Question 75 of 365: What are the new Triple Dog Dares?

I’m sure that A Christmas Story has been formative for many just as it was for me. I’m also sure that many have thought about the Triple Dog Dares that they have subsequently faced as a result of that iconic line of dialogue. But, I think most people stop thinking of the things they are doing because of “dares” at some point. There comes a time when they start believing that they do not have to worry about the Schwartz’s of the world.

And yet, I would like to make the case that we are all being Triple Dog Dared on a regular basis. I would like to state for the record that we can never get away from our own personal Schwartz’s. In fact, I believe that we are responsible for more tongues stuck to flagpoles at this moment than at any other in history.

Here are the dares that I believe we are faced with every day.

• I Triple Dog Dare you to comment or respond.
• I Triple Dog Dare you to hire/fire me.
• I Triple Dog Dare you to learn something new.

We are daring one another to participate, to answer our e-mails or respond to our tweets. Our dares arise as we recycle each e-mail through our inboxes, constantly sending out more and more dares for response. We put tiny stresses on one another with these tiny little Triple Dog Dares. The flagpole we get stuck to in this dare is when the e-mails and tweets just sit there, when they fester in our inboxes and Tweetdecks. Our tongues are so attached to them that after months of putting off the most inopportune e-mail responses, we can’t really even communicate about the issues that are important to us.

We dare our superiors to fire us on a daily basis. While we may not actively want to get fired, we work really hard at pushing those around us to find out what we are doing that is not in the best interests of our business, district, or entity. We spend time distracted, dispassionate, or deluded into thinking that our work always reflects upon us well. We also dare our superiors to hire us each day as well. We work hard, apply ourselves and show off our daily accomplishments. We are constantly reapplying for our jobs in this case, even as we are trying to weasel out of them and find something else that is more to our liking. The frozen flagpole in this dare is the actual job we have. We get frozen into this pattern of fired and hired habits, forcing other people to write us off entirely as both incredibly useful and utterly useless for daily work and collaboration.

The last dare I feel on a daily basis is one that involves the persistent need for learning new things. It is an ever-present dare I feel from others, to become more knowledgeable about the things that they themselves need to know. The dare compounds until I have to dedicate time to becoming an expert on an assigned topic or anticipating the next thing that someone will ask of me. The pole I get stuck to is when I get so focused on learning for others and in anticipation of my later needs that I can’t completely focus on what it is that I’m supposed to be doing right now. Because the dare is to learn something new, I get stuck not resolving what I already know and applying it to what can be created with that knowledge.

Christmas Story or not, these Triple Dog Dares are very real for me. I have become my own worst Schwartz, as have the people around me. And I would like that to change.

I would like to not feel the stress of e-mail dares. I would like to let go of the need to be fired or learn new things just for the sake of learning them. I would like to be able to make my own (or at least manage my) stress and dare myself to be better than simply placing my tongue to a flagpole. I think that at some point I may be able to do that, but right now, I will live with my Triple Dog Dares.

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Question 35 of 365: How should we react to budget cuts?

The pressure of budget concerns is absolutely crushing us right now. It is the reverberating hum in all conversations. In meetings is reaches climax, because the only reason we have staff meetings now is to discuss budget issues. They are all that matters to the people who sit in those chairs. And why not? We are talking about jobs, livelihoods, and careers. What could be more important than that?

My initial reaction to budget cuts is to say that I have a unique enough skill set that will save me from getting the ax. I react by distancing myself from anyone who does not have such a “skill set”. This is just as much of a defense mechanism as those who are trying to huddle next to one another for warmth and solidarity. My reaction to bad news is to state that I am above it, while others reactions range from disbelief, to intense debate, to outright overworking. I don’t think that any of these reactions are better than any other.

But, perhaps there is a strategic reaction that can be found somewhere in there. It is possible that among all of the gossip and unending rumors, there lies a truth about what to do when you realize that people’s jobs are on the line (including yours). As much as anyone can really have an answer, here is mine: make lots and lots of noise. Ignore all gossip and start talking about what matters to you. Get into the conversation with and about content because it is one of the only times that other people will be talking about everything but content.

When budget cuts are discussed, real work gets pushed to the side. Don’t let it. Stay on message. I’m not talking about being insensitive to the plight of your fellow worker, but I am talking about bringing things to the table that you are working on. Send out e-mail about projects you are a part of and ask for opinions and help. Blog about what it is that you are doing. Have conversations with anyone who will listen about what is going on in your district, your company, or your organization. Whenever anyone brings up the budget, you can tell them something new about what you are developing. You are a fountain of stories about what you have done and are going to do. Tell those stories repeatedly.

If you make that kind of noise, you will be one of the only ones who looks collected and calm, even if you have never felt a more potent fear. If you approach people with content and questions, there is very little they can do but to respond in kind. Yet, you are not ignoring the problem. In fact, you are facing the problem head on. You are telling anyone who cares to listen what value you have and by involving other people, you are stating their value too. While this is not an original idea, it is one that I need to be reminded of every day that I sit in on a meeting listening to an interim super-intendant talk about the “difficult economy” or “tough times.”

THIS is a part of my noise making effort. While it may not save my job, I know that someone will hear it and start a conversation of their own. If I can create a space that continues to work despite the paralyzing gridlock that happens when you turn people into numbers on a spreadsheet, then I will be truly “saved” in a much larger sense.

I did not get into my position in order to feel job security. Nor did I start my work to steer clear of controversy. I did, however, start in order to create change. And that is what I plan to do until someone tells me I can’t do it from here anymore.

Planning to support us…

One of the consistent complaints (and most often heard form of resistance to using open source software) about Moodle is that it lacks any formal support structure. While there is a great community over at Moodle.org, there isn’t anyone that you can call in the middle of the night when you want something to work. So, we have to build that function into any system that we need. In fact, I have been given the task of drawing up an initial draft of how our district would support a school who wants to use Moodle as their LMS.

While I have a lot more thinking to do about this, I would like to share my first draft and solicit any feedback that you would like to provide. Please push me on this as much as you can (I want to make sure that not only is the structure sound but that we are adding to and creating a learning community as much as possible).

Here is the link to the Google Doc in progress.

Here is the diagram of the structure itself:

Thanks for any help you can provide this process. As you may have guessed, you are the PLN that I mention.

Strategy Matters

I really appreciate all of the talk recently about how a district can use strategy as a way forward with connected learning. The conversations around losing Web 2.0 tools (or losing their “free” status) is warranted, especially with how much we have come to rely on them for our daily learning fix.

The two that I am the most interested in, at the moment, are:

Miguel’s articulate questions:

• Can we sustain this solution if it goes district-wide and everyone starts to use it?
  
• In the time it takes from start (one school) to full implementation (everyone), will our technical support staff have the opportunity+time+desire to learn how to support it?
• Will Curriculum and Instruction Dept’s choose to embrace these solutions as part of our core mission, or it will have the equivalence of a firecracker in an open palm (noise but minimal impact)? And, even if it’s clasped tightly, will these technologies help or damage the organization?
• If “minimal impact” from the initiative results, what are the resulting consequences for staff morale, perception of negative innovation quotient (i just made that up with apologies if some else did already)?

And

Bud’s wonderful podcast about how long and where we need to keep student creations:

As a language arts teacher, I rarely asked for something that wasn’t precious. What kind of schools are we providing if all our students do is throwaway busy work?

And if we are only asking kids to do meaningless stuff, then I want that documented, too, so that we can change.

Our kids deserve that. And so do our societies.

While I think that both of these posts are much better at handling this conversation. Here are my two cents:

Web 2.0 has never been about free stuff for me. Wikispaces was just a way to understand the power of wikis. Blogger was a way to understand the power of blogs. Podomatic was just a way of understanding podcasting. I didn’t think that any of those places were “district solutions”, but I needed them in order to see what was worth keeping and what wasn’t.
I moved on to a hosted wordpress solution, with podpress plugin, and a Google site. All three have backup plans, exports galore and solid business plans behind them (i.e., me and Google)
We need people to try out “the free” in order to figure out “the good”. But, I don’t think that districts can do these kinds of pilots. Individual teachers and other innovators have the flexibility and the direct contact with students to try things out, but the responsibility (and the part that is missing) is the communication with “the district” after those pilots actually happen. When a teacher figures out what “the good” is, the district needs to be able to analyze and see if it is scalable, responsible, and frugal.
Strategy should come from research… in the classroom.