Sunday, May 18, 2014

Emergency Twitter

On Saturday, a day after we returned home from being evacuated because of the San Marcos wildfire, many of our neighbors were still not back from wherever they went. There is no damage on our street or in our neighborhood, but the blackened hillsides and pervasive smell of smoke remind us of what happened. During the two days that we stayed with friends (along with our two dogs and bird), we continually searched for news of what was happening with "our" fire, as well as around the rest of the county. What I realized is that during this emergency, I got most of my news from Twitter.

Tweets from news organizations and reporters provided updates more quickly than their television broadcasts did. Cal-Fire, the City of San Marcos, Ready San Diego, 2-1-1 San Diego, the County of San Diego, and other official agencies posted information on Twitter as fast or faster than on their websites. Perhaps most importantly, news and information were crowdsourced to hundreds of amateur photographers and reporters, the people who live in the area and were being evacuated. These first-hand witnesses became so important to news-gathering that news stations requested on-air that people tweet their pictures and stories to them.

On Wednesday the 14th, I had been at Carmel Valley Middle School meeting with a teacher. As I was returning to the office driving north on I-5, I saw a dense plume of black smoke and began trying to guess where it was. On returning to my office, I turned on NBC7's live feed on their website, and learned that the smoke I saw was from the Carlsbad fire, and that it was not currently threatening my own neighborhood or school district. I kept that website open and monitored the news throughout the day. In another window, I opened Tweetdeck and created a column for the hashtag #CarlsbadFire, where I got more information, especially from the school district employees and official accounts that I follow. That's where I learned that Carlsbad Unified had sent home non-essential employees from their district office, that two elementary schools had been successfully evacuated, and that La Costa Canyon High School was going to be used as an emergency shelter. I noticed that there were other fires in the county, but the vast majority of my attention was on the Carlsbad fire.

About 3:15, I closed up shop and headed home. In the car, I turned on 600 KOGO for news updates. At that point in the afternoon, there really wasn't much new information. I made my final U-turn before arriving at my own street, turning to face east, about 3:45, and that was when I saw the smoke (and more alarmingly, large flames) on the hillside above CSUSM, about a mile from our house. It was obvious that the fire had just started. I parked and went inside to tell my wife, and we both went out on the street to see the smoke plume, with many of our neighbors. As I stood in the street, I pulled out my phone and took a picture. My immediate thought was to put it on Twitter to let everyone know that there was a new fire in the county:

At just about the same time, I got a Twitter direct message from a colleague in the San Marcos school district, telling me about the fire and that it was near my house. (I found out later that this colleague and another were trying to let me know but they didn't have my cell number, so the best way they came up with to contact me quickly was through Twitter.) I also got a number of texts and emails from people who knew where I lived and had heard about this fire, so I was continually looking at my phone.

Back inside, we turned on the TV to see if we could get more information, but NBC7 was not yet mentioning the San Marcos fire. We started to gather stuff in case we had to evacuate. Meanwhile, my initial tweet had been retweeted by a couple of news organizations including Channel 8, so I started to get requests for more information. People I don't know tweeted me questions: Is it near San Elijo Hills? Which way is it moving? How close is it to CSUSM? I tried to answer these questions to the best of my ability, but quickly. One teacher in the district sent me an email saying that she had seen my tweet on CBS8 and asking for more info. (At first I thought she had been on Twitter and seen the retweet, so I was confused why she would email me. On re-reading her message, I wonder if she saw it on CBS8 television. I'll have to ask her.)

While I was gathering important materials and checking my phone for messages, I saw this tweet:

OK, I thought, time to go. As we got our dogs and bird and stuff into our two cars, I let our neighbors know that the evacuation order had been issued, in case they hadn't seen it. One of our neighbors, an older woman who lives with her brother, came and asked me if the order was official. She wanted me to go talk to her brother, who didn't believe the order and thought she was just over-reacting. He told her that if it was a real evacuation, sheriff's deputies would come knock on everyone's doors and drive around with loudspeakers. I told him that I saw the evacuation notice from the City of San Marcos official Twitter account, that with all the fires in the county that day there was not enough manpower to go around door to door, and that my wife and I were leaving. Looking back, what I could have told him was that Twitter is the official loudspeaker now (or at least one of them).

As we got to our friends' house and got our animals settled, we began looking for more information. They had the TV on, but I was looking at Twitter on my phone. I use Plume on my Android phone and tablet, so I can create multiple columns. I started one for #sanmarcosfire and another one for @sanmarcoscity, to get official notifications. One thing I noticed was the fluidity of names: the fire was initially called "the San Marcos fire", then "Washingtonia fire", then "Cocos fire". (The last two are the names of streets near the fire's origin.) As a consequence, the hashtags changed as well, from #sanmarcosfire to #washingtoniafire to #cocosfire. Looking for information on Twitter meant using all of these tags, since not everyone switched to the most current hashtag immediately. (I have not figured out in Plume whether I can create a column that would show two or more hashtags; e.g. #sanmarcosfire OR #cocosfire.)

Throughout our evacuation, I relied on Twitter for my initial information. Through tweets, I found out about the scheduled news conferences, which we turned on the TV for, but which rarely gave any new information. At one point, a celebrity with 3.3 million followers tweeted something like "pray for San Diego" and included all of the fire hashtags. The enormous number of retweets from those 3.3 million followers crowded out the actual information in the #cocosfire hashtag. I had to set up a "mute filter" in Plume, but the only way I could find to mute all the retweets was to filter on the actual text of the original tweet. It worked, but was cumbersome. I searched Plume for a way to exclude retweets in a column, but I did not find it.

As Thursday turned into Friday, and it became obvious that the fire was moving away from our neighborhood, we began to become impatient with the continued mandatory evacuation. We could not figure out why we were not being allowed back in. I saw an attempted explanation, which began a discussion:





You can see the amount of guesswork and frustration going into trying to understand the continued evacuation. Other people contributed to the discussion in this hashtag, as we waited for official word from the city. What we got was not particularly helpful.
The City of San Marcos did a good job using Twitter as an official loudspeaker, giving out information more quickly than they would have been able to otherwise. They used the fire hashtags, which made it easier for people to find their announcements, and they should be lauded for that. What they did not do well, however, was use Twitter as a two-way means of communication. Pleas for information or estimates, or even acknowledgement of reading residents' tweets, went unheeded. Simply replying to tweets, even if no information was forthcoming, would have helped calm down most people who were just trying to find out when they might be able to go home. In looking at the @sanmarcoscity tweets, the first reply to an individual that I can find came at 6:23 pm on Saturday the 17th. That's long after most people were back in their homes.

Friday afternoon, the first indication that our evacuation might be lifted came from a tweet from someone who said they saw the sheriff's deputies removing the roadblock at Rancho Santa Fe and San Elijo Hills Dr. After a few minutes of high expectations, we finally got the official tweet from the city with a revised map, meaning that we could go home. Lots of others were still evacuated, but many people could go home. It was a great relief, and news came through Twitter, like most of my news had for the previous few days.

The last big firestorm in our area was in October of 2007. My wife was in Boston for work at that time, but I was in contact with her and with our friends through my cell phone. I didn't have a smart phone then, just a flip phone. I don't think I even had SMS on that phone, or if I did, I didn't know how to use it. Twitter had just been invented the year before, and few people even knew about it. This time around, Twitter was an indispensable resource for communication.

UPDATE 27 May

The teacher who emailed me about seeing my tweet on CBS8 tells her story:
Yes, we did end up having to evacuate because we are living in SM. I was at school testing kids and I had the channel 8 news up on my computer in the background while the kids were testing. I was watching the La Costa fire because I was afraid some of the kids were going to get pulled and wanted to make sure the winds didn't shift and affect us. Then I saw your retweet on the side. There were a bunch of people talking about different fires, but I didn't really believe them because...you know...hysteria. But then I saw your name! You were a much more credible source. Since I was testing, I didn't want to pull out my phone and I thought it would be easier just to email. When I heard back, I contacted my husband (who was at home) and he started to gather up the cats and some of our things and then pick up my grandma (who lives a couple streets away). Your tweet gave us the heads up we needed to get prepared without being totally rushed! Thanks!!!
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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Reflections from CUE 14 - Lori Meyer

Lori Meyer is an English teacher at Carmel Valley Middle School and a Common Core Literacy ToSA. She attended CUE 14 and shares her reflection here:

CUE 2014 offered so many dynamic learning opportunities that it was hard to take it all in and even harder to find time to write a reflection. I’ve sent out a few e-mails this week with my favorite sites and sources, but here I’m going to try to share with you a few of the sessions I went to and the information I gathered.

My first session was on using Google Sites called “Bringing New Life to Student Writing Projects Using Google Sites.” You can find the resources here: bit.ly/CUE14.

My favorite session was by a local tech leader Jo-Ann Fox. “Twitter: A Superpower for Educators.” In it I learned about using #edchats to connect with educators from around the globe. (And I found out some of the protocols for participation in edchats, which move really fast and have rules -- much like shooting craps in Vegas. They both require some observation and insight before participation, it seems. )

I was most impressed with Jo-Ann’s use of www.powtoon.com for her presentation. It was lively and fun. Sitting next to Michelle Andersen at that session, we established the #insidejokeoftheweekend #hashtags.

I also enjoyed “Helping Your Students Think Like iHistorians” (bit.ly/OB9i4i). It was about helping students engage with primary and secondary sources and view events through the eyes of a historian. It was geared toward ipad users and 7th grade curriculum, so I sent it out immediately to my 7th grade history pals. Here’s another on Manifest Destiny (goo.gl/C7X8Y8).

I saw some good information on fair use and copyrights in the digital age: (goo.gl/hh35u)

I went to an amazing session on blogging (bit.ly/davidtedublogs). David Theriault is an AP English 11 teacher from Bellflower who uses blogging to inspire creativity in student writing.
For Common Core Resources I saw nothing more impressive than the CLRN presentation (http://bit.ly/1mfDgJ2)

English
Story Starters http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/story-starters/
What makes a Good Story: http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/index.html
Thesis Generator: http://www.mpcfaculty.net/molly_may/thesis_generator.html
Map a Story: http://www.rebooting.ca/place/
www.curriculet.com

Math
http://www.mathtv.com

Social Studies
The Colonization of America: http://www.freecol.org
Elections: https://games.ciconline.org/elections/Default.aspx

Science
Interactive Simulations: www.phet.colorado.edu

Other interesting moments were meeting the creators of NewsELA and Kahoot who had flown in for the conference. I saw a preview of Canvas which is another curriculum delivery system like Blackboard and Edmodo. They gave us a few free trials. Let me know if you want to try it out. NewsELA is coming out with a “Pro” version (that will cost $), but offers more teacher resources for monitoring student activity and achievement. The basic version will remain FREE.

Kevin and I listened to a presentation on the roll out of BYOD in Claremont. The one thing I took away from that session was that we might need to poll our students/parents/teachers to get a clear idea of how many are using Macs and iPads vs how many are using other operating systems. I’m not sure if we have a clear handle on the statistics on that. Before we move forward, it seems to me we should reconsider diversifying our platforms a bit, so we have the right tools available for whatever students need in the moment.

Our former colleague Holly Clark @hollyclarkedu was there presenting on Student e-portfolios and all things Google. Sitting on a patio with her for an hour or two was worth the drive out, to be sure. I also enjoyed Point Loma High’s @JenRoberts and her session on 1:1.

At the vendor booths, I saw lots of cool stuff, but was most intrigued by the reading intervention software people are developing. I bought a book (which I probably won’t have time to read) and ate lots of chocolate there. There seems to be lots of “buzz” around coding for students this year.

The best part of CUE for me, though, was getting to spend time with like-minded colleagues from across the district. #lascasuelas #dancingqueens #sunshine

Right now I am looking forward to having some time to explore all these new resources and try them out with students. Please send me an e-mail if you would like more information on the sessions.

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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Reflections from CUE 14 - Lisa Hendricks

Lisa Hendricks is a Social Science teacher at Torrey Pines High School. She attended CUE 14 and wrote the following reflection:

The CUE conference was a great way to learn what was out there and how teachers and professionals are using it to inspire their kids. I met a lot of different professionals from various parts of California and the west coast. It was great to meet people who were passionate about teaching and curious about technology. There was a strong consensus that many teachers are a bit hesitant to try out new technology in their classrooms because they don’t feel comfortable about it. In many of the conferences and workshops, teachers said to their students, “Let’s try this new app and see if it works for us or not”. In many cases, if the teacher was stumped, the kids were able to discuss it and fix the problem and even offer how to use it in class. I have to admit that some of the workshops that I attended made me think, “wow, I have a lot of learning to do and this seems impossible”, however I already tried a few things and they worked out to be lovely and kid are already excited about it!

Here are my favorite take-aways:
  • www.movenote.com This is a powerful tool! It allows you to upload videos or powerpoints into a template. Then you click through your powerpoint and record yourself via video (laptop or ipad with a video camera) This is still pretty new in the educational field for technology. Best part, its FREE and it is easy to do. The program converts the video into a link to share as a link, email etc. 
  • www.lucidchart.com Allows for you to make charts like you would a google doc. It allows for several users to work on a chart at the same time. Could be useful for math/science classes. 
  • http://learni.st Love Pinterest? Why not try this website to make learning boards for classes? It connects you to a wide variety of many professional networks for teaching. Type in an idea, there are tons of ideas to explore. You can follow other learner boards or vice versa. I have yet to try this, but it appears to be super cool. 
  • Need to make primary sources come to life? Use an IPAD with a video camera in class. Since we are a BYOD campus, have kids bring in IPADS. If you cannot do it during class, assign it as a group project. Break students up into 5 people. Have one kid be the newsreporter. Each other kid takes on the identity of the primary source. IE: Wife of a factory laborer, a factory laborer, a co-worker who is an immigrant that needed to work in the factory, the factory owner. Each person has to come up with questions that the news reporter is going to ask them. It allows each person in the group to look at the primary source and investigate. The kids are encouraged to do extra research and to also include an image from the time period. Long story short, the kids act the part, the news reporter goes to each student and interviews them about their conditions via Ipad video. The video is easy to share and it makes the primary source come to life. 
  • http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/ Is a website dedicated to California History. More geared towards a middle school class, but it has great photos that tie into U.S. History and some world history. Focuses on a lot of multiculturalism
  • www.edmodo.com is another interface that can be used like blackboard. Personally kids like it because the interface looks like facebook. It is important to instruct kids to use only images other than themselves for their edmodo photo. For my AP World class, students must upload a photo of a country. I talked to them about internet security. It is very important that we model digital citizenship to kids. 
  • Screencasting? This is when you can capture video etc. This works fantastic for math etc. You can use an IPAD for this and it allows you to draw on the ipad and voice over to explain and show things to students as you talk. This can be more intermediate and advances, but the websites recommended were http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html or http://www.screenr.com or http://www.screencast-o-matic.com
  • For Fun: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chatterpix-kids-by-duck-duck/id734046126?mt=8 This app allows you to make objects talk. So for history, imagine uploading a picture of Napoleon and allowing him to talk for a short while. It’s for fun!
  • Common Core discussion was everywhere. In one of my workshops common core was being discussed and edmodo has embedded the standards into the edmodo program which will be launching next month. https://www.edmodo.com/snapshot This is a big buzz in the world of common core and it shows you tools to assess your kids according to common core and the content that you teach them. 
  • Summer Programs are available for teachers in the summer for technology. If you want to become Certified in PBL (Project Based Learning) there are programs available. (4 core pieces of CCSS: collaborate, communication, critical thinking, creativity) Stop turning things in, PUBLISH IT! Twitter/Blogs/Weekly Log. GOALS are standards first, then figure out a project for it. Backwards design. Choice for kids.
  • Google Forms is pretty powerful stuff! Yes, it is time consuming, but if you can learn a couple skills from it, you can make quizzes, get instant feedback from it, make surveys, polls etc. Learn how to use it! 
  • Powerpoints need to have LESS TEXT. Kids need to focus on YOU, not the slides and taking notes. New approaches to powerpoints are very similar to Steve Jobs presenations and Nancy Duarte. How are kids going to be good presenters, if we don’t model to them what powerful presentations look like? Two books recommended for powerful presenting skills are: Presentationzen by Gar Reynolds and Resonate, by Nancy Duarte. Show your kids youtube clips of their presentations and discuss as a class what they did that was powerful in their presentations. 
The reality is that I can keep going with a list of things to try out. In reality, try one, master it and then move on to a new type of technology later. There are a LOT OF FREE and useful apps out there! Go out and explore! I felt pumped up after the conference and have told my kids about it. I flipped the classroom today. It was hard for me to really take the other role, but I saw kids that were typically quiet talking a lot more. Happy to share my experiences with anyone interested. I also loved hanging out with district employees outside of school. We got to talk about our students, technology, schools, concerns etc. Time well spent and it can only make our schools better and the kids excited!
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Reflections from CUE 14 - Michelle Anderson

Michelle Anderson (@mathmama) is Math Department Chair at La Costa Canyon, as well as one of our Common Core Math ToSAs this year. She attended CUE 14 and wrote the following reflection:

I found the CUE to be exciting, motivating, and inspiring. I always find math conferences inspire me to try new things in the classroom, but the CUE was more than that to me. The energy surrounding me was going in a million different directions; people were excited to share the various tools they are using for inside the classroom, tools for building a community, tools for reaching out to the community, tools for connecting with educators, tools for using technology in a PD…and the list goes on.

Here are my favorite take-aways:
  • Twitter - I finally get what a hashtag is! #knowledge #revelation – Kevin and my students tried to explain it to me. But it took an elementary school teacher to make it so clear and precise how I can use one. What a powerful tool to research anything I am interested in!
  • socrative.com – I plan to use this free app to develop surveys and exit slips for my students. It seems to provide more than kahoot.it which I am already using in the classroom. 
  • thinglink.com – another great free tool that you can use to develop an interactive worksheet, agenda, presentation, image…
  • There is a difference between using technology to enhance learning versus learning with technology. I have to admit many times my document camera and projector might as well have been an overhead projector. A few years ago I realized the power of connecting the projector to your computer. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities of learning to take place. 
  • I learned about an overwhelming number of free apps out there, and the hard part for any teacher would be weeding through them and figuring out how one can use them in the classroom. We are fortunate in our district to have Kevin and others that have used or been exposed to many of them to help. 
  • "Common Core and Rigor” was the name of a session that two people presented…that I really thought should be Kevin and Guen. The theme was that technology is embedded in the standards, critically thinking and responding digitally are core elements. Rigor is not more work, but more meaningful work. Technology needs to be purposeful and meaningful. 
  • Embrace passion - school should be more passion driven. Pay attention to what students are passionate about. Focus on communication and relationships. Students need a voice on campus, freedom to explore possibilities. Technology can be a tool to help foster this. 
  • Don’t follow technology blindly. Find what works best for you and your students. 
I walked away from the conference feeling empowered. This year I have already tried to incorporate more technology by using GeoGebra, more tools in Blackboard, Kahoot!, experimented with flipping my classroom, and I just started using padlet. Since Thursday I have been on Twitter more and understand the value of it as a professional resource. Next year I plan on starting a Twitter group for my classroom. I believe I can be a part of the change in embracing more educational technology in our district. Technology can be intimidating at first, but once embraced, the possibilities are endless. One presenter called Twitter – “A SuperPOWer for Educators,” I say the CUE 2014 is my SuperPOWer. Watch out!
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Monday, March 24, 2014

Reflections from CUE 14 - Kevin Fairchild

New CUE Logo
I spent the end of last week at CUE's annual conference in Palm Springs. Here are some of my thoughts after the weekend, in no particular order:

  • Thursday Keynote: Dan Meyer's talk was fast-paced and high energy, showing lots of examples of how he finds math questions in everyday situations. His three-step sequence is "Capture Perplexity, Share Perplexity, Resolve Perplexity". The big take-away for me (and I hope for a lot of people) was starting lessons with a question, rather than a topic. This reflects the emphasis on inquiry in Common Core, as teachers in all subjects shift to working in this student-centered way.
  • Friday Keynote: LeVar Burton shared about his love of reading which he got from his mother, who was an English teacher. He used Reading Rainbow to share this love and to provide opportunities for kids who may not have books around their house.
  • Saturday Keynote: I did not attend Sal Khan's talk, but I followed some of the discussion on Twitter. I truly do not understand the passionate reactions (on both sides) that Khan Academy inspires. One attendee tweeted that Khan should get a "Nobel Peace Prize" (sic); another tweeted that they were "vomiting" in reaction. Khan Academy is a useful resource for teachers, but it is not The Future. Like any tool, it has strengths and it has weaknesses. I don't think he deserves a prize, but he doesn't make me vomit either.
  • Three teachers and two administrators from our district joined me at this conference. It was great to be able to share ideas and thoughts with them throughout the weekend, and be able to think specifically about how things could work in our district. The other attendees were Michelle Anderson (Math, LCC), Lori Meyer (English, CV), Lisa Hendricks (Social Science, TP), Corey Bess (AP, DNO), and Tim Hornig (Principal, SDA). I'm hoping that they will also share their reflections in subsequent blog posts here.
  • Resources and links from session I attended (or learned about):
    • Teachers lined up early to get in the Chrome session
  • The best part of the conference, for me, is re-connecting with people in my PLN and meeting new ones face-to-face. No matter how much we talk through Twitter, or blogs, or Google+, or email, it's still great to see colleagues and friends in person and informally.
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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Who is Tom Bock, and Why Does He Keep Following Me?

So I have a doppelganger on Twitter. A twitterganger, if you will.

It started last week, when I was looking at Tweetdeck one evening. I saw a post with our district's tech hashtag #SDUHSDtech from one Tom Bock. Now, I've wanted to get teachers in our district using that hashtag for conversations, but so far I'm just about the only one who uses it. So it is a rarity when I see a post in that column that I didn't write. Furthermore, I don't know anyone named Tom Bock. I decided to click on their profile to see who it was. Here's what I saw:
The internal monologue in my head went something like this, as I read:
  • Teacher on Special Assignment: OK, cool, someone else who is a ToSA...
  • (Technology and Learning): What a coincidence, that's my title, too!
  • for the San Dieguito... WAIT A MINUTE! WHAT?
This account had copied my bio, but not my current bio. This is one from a few months ago, before I made some changes. It got stranger as I started investigating. Starting on February 28, this account re-posted my tweets nearly verbatim, 3 or 4 per day. I say "nearly" verbatim, because it stripped out the @ before Twitter usernames, so the people I had written to would not see these tweets. Here are some examples:






This was weird. There's nothing special about the tweets the account chose to re-post. I couldn't find any pattern. There's no distinguishing information in the account's profile. I tried a Google Image search on the profile picture but did not find a match, so I can't tell where the photo came from.

I presumed this was a "bot", not someone who was manually re-typing my posts. This was confirmed in my head after I started tweeting about the account itself:
Several of my Twitter friends recommended that I report the account for impersonation. One linked to Kathy Cassidy's blog post about her twitter imposter; I considered that my situation was not as bad as hers. After all, they didn't use my name, my photo, or my URL in their profile. On further consideration, though, I decided that it was impersonation. First of all, this account was representing itself as coming from my school district. I work hard to represent my district professionally on Twitter, and don't want someone else behaving inappropriately and having that reflect on my district. Secondly, I would like to think that I have a positive presence myself; I try to contribute as much to my PLN as I get from them. Some of the re-posts from "Tom Bock" got replies from people who follow me, and they followed "Tom Bock", in good faith. I don't want anyone to mislead my followers, especially with my own words. Third, there's the "annoying-little-brother-following-you-around-repeating-everything-you-say" factor. Finally, while 140-character tweets are not exactly grand treatises, plagiarism is plagiarism: dammit, I wrote those, and you stole them!

So I used Twitter's process for reporting an impersonating account. As part of that, I had to send in a picture of my driver's license to prove who I am. Since the account is not using my name, I also had to send in a picture of my district ID, to prove that I work for the district. It was a little bit of a pain, but not too bad.

However, Twitter does not agree with me:
According to Twitter, this behavior is perfectly fine. I can block "Tom Bock", but that won't prevent the bot from seeing and copying my tweets. Or I can protect my profile, which negates most of the benefit of having a PLN on a social media site.

That's where it stands now. As of today, "Tom Bock" hasn't posted anything since Tuesday. Maybe the bot got tired. Maybe it's just storing up my tweets. Or maybe whoever created the bot realized that I'm aware of what it's doing. (I did re-tweet once, on accident, using the accounts' twitter handle. I tried to avoid that, but slipped once. Maybe that's what it takes to get it to stop? Just guessing.)

I've spent some time trying to figure out why someone would do this, and the only thing I can come up with is that it is to build an account with seemingly real tweets that can then be sold to someone else. I've never understood the "Buy 10000 followers immediately" offers, but obviously some people do that. I suppose someone could charge more for "real" accounts with dozens of tweets rather than obviously newly-created accounts. But I'm just guessing.

This is a minor issue; an annoyance, nothing worse. But it has certainly made me think about how fragile our online reputations are. We teach our students about creating positive digital footprints (or digital tattoos), but much of it is out of our hands, unfortunately. And I think it gives me just a little bit more insight into people who are seriously stalked, harassed, or threatened on Twitter (or other networks) and feel like there's nothing they can do about it.

In any case, I think all we can do now is to block "TomBock3" and report the account for spam. If you haven't done that already, I would appreciate it.

P.S. I'm a child of the 80's, and one of my favorite bands from then is Timbuk3. If this were a real person named Tom Bock, and they used "Tombok3" as their Twitter handle, that would be genius!


UPDATE 3/16: Looks like I spoke too soon. "Tom Bock" copied six more of my tweets last night, so I guess the bot isn't finished. All six of the tweets were posted at 2:53 am. I'm using a new Twitter app on my Android tablet (Plume), and when I look at the followers of "Tom Bock", it shows the most recent tweet for them. Fully half of those "followers" also posted their most recent tweet at 2:53 am. How long is it before Twitter is nothing more than bots following other bots?
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Monday, February 17, 2014

Is Common Core a "Disaster"?

It's not often that I see an article so wrong in so many ways. But this New York Times article ("Common Core Curriculum Now Has Critics on the Left") fundamentally misunderstands the Common Core State Standards, conflates standards with their implementation, and attempts to force a debate about education policy into an ill-fitting political right-left framework.
Carol Burris, an acclaimed high school principal on Long Island, calls the Common Core a “disaster.”
“We see kids,” she said, “they don’t want to go to school anymore.”
Leaders of both parties in the New York Legislature want to rethink how the state uses the Common Core.
The statewide teachers’ union withdrew its support for the standards last month until “major course corrections” took place.
Why don't Carol Burris's students want to go to school anymore? The article doesn't say. It surely implies, though, that it's because of the Common Core State Standards. The next two sentences, however, are not about the standards, but about New York State's implementation of the standards. In fact, if you follow the third link in the quote above, you will see the entire statement, conveniently abridged in the Times article:
NYSUT's board also withdrew its support for the Common Core standards as implemented and interpreted in New York state until SED makes major course corrections to its failed implementation plan and supports a three-year moratorium on high-stakes consequences from standardized testing.
It's not Common Core that the teachers' union opposes: it's how it has been implemented in New York.

Next, the Times tries to force a "red-state / blue-state" dichotomy, quoting Governor Cuomo's criticism of the execution of the standards, then quoting a possible Republican challenger in the next gubernatorial election. While Republicans and Democrats disagree on many policy issues, Common Core is one of those topics on which the usual distinctions do not hold. It's as if the Times had to figure out a way to work in some political angle into the headline. But the headline doesn't match the content of the article.

Here is what really made my jaw drop, though. Those of us working on Common Core transition, and others who are knowledgeable about the standards, understand that CCSS replaces the "mile-wide, inch-deep" existing standards with deeper inquiry into fewer subjects. CCSS focuses on skills as well as content; it is more than just a laundry list of facts for students to learn and regurgitate on standardized tests. So what "Common Core" curriculum does the Public School 253 use to meet these standards?
The school chose one of the country’s most popular Common Core curriculums, called Core Knowledge. It is based on the ideas of E. D. Hirsch Jr., whose 1987 book, “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know,” argued that mastery of a common set of facts was critical to learning....
Mr. Hirsch and other defenders of the Common Core say children in early grades need lessons in history, civics, science and literature to build vocabularies and thrive.
Wait, I don't think I read that right... <blinks, rubs eyes vigorously>
E. D. Hirsch Jr., whose 1987 book, “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know,”
In what universe is E. D. Hirsch a basis for any kind of Common Core curriculum? Cultural Literacy is the nadir of the Reagan-era "A Nation at Risk" back-to-basics lets-make-kids-memorize-the-Greek-city-states educational idiocy. If you are a school attempting to implement CCSS, and you choose anything based on the work of E. D. Hirsch, you are doing it wrong. Does the author of this article even understand what Common Core is all about, beyond platitudes about "rigor" and "more challenging"? There's no textual evidence to support that conclusion.

There are those who criticize CCSS for ridiculous reasons; among the non-ridiculous critiques is the (accurate) observation that the standards are not perfect. However, our choice is not between CCSS and some hypothetical Utopian Set of Standards That We All Agree On. Our choice is between CCSS and existing standards. In California, that would mean our laundry list of facts that we have called California Content Standards for the last 15 years. Given those options, I enthusiastically choose CCSS. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than what we have now? Absolutely, definitively yes.
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