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The SecurEdge Blog | WiFi Design, Network Security, Troubleshooting and WiFi as a Service Content

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SecurEdge's blog for wifi design, network security, installation, and troubleshooting benefiting businesses of all sizes and industries.

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This website is explains

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The Failure of American Public Education | John Hood

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Government is wholly unsuited to teach America’s students.

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Things that are obsolete in 21st century schools 2.0 

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Things that are obsolete in 21st century schools 2.0 

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This person is telling us 10 problems facing 21st century public schools and what the problems are.use

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Things that are obsolete in 21st century schools

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Things that are obsolete in 21st century schools

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This person is explaining  14 things that are facing 21st century public schools and how to fix them (sort of).Also this is showing real problems with these schools teaching methods.

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Saying that it has always been this way, doesn't count as a legitimate justification as to why it should stay that way. Teachers and administrators all over the world are doing amazing things, but some of the things we are still doing, despite all the new solutions, research and ideas out there are, to put it mildly, incredible.

I'm not saying we should just make the current system better... we should change it into something else.

I have compiled a list of 14 things that are obsolete in 21st-century schools and it is my hope that this will inspire lively discussions about the future of education.

1. Computer Rooms

The idea of taking a whole class to a computer room with outdated equipment, once a week to practice their typewriting skills and sending them back to the classroom 40 minutes later, is obsolete.

Computers or technology shouldn't just be a specific subject, that's not sufficient anymore but rather it should be an integral part of all the subjects and built into the curriculum.

2. Isolated classrooms

Classrooms can be isolated in two ways. One where parents, teachers or guests are not welcome because the door and drapes are always shut... which has the words "Don't come in here" written all over it. The other way is being isolated to all the knowledge outside the 4 walls. For example from the internet, videos, blogs, websites, and visits from authors or scientists through Skype, to name a few.

Tony Wagner, the author of the Global Achievement Gap says: "Isolation is the enemy of improvement". The classroom should be open, teachers should be able to walk in and learn from each other, parents should visit often, f.x. with so-called Extra Open Schooldays (where all parents are encouraged to visit classrooms anytime during the day). Isolated classrooms are therefore obsolete.

3. Schools that don't have WiFi

Schools that don't have a robust WiFi network for staff and students are not only missing a big change for teaching and learning but robbing the students of access to knowledge and also limiting their chances to learn about the internet and using technology in a safe way.

21st-century schools make it possible for students and staff to learn anywhere, anytime and schools that don't allow that are obsolete.

4. Banning phones and tablets

Taking phones and tablets from students instead of using them to enhance learning is obsolete. We should celebrate the technology students bring and use them as learning tools.

Phones are no longer just devices to text and make phone calls... when they were, then banning them was OK. Today there is more processing power in the average cellular telephone than NASA had access to when they sent a man to the moon in 1969. Yet most students only know how to use these devices for social media and playing games.

Today you can edit a movie, make a radio show, take pictures, make posters, websites, blog, tweet as a character from a book, have class conversations over TodaysMeet and Google most answers on a test with the device in your pocket. We should show our students the learning possibilities & turn these distractions into learning opportunities that will reach far outside the classroom.

5. Tech director with an administrator access

Having one person responsible for the computer system, working from a windowless office in the school basement, surrounded by old computers, updates the programs and tells the staff what tech tools they can and cannot use... is obsolete.

Today we need technology co-ordinators that know what teachers and students need to be successful and solve problems instead of creating barriers. Someone who helps people to help themselves by giving them responsibility and finds better and cheaper ways to do things.

6. Teachers that don't share what they do

Teachers who work silently, don't tweet, blog and discuss ideas with people around the world are obsolete. Teachers are no longer working locally but globally and it's our job to share what we do and see what others are doing. If a teacher is no longer learning then he shouldn't be teaching other people.

We should all be tweeting, blogging and sharing what works and doesn't work, get and give advice to and from co-workers around the world. We should constantly be improving our craft because professional development isn't a 3-hour workshop once a month but a lifelong process.
"We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience." -John Dewey
7. Schools that don't have Facebook or Twitter

Schools that think putting a news article on the school website every other week and publish a monthly newsletter is enough to keep parents informed are obsolete.

The school should have a Facebook page, share news and information with parents, have a Twitter account and their own hashtag, run their own online TV channel where students film, edit and publish things about school events.

If you don't tell your story, someone else will.

8. Unhealthy cafeteria food

School cafeterias that look and operate almost like fast food restaurants where staff and students get a cheap, fast and unhealthy meals are obsolete.

A few schools in Iceland and Sweden have turned almost completely to organic foods and given thought into the long term benefit of healthy food rather than the short term savings of the unhealthy. For example at Stora Hammar school in Sweden, 90% of the food served is organic.

Children should put the food on their own plate, clean up after themselves and even do the dishes. Not because it saves the school money on the workforce but because it is a part of growing up and learning about responsibility. What 21st-century schools should be doing as well is growing their own fruits and vegetables where students water them and learn about nature. Setting up a farm to feed students would be optimal, but if that is not an option (for example in big city schools) then they can at last set up a window farm in some of the school windows.

The goal of providing students a healthy meal is not only to give them enough nutrition to last the school day but to make healthy food a normal part of their daily life and get them to think about nutrition which is something that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

9. Starting school at 8 o'clock for teenagers

Research has shown over and over again that teenagers do better and feel better in schools that start later. Often parents or administrators get in the way of that change. Research (f.x. from the The Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics and University of Minnesota - video) show that delaying school start as little as 50 minutes and making it longer by 30 minutes instead has a positive effect both on learning and activities after school. Schools that don't do this are obsolete.

Starting later is easy and teachers could use the extra time in the morning to prepare class... it's a win-win situation.

10. Buying poster-, website- and pamphlet design for the school

When your school needs a poster, pamphlet or a new website they shouldn't buy the service from somewhere else (although that can sometimes be the case) and have students do it instead. In the best schools of the future, they will be the ones doing it as a real project that has meaning and as a collaborative project in language and art....using technology.

11. Traditional libraries

Libraries that only contain books and chess tables are obsolete.

A 21st-century library should be at the heart of the school and a place where both students and staff can come in to relax, read, get advice, access powerful devices, edit videos, music, print in 3D and learn how to code to name a few. This 21st-century learning space should give people an equal chance to use these devices and access information. Otherwise, these libraries will turn into museums where people go to look at all the things we used to use.

12. All students get the same

Putting kids in the same class because they are born in the same year is obsolete. School systems were originally set up to meet the needs of industrialism. Back then we needed people to work in factories, conformity was good and nobody was meant to excel or be different in that environment. That doesn't fit our needs today, let alone the future but many schools are still set up like the factories they were meant to serve 100 years ago.

We should increase choice, give children support to flourish in what interests them and not only give them extra attention to the things they're bad at. In most schools, if you are good at art but bad in german you get german lessons to get to par with the other students instead of excelling at art... All even, all the same!

Education should be individualized, students should work in groups regardless of age and their education should be built around their needs.

13. One-Professional development-workshop-fits-all

A school that just sends the entire staff to a workshop once a month where everyone gets the same is obsolete. Professional development is usually top-down instead of the ground up where everyone gets what they want and need. This is because giving everyone (including students) what they need and want takes time & money.

With things like Twitter, Pinterest, articles online, books, videos, co-operation & conversations employees can personalize their professional development. (Read about my article on Personalized Professional Development here)

14. Standardized tests to measure the quality of education

Looking at standardized tests to evaluate whether or not children are educated or not is the dumbest thing we can do and gives us a shallow view of learning.

The outcomes, although moderately important, measure only a small part of what we want our kids to learn and by focusing on these exams we are narrowing the curriculum. Alfie Kohn even pointed out a statistically significant correlation between high grades on standardized tests and a shallow approach to learning.

The world today and the needs of society are completely different from what they used to be. We are not only training people to work locally but globally. With standardized tests, like PISA, we are narrowing the curriculum, and all the OECD countries are teaching the same thing. Because of that, we all produce the same kind of workers, outdated workers, to work in factories. People who can comply, behave and be like everybody else.

In the global world today it is easy to outsource jobs to someone who is willing to do the same job, just as fast for less money. Therefore we need creative people that can do something else and think differently.

Andreas Schleicher (2010) said:

"Schools have to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, technologies that have not yet been invented and problems that we don't know will arise."

Standardized education might have been the answer once but saying that it's obsolete is putting it mildly and is only a way to try to repair the broken system. The results of those tests are, according to Daniel Pink (A Whole New Mind, 2005) in direct contradiction to the skills we need today. Those skills are for example design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.

We should be solving real problems, asking questions that matter instead of remembering and repeating facts. Adults' accomplishments are linked far more strongly to their creativity than IQ ( source) and we should be celebrating diverse knowledge and interest instead of trying to standardize knowledge and skills.

I wonder if schools would finally change their direction if we designed a new standardize test that wouldn't measure numeracy, science, and literacy but empathy, creative thinking and communication skills... Maybe that is all we need.

Final thoughts

All the education systems on the planet are being reformed, but I don't think reform is what we need. We need a revolution and change the education system into something else. It isn't an easy task, but as S.E. Phillips once said:

Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

Doing something new and getting poor results on the old test shouldn't surprise anyone. What is the point of doing something new and different if we get the same results on standardized tests... then we might as well just do factory schooling, conform and comply.

"If I had asked the people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses"

That is exactly what we are doing today. We are asking our students to remember more, write better and repeat faster than before... just like we wanted the faster horse when really we should be asking for the car. Sure the car wasn't better than the horse in the beginning and our education system won't be perfect either. It will never be perfect, it should be constantly evolving and we should strive to make it better every day.

I don't know what a perfect education system looks like, and don't think it even exists. But I believe that if we talk, try something different, fail forward, investigate and share what we do, not only locally but globally, we can get a lot closer.

If you want to see a change in education, you should start in your own classroom.

"Education can be encouraged from the top-down but can only be improved from the ground up" - Sir Ken Robinson
Icelandic Educator. Creator. Designer. Stanford Graduate School of Education Alumn
Ingvi Hrannar Ómarsson

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14 things that are obsolete in 21st century schools

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Saying that it has always been this way, doesn't count as a legitimate justification as to why it should stay that way. Teachers and administrators all over the world are doing amazing things, but some of the things we are still doing, despite all the new solutions, research and ideas out there are, to put [...]

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This man is explains how century teaching. Wouldnt be affective

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Our district, like many others, has been having lots of conversations about "21 st Century Education" and what it means for us. There are many books and articles written on the subject, but I think the big picture tends to get lost in the discussion, particularly at the local level. When one speaks of "21 st Century Learning," many people just assume it means adding iPads or other technology into the classroom. It's much more than that, and actually speaks to a complete rethinking of the very structure of schooling.

These conversations sometimes generate controversy as well. I've witnessed educators (and school board members) instinctively go on the defensive because any talk about changing public schools appears to be an attack on what they have committed their life to and reminds them of the continual onslaught of attacks from "reformers" who often oversimplify problems and/or know very little about how public education works. So although I am a staunch defender of public education (and so many of our hard-working teachers, administrators, and other staff who do amazing work every day), I can also realize we have inherited a system that no longer applies to our current era. 21 st Century Education, viewed very broadly, is critical because it is based upon a permanent change in the context of teaching and learning.

For 19 th century public schools, there was a very logical reason why they were designed the way they were - there were few alternatives in how one could organize students, teachers, facilities, and resources in an orderly way. But today, almost all of those former constraints no longer exist. What has changed? Here's just a sample:

A networked infrastructure: All human enterprises are connected by series of information networks that allow both the creation of content and the sharing of content at unprecedented levels. Also, the "social construct" has changed the way we create and nurture relationships among individuals as well as share information.

The flattening world: Traditional barriers among countries - both literal and conceptual - have broken down. Information travels freely and near instantaneously to all corners of the globe, and citizens around the world can participate in the political process like never before.

Digital (& diverse) generation: Children today were born into a world where digital access to information was the norm. For these "Millennials," it is not considered "technology," but rather the normal way of interacting with the world.

Facts are free: How do you educate children in a world where the sum of human knowledge is available instantaneously, for free, at their fingertips? Adults and children alike just "Google it" when they want to discover the population of a country or learn about some world event. The real challenge has shifted to understanding, analyzing, and using information.

The primacy of mobile computing: The tremendous advancement in information technology has allowed us to hold a device in our hand as powerful as most computers, allowing it to be a primary information resource for most citizens. We have been freed up from "place" as a requirement for learning and sharing.

So although technology advancements catalyzed the above changes, just adding more technology into a 19 th century classroom doesn't make it a 21 st century learning experience. We must understand the implications of our new context, including (a) the impact on both the content of our curriculum and the process of teaching and learning, (b) the design of the physical environment both inside and outside of "school," (c) the human resource model to best leverage talent, and (d) the structure of the school day, school year, and the "categorization" of children. If we ignore these trends or their implications, we risk making public schooling less and less relevant for our children.

If we were to start over and design a public school system from scratch, would we have physical structures that have a single hallway with a series of equally sized "classrooms" with a single teacher assigned to single room and a few dozen students? Would we use time, rather than achievement, as the constant in our formula? Would we be likely to let all kids out for the summer to tend the fields? Or would we leverage all of the worldwide resources available to us to enhance learning? Would not the roles of our "educators" be much more varied? We must rethink all of the former "walls" that no longer exist.

Of course this is easier said than done. It's hard to actually start over. Some schools, including both traditional and charter schools, are experimenting with some of these changes, but the real question is how do we create the policy and economic infrastructure to allow school districts to design an educational experience that will serve children growing up in the modern era? In many ways this task is daunting because the implications are so far-reaching. This task will certainly take time, but public education's transformation appears inevitable. The question is how to best approach it and create a rational and effective transformation. Public school advocates can recognize that many of our schools are doing amazing things with the resources and structure they have inherited, but also admit that we must open everything up to potential change.
Download the complete white paper outlining the argument for structural changes to our public school system required by a 21st Century approach to education.
Seth Rosenblatt is the president of the Governing Board of the San Carlos School District, currently in his second term. He also serves as the president of the San Mateo County School Boards Association and sits on the Executive Committee of the Joint Venture Silicon Valley Sustainable Schools Task Force. He has two children in San Carlos public schools. He writes frequently on issues in public education, in regional and national publications as well as on his own blog. In his business career, Seth has more than 20 years of experience in media and technology, including executive positions in both start-up companies and large enterprises. Seth currently operates his own consulting firm for technology companies focused on strategy, marketing, and business development. Seth holds a B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

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Why 21st century education is not just about technology

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Our district, like many others, has been having lots of conversations about "21 st Century Education" and what it means for us. There are many books and articles written on the subject, but I think the big picture tends to get lost in the discussion, particularly at the local level.

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This information is talking about how tablets or electronics would be better than textbooks.And some pros and cons.

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Should tablets replace textbooks in K-12 schools?

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What a teacher thinks of textbook learning and how it affects kids.This teacher thinks text books should not be used.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Textbooks | TeacherVision

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Learn the advantages and disadvantages of using textbooks in the classroom plus helpful tips for making using textbooks as a tool for learning.

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Tells me why so many kids are bored during school hours. And how we could fix them.

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Why Are So Many Students Bored in School? | Education.com

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Why are so many students bored in school? Many students feel school is meaningless, not connected with their interests, or not valuable in their lives.

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Tells me about 10 really big problems facing schools today.Some are also telling us about how we could fix some of them.

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Few would argue that the state of our education system has plenty of room for improvement. However, developing a plan to take schools in the right direction is easier said than done. The first challenge lies in identifying underlying problems keeping students from learning today. This challenge, in part, is due to the fact that the problems may change considerably depending on who is labeling them, whether it is students, parents, educators or lawmakers. Consider this list of 10 major challenges currently facing public schools, based on the perspective of many involved in the world of education today.
Classroom Size
Many areas of the country are facing classrooms that are literally busting out at the seams. A report at two years ago discussed how schools in Georgia, in the midst of major funding cuts for schools, had no choice but to lift all class size limits to accommodate students with the faculty the school system could still afford to keep. More recently, Fairfax County in Virginia has been looking into a proposal to increase classroom sizes in the face of significant budget cuts. The Board of Education in South Carolina is also weighing their options in this area.
Poverty
Technorati reported last fall that 22 percent of the children in the U.S. live at or below poverty level. American Graduate defines poverty as a family of four with an annual income level of $23,050 or lower. American Graduate also cites a report from the Southern Education Foundation, which shows in 17 states across the U.S., low-income students now comprise the majority of public school students in those states. Some estimates put poverty levels for public school students at 25% in the not-so-distant future.

Students living at or below poverty level tend to have the highest dropout rates. Studies show that students who do not get enough food or sleep are less likely to perform at their full academic potential. Schools know these truths first-hand, and despite efforts to provide students with basic essentials, teachers, administrators and lawmakers know there is simply not enough to go around.
Family Factors Technology
Kids Health Guide reports that students are more technologically advanced than many teachers today, putting instructors at a decided disadvantage in the classroom. However, a student's love of technology also tends to distract him from his schoolwork, according to NEA Today. When teachers don't have the techno-savvy to compete with those devices, by bringing education and technology together , it can be difficult to keep students' interest and attention to properly teach new concepts.

Technology needs to come into the classroom to keep up with the learning demands of the 21 st century. Schools that are already cash-strapped may find an unsurmountable challenge in coming up with the funding to bring computers and other forms of technology into their classes. Scholastic offers some tips for school districts that want to fit the bill for technology, including everything from asking individuals in the district for "big gifts" to going to Uncle Sam for the funding. The website also suggests negotiating prices on technology when possible and allowing student to bring their own from home.

Photo By Intel Free Press CC-BY-SA-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Bullying
is not a new problem, but it is one that has a profound impact on the learning aptitude of many students today. Technology has given bullies even more avenues to torment their victims - through social networking, texting and other virtual interactions. Cyberbullying has become a major issue for schools, as evidenced by the number of suicides that can be directly traced to bullying events . The fact that laws are still fuzzy regarding cyberbullying adds to the challenge - since parents, teachers and administrators are unsure of how to legally handle such issues.
Student Attitudes and Behaviors No Child Left Behind
NEA Today quotes Kansas special educator Shelly Dunham as saying, "Testing, testing, testing, what is the point of testing? Do we use the data to remediate those who do not measure up? No!" Many teachers believe they are forced to teach to the annual standardized tests, and activities like recess and lunch have been cut way down to make more time for academics in light of the new testing procedures.
Parent Involvement Student Health
has reached epidemic proportions in the U.S., and the same poor eating habits that led to the obesity problem may also be contributing to lower student achievement. Obesity also increases a student's risk for other conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure, which could result in higher absenteeism and more academic issues.

Photo By English: Lance Cpl. Ryan M. Joyner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Funding
Budget cuts have created huge problems for most public schools in recent years. Less funding means smaller staffs, fewer resources and a lower number of services for students. While some argue that throwing more money at the education problems won't make them go away, others assert that lack of funding caused many of the problems in the first place.

There are many problems in public schools today, but identifying those issues is half the battle. With a laundry list of challenges to face, now is the time for educators, parents and lawmakers to come together and begin to find solutions - for the benefit of all students in public schools today.

Questions? Contact us on Twitter. @publicschoolreview

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10 Major Challenges Facing Public Schools - PublicSchoolReview.com

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Are our public schools in a state of crisis? Learn about the 10 biggest problems with public schools today, both from the perspective of the administrators and the teachers