’s just more technology to aid in the commission of them.

My preparation for this course was the deep commitment to become an exceptional instructor for the men and women I attempt to protect.  I also intend to teach at community colleges when I retire in three years.

So here I am!  Collaborative what?  Theory of Who?  McREL - Mcdonalds!  Although I feel uncomfortably lost for short periods of time, after doing a little research I catch up and rapidly come to a new level of understanding about teaching.  

Professional Standards for Michigan Teachers (PSMT) Standard “a” correlates with objective 13 in our syllabus relating to legal, social, ethical issues associated with technology use in schools.   PSMT “c” and “d” are covered in objective 11- 17 which refer to understanding technology in relation to operations, evaluation, and teaching strategies related to the use of technology.  PSMT “b” reflects objective 5 representing online collaboration.

Overall PSMT and our Course Objectives are directly related as they should be.  Although they do not apply to me in my job, they are however very appropriate and offer great guidance in establishing an Educational Technology program that could be the model for other police agencies.


Works Cited:


Michigan Board of Education, . (2008). Professional standards for michigan teachers. Lansing, MI:

#2 Instructional Strategy

Police Officers are taught to be self sufficient and make decisions that could take someone’s life.  Because they are “programmed” to be so confident in making life and death judgments, they are also very hard to teach after they have “made it” out on the streets and proven to themselves that they know what they are doing.  It’s not uncommon to see an officer go to the extreme and arrogantly believe that each decision they make is the right decision.  Continuing education is mandatory.  When its conducted with respect and a sense of “need to know” criterion the results are satisfactory and predictable.

However, integrating educational strategies into the police adult education classroom I believe can dramatically change student engagement and ultimately the educational outcome.

Traditionally, the use of power point presentations with limited “hands on” training is how most subjects are taught.  Hours are spent “instructing” with little or no student interaction.  I have taught the entire police department how to disassemble and reassemble the AR-15.  Yet most still cannot perform this relatively easy task.

Action Research presented an opportunity to discover why this is.  Using three instructional strategies at the same time I am confident will produce measurable results.

Strategy #1

Identifying Similarities and Differences- Working in groups, students will collaborate with each other giving them an opportunity to compare similarities and differences thus allowing them to form a mental picture for each piece of the weapon.

Strategy #2

Homework and Practice-  Although there is no homework because the weapons cant be checked out or taken home, practice will occur multiple times throughout the lesson whether it is during the pretest, non-technology lesson, technology lesson, or the posttest.

Strategy #3

Cooperative Learning- Student collaboration throughout the entire lesson will enable engaged learning to occur and present a learning forum that is rarely experienced in police continuing education.

I also used the MCOLES (Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards) Patrol Rifle Facilitators Guide- Objective IV .B.4.2 as a reference.  It indicates that breaking the students into groups of 4-5 people, allowing them to identify the parts and pieces of the rifle and then charting those results is helpful. 

In other words instructors are encouraged to think beyond the level of lecture and present training objectives in an interactive, practical manner (MCOLES, 2006).

I feel that the combination of strategies will ensure some improvement.  I hope that improvement will be substantial.

Works Cited:

MCOLES, . (2006). Patrol rifle facilitators guide. Lansing, MI:

Picture- Bushmaster.com

#1 Action Research: Theory of Action

It seems to me that the inclination to avoid research, of any sort, is shortsighted, provincial, and possibly deleterious (Glanz, 2003).

Really?  Ok, lets see here:

Provincial- belonging or peculiar to some particular province; local: the provincial newspaper; of or pertaining to the provinces: provincial customs; provincial dress; Having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial: a provincial point of view; Of or pertaining to any of the American provinces of Great Britain (dictionary.com)

Deleterious- Having a harmful effect; injurious (dictionary.com)

So, within the first page, this guide to school improvement has successfully and irrevocably turned me off!  Why did Glanz insist on puffing his chest up with million dollar words that we have to look up to understand?  There is no question that the research he conducted is important and useful to the general practitioner.  It just proves that you may be able to conduct superior research; it doesn’t mean you can write!  I am sorry Mr.Glanz you effectively encouraged me to avoid research based on your deleterious writing!

EDU-590 has opened my eyes to a world I would have never been shown.  As a “Training Officer” for a police agency you are expected to teach almost every subject related to the job.  However you are never given the “training” to really teach.  Every subject has an instructor’s course that is normally 2-3 days that really only makes you a subject matter expert, as opposed to teaching you how to teach adult learners, much less self sufficient police officers.

While Mr.Glanz’s writing style made me sick, the content was still valid and enlightened me on exciting concepts that I want to use.  I have been using Program, Product, and Procedural Evaluation Research for years, but didn’t know it, nor did I understand how to effectively use it.  One of the most powerful examples Glanz suggested was empowering students by allowing them to be part of collaborative research.  I have hundreds of power points that I teach from.  Very few suggest any student interaction.  Basically, its drill and kill. (No pun intended of course!)

After reading and researching for this assignment I identified that the most common complaint that I receive from the police officers I teach is they are not comfortable with the AR-15 rifle.  Primarily because they do not understand how it works, functions, or comes apart to be cleaned and serviced.  They are only taught extensively how to shoot it.

My Action Research will be conducted using two groups of police officers who through Identifying Similarities and Differences, Homework and Practice, and Cooperative Learning will each be assigned to disassemble and reassemble an AR-15 rifle.  This test will help me collect data on what level of functional understanding each group has about the weapon.  During the test I will be able to observe, analyze, and interpret the data based on their performance.  Taking action by distributing printed schematics to one group and allowing the other to access an interactive operational model of the weapon online will allow the groups to expand their knowledge base.  Finally, a second disassembly/ reassembly test will be conducted to reflect on the effectiveness of the process for each group.  Based on the result I intend to modify the current method used to teach this subject.

Works Cited:

Glanz, J. (2003). Action research: an educational leader's guide to school improvement. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/provincial

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deleterious