Posts from — November 2009

What is right about college athletics about to fall victim to what is wrong.

As a sports fan, and sadly a Notre Dame football fan, I have been closely following the situation involving head coach Charlie Weis. For those who have not, the storied athletic program that was once led by the famed Knute Rockne is simply not winning enough football games.

On Saturday, the Irish fell victim to Connecticut, by college football winning standards, an average team. By other standards, those that involve athletics in its purest sense, UConn is anything but average; certainly not when you have to play through a season in which one of your key players was murdered on campus. In fact, for those who love college football, the win by UConn and the emotional reaction of head coach Randy Edsall demonstrated precisely what amateur athletics is all about.

But the loss left Notre Dame with a six-win, five-loss record. It is the same record that the last Notre Dame team coached by someone other than Charlie Weis had. And sportscasters have been quick to point out that Weis, upon being hired, noted that a 6-5 record simply was not good enough at Notre Dame.

Having Some Academic Standards

That record has most insisting it is time for Charlie Weis to be dismissed with some using the turkey day analogy to make their point. Amidst the great debate as to whether Weis should be fired, it is interesting to note a couple of elements not often talked about by the national media: the idea that amateur athletics should be about developing character and the spirit of competition; that the second most important emotion involves losing; that in the amateur setting, dusting oneself off when goals are not initially reached, to reset them and then try and try again is to teach one of life’s greatest attributes, resiliency.

The national media has also fallen victim to the charade that is college athletics, that today Division I programs are about two things, winning and money. Actually, in the media, it seems to be only about the winning; it is the schools that seem to place the emphasis on the money. Then again, that money is now greatly needed to win.

Notre Dame has actually gone so far as to implement admission standards, meaning you truly have to be a student-athlete to compete at Notre Dame. In fact, it is interesting to note that the Irish have begun having trouble beating Boston College and Navy in recent years, coincidentally as the Irish continue implementing similar admission standards that these two other schools utilize.

And Notre Dame does what it is supposed to do, graduate students, particularly football players. In fact, taking data from college freshman from 1999 to 2002 and using the traditional six year graduation rate, the school matched academic powerhouse Duke for the nation’s highest player graduation rate. According to the numbers released by the NCAA, Notre Dame and Duke graduated football players at a 96 percent rate. Those rates were followed by Navy (93), Northwestern (92), Boston College (91) and Vanderbilt (91).

The average graduation rate for Division I football programs is apparently at an all time high according to the NCAA, now at 67% for Division I football teams. Of course, there is another discussion to be had since federal statistics have the number far lower, at 55%. Still readers of this site will note that these numbers actually are above those of college students as a whole.

But in contrast to Notre Dame, if one looks at the Bowl Championship Series standings where schools are rated according to their football prowess, only one in the top ten, Cincinnati can boast a graduation rate of 70 percent by both NCAA and federal measures. Among the very top teams, one in line for the national championship game, Texas, had a 49 percent NCAA measure and 41 percent federal measure, while another, Florida, had a 42 percent federal graduation measure.

Arrogant or Respected by Players

There are those sportscasters who call Weis arrogant, who point to that initial press conference and his comments about his predecessor going 6-5. Still others point to his off-field behavior even as others note the amazing contract Weis received, i.e. the millions he is getting despite his inability to win more football games.

But we noticed on Saturday, for senior day at South Bend, the Irish did not race out onto the field in traditional fashion. Instead, before the game, Irish captains Eric Olsen and Jimmy Clausen asked Weis to walk arm-and-arm with the captains onto the field.

It was an amazing sight, the captains and the seniors arm-in-arm, with Weis in the middle. It was powerful and the move by the very players Weis is tasked with coaching, the young boys he is asked to turn into men, had the head coach in tears as he entered in the stadium.

Someone with a little different eye, one with a bit more perspective, might have noted that it is rare to see two opposing football coaches tear up at the same athletic event. But such was the case on Saturday.

It was first and foremost, the day Randy Edsall’s UConn team had arguably its biggest win. It was also, at least according to sportswriters, the same day that Irish football coach Charlie Weis sealed his fate in regards to his Notre Dame coaching future.

The contrast could not have been more noticeable, especially since it was simply one more day where the world of amateur athletics took another step backwards.

There are those who are listening to the sportswriters ready to stick a fork into Charlie. Me, I will defer to the men who go to battle with him each Saturday, the same men that sought him out to walk arm-in-arm with him.

And that of course explains the tears – because if I were Charlie, it would be the assessment of those individuals that would matter most to me.

In late October, the educational world lost two disparate giants from the world of education. On October 21st, we learned of the death of the quintessential educational reformer, Theodore Sizer. A native New Englander, Sizer dramatically influenced the instructional practices of thousands of educators including those of yours truly.

One day earlier, we lost Gerald Bracey, a longtime education researcher who had the audacity to truly analyze statistics. Bracey, considered one of the foremost defenders of American public schools used long-term international comparisons to demonstrate that America’s public school actually performed much better than critics would suggest.

Ted Sizer

Ted Sizer was the founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a group that boasts about 600 members. These schools have adopted a specific school reform concept that construct learning experiences for students by focusing on a core set of principles.

Instead of the traditional comprehensive approach to high school Coalition schools focus on ten core principles:

• Learning to use one’s mind well
• Less is more, depth over coverage
• Goals apply to all students
• Personalization
• Student-as-worker, teacher-as-coach
• Demonstration of mastery
• A tone of decency and trust
• Commitment to the entire school
• Resources dedicated to teaching and learning
• Democracy and equity

Those of us who never taught in a Coalition school wondered aloud about some principles until we had the chance to read his groundbreaking book, Horace’s Compromise. Page by page, the book revealed the shortcomings of the 1980’s high school construct, offering a set of ideas that collectively had one wondering how we were able to accomplish anything of note in the factory model of education.

Though I never met Mr.Sizer, after reading Horace’s Compromise and his later follow-ups, Horace’s School and Horace’s Hope, I felt somehow like I actually knew him, or at least had a sense of what he was all about. At times, Mr. Sizer took on the image of his character, “Horace,” the fictionalized English teacher doing his very best to provide a meaningful educational environment for some 100 plus students a day. At other times, I was Horace, the one making all the compromises to survive, and Sizer my administrator, deftly observing and pointing out that I too was often settling for good enough.

My understanding is that Ted Sizer was the epitome of what an educational leader should be. The former Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and headmaster at Phillips Academy in Andover was a brilliant yet reflective practitioner. He clearly subscribed to the Robert Kennedy school of thought, seeing things as they could be and wondering why not.

People spoke highly of his style and his propensity to listen to teachers. His respect for the educational process also meant he spent time with students seeking to determine their views on school and what they had learned.

Most importantly, Sizer’s work represented the antithesis of the current NCLB push, that somehow educational reform can be simplified and codified. Sizer understood real learning was not linear and that mastery could and should be demonstrated in multiple ways.

The current emphases on making larger schools feel smaller and on high expectations for all students were fundamental to Sizer’s principles. Other concepts like the change in teacher role from the “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side” were fueled by Sizer’s teacher as coach model.

Gerald Bracey

Reportedly fearless in the face of power, Bracey was often described in very different terms than Sizer. Adjectives like pugnacious and abrasive were generally used to describe the man who saw Washington as being ignorant and intellectually lazy.

In 1991 he founded the Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency or EDDRA. To most folks it did not seem to matter the subject – whether it was charter schools, teacher merit pay, or high-stakes testing — Bracey stood in opposition.
Even when it came to the concept of standards, Bracey stood in opposition. He was reported as offering this as one of his last Tweets:

“Thinking that the light at the end of the education tunnel is a standards freight train coming our way. Gonna hurt bad.”
Bracey taught the non-statistical world about Simpson’s paradox and the concept of averages. The concept reveals the possibility that data collectively could contradict what happened within subgroups creating the total.

Such was the case with American SAT scores. While minorities and white majorities were each increasing their scores, the large number of minorities now taking the test meant the overall average test scores were decreasing.

Once a person begins to understand Simpson’s Paradox, any thought of supporting NCLB and its various subgroup expectations goes out the window.

Bracey also pointed out in his book, Reading Educational Research, How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered, the workings of former President George Bush and his tax cuts. Bush used the concept of average to create the illusion that Americans as a group were seeing significant tax reductions, about $1500 per person per year.

However, Bracey pointed out that was “on average.” Citing the work of the Washington Post, Bracey noted how the typical teacher would receive a tax reduction equal to the cost of a new television set while someone earning a million dollars a year received a tax break that was roughly twice as large as the typical teacher’s salary. But when these amounts were averaged, every American appeared to receive a substantial break.

Each year Bracey would offer his annual Rotten Apples in Education awards and with it he would take no prisoners. It must be noted that while an enormous critic of George Bush and a one time advocate and campaigner for Barack Obama, he was quick to call Obama to task earlier this year regarding his assertions that three-fourths of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma.

“Not really,” Bracey was quoted. “Look it up.”

It was classic Bracey who had one consistent response to many of the claims being asserted regarding public education, “Show me the data.”

America would do well to adopt the European Model – but for more than just financial reasons.

Given that one in every ten Americans is out of work, the ever-increasing cost of college has brought about a renewed interest in an old concept, the three-year bachelor’s degree option. With Hartwick College in New York and Manchester College in Indiana creating new programs last year, the topic is once again at the forefront of educational discussions.

However, the resurgence in the concept, fueled further by the recent Newsweek article featuring the insight of former education secretary Lamar Alexander, appears centered solely upon the goal of providing a more affordable college degree option for students. Of course, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

At Hartwick for example, the idea theoretically will save students one full year of tuition and fees, or about $42,000. That is because Hartwick has taken the extraordinary step of pricing tuition for the program independent of the number of semester credit hours.

Instead of the traditional 30 credits a year, students in the three-year bachelor’s program at Hartwick take 40. Yet, the school offers the additional five credit hours per semester, or ten per year, at the same pricing level as the 15 credit hour per semester price.

At Manchester, students continue to pay the same cost per credit hour, so tuition remains the same. Instead, the savings center more upon the reduction of one full year of room and board costs (the school is using a savings figure of $25,000).

Other schools are certainly implementing the concept but the current push is offered primarily as a way of offsetting those soaring tuition costs and reducing the enormous debt students have been taking on in recent years. It rarely ever receives attention in terms of academic rationale, either taking an in-depth look as to the reasons for the longstanding, 120-credit, four-year standard most colleges utilize today or if another standard might actually be appropriate.

Opposition by Faculty, Trustees and Students

Somewhat surprisingly, the general consensus on the three-year bachelor’s option is one of opposition to the concept. We say surprisingly as that opposition exists in three separate populations.

As one might expect, some faculty members and university trustees remain opposed. Each camp often offers different reasons for that view.

Some suggest that a student’s academic and social experience would be weakened by shortening the standard program to three years. Yet another group, the real traditionalists, fear the change would result in a shift from the idea of higher education as a broad-based learning experience to one that is focused on job training. Still others insist that such an option will produce less revenue overall for the school and potentially longer hours for faculty.

The biggest surprise is that the idea does not appear to be all that popular with students either. Most appear to prefer spending a minimum of four years in college, apparently wanting a four-year experience that offers the full package, academic, social, and athletic.

Proponents of the three-year option might suggest that students may not be all that interested in growing up quite so fast. Whatever the case, they are the clients and the fact is there has been relatively little student interest in three-year programs in prior years.

Three-Year Model Popular in other Countries

In a sign that it just might be time for review, the four-year bachelor’s degree dates back to the time of the American Revolution. The idea was to provide a broad-based education to ensure the ability of citizens to properly participate in a civic democracy.

However, in the last dozen years, the three-year degree model has become commonplace overseas. It was in June of 1999 that European countries entered into the Bologna Accord, a set of universal educational standards for the continent. The agreement brought with it the acceptance of a three-year Bachelor Degree program though most students enrolled only after completing a further year of education at the secondary level.

In addition to Europe, countries like India and Pakistan have offered three-year degree programs for quite some time. In both countries, the three years of higher education comes after twelve years of elementary and secondary education.

Of course, there is nothing noteworthy about three or even four years for that matter. If a degree is a measurement of learning, then there should be an agreed upon set of very specific learning outcomes required for earning such a degree. When those outcomes have been accomplished and a student can demonstrate mastery, a degree should be awarded.

That is precisely what the Bologna Accord provides and what America lacks. Instead, American colleges require a collection of 120 credits and individual documentation of completion of the courses making up those credits.

It is extremely interesting to note that once upon a time American high schools required a total of 16 or 17 credits for graduation. As standards have increased, students now must collect 20+ in most school districts.

But the move nationally is to develop and implement a uniform set of standards that are used to measure the knowledge base accumulated while taking those courses. The move away from seat time as the primary measurement tool is considered long overdue. Given that sentiment, one would think such a move would be underway at the collegiate level as well.

Time for New Options May Have Come

In addition to the tuition and room and board cost savings, proponents of the three year program also note that such an option would enable students to enter the workforce a full year earlier. Such a move would of course allow students to tackle the potential issue of debt from both sides.

Right or wrong, the three year idea is catching on. Lawmakers in Rhode Island have gone so far as to approve a bill to require institutions of higher education to create three-year bachelor’s programs to begin next fall.

Still, one would think that students would much prefer the Hartwick model that continues the basic two semester approach and the flat tuition. That allows students the chance to recharge their educational batteries and to either earn some cash during the summer break or travel abroad.

Better yet, instead of simply trying to find ways for students to finish in three years, it seems to be time to examine the longstanding 120-credit standard. Coming up with an agreed upon set of standards to govern program content would result in programs that are not about time but substance instead.

Undoubtedly, students would need to be more focused if the time horizon were shortened. Changing majors and drifting academically through a number of interests is not conducive to finishing in three year’s time. Shorter programs would also mean that students would have less time to grow up before entering the world of work.

But nothing in the three-year concept would prevent students from taking greater time should they desire to do so.

But for the three-year concept to truly earn its stripes with faculty, staff and students, a different approach is required. Creating a finite set of required standards and the programming that helps students meet those standards comes first.

Otherwise, three-year programs, while saving students thousands of dollars, could actually be just less time, and unfortunately, less substance.

New comic strip site moves into the education market with BitStripsforSchools

It has been almost two years since we did our four-part feature on the use of comic books in the classroom. At that time we discussed the comics movement in light of the increased emphasis in the educational setting on student engagement and enhanced learning, two elements that spoke directly to the issue of teachers capturing the attention of their students.

Specifically, when it came to struggling young readers, it was clear that one way hook and thus engage students was to turn to the world of comics. While the initial reaction of some was that teachers were lowering their educational standards and reinforcing lazy reading habits, many others, understanding that teaching begins with getting student attention, decided to give comics a try.

For those educators still on the fence, we followed our initial post with an excellent interview with Chris Wilson of The Graphic Classroom. Most importantly, Chris clearly articulated how the graphic format could be used to enhance any reading program, not just those who struggled with the reading process.

Making Comic Strips

Teachers already using such the comics format no doubt understand how the creation of comic strips by students can become a teaching tool for reluctant writers as well.

Given what we had learned, we were extremely intrigued with a new web site called BitstripsforSchools.com. Just as one might expect, it is computer software that allows students to create their own comic book characters and story lines or strips.

Like Chris who grew up with an interest in graphic novels, Jacob Blackstock, the CEO of BitStrips Inc., always had an interest in drawing his own comics.

In fact, Jacob acknowledges that on the one hand he often got into trouble for drawing comics instead of paying attention while in class, but that on the other would get high marks for handing in comics as schoolwork.

With his site BitStrips, Jacob appears to have resolved this longstanding paradox. Having started, and stopped the university academic scene a number of times, Jacob had to teach himself classical animation, a step that helped him create his own 14-minute cartoon.

But the process of drawing the same character over 15,000 times (3 years worth of work) had him thinking of easier ways to repeat a creative process that could become tedious at times. With the help of David Kennedy, Shahan Panth, Jesse Brown, Dorian Baldwin and Tom Smahel, the group would create Bitstrips and offer just such a path for other would-be cartoonists.

Over the past ten days we posed a number of questions to the CEO of Bitstrips Inc. Below, as is our practice at OpenEducation, we offer his Q & A verbatim for our readers.

Can you give our readers a brief history of how Bitstrips came to be?

Bitstrips Inc. is a six-man team from Toronto, most of whom have been friends since high school. Collectively, we’ve been making comics, cartoons, and interactive games all our lives. After years of drawing the same things over and over again (animation and illustration can be tedious work), we found ourselves looking for a way to speed up the creation process – to minimize the time it takes to bring an idea to life in a shareable form. This quest led to the development of our Comic Builder, which we strived to make the easiest, most fun, and fastest way to make great-looking comics using a computer. As we reached this goal, we realized that the Comic Builder had a greater purpose than just speeding up the process:

Since then the response has been overwhelming, with increasingly phenomenal usage. In our first month, we’ve had over 50,000 student accounts created. Currently the students are producing more than 6000 comics every day, and this number is increasing rapidly. And, most importantly, the teachers are thrilled to see just how engaged their students are while using Bitstrips.

Can you explain the differences between the two sites, particularly the attributes that are unique to the BitstripsforSchools site?

BitstripsforSchools.com contains all the technology from Bitstrips.com, but with added security and administration features designed specifically for the school setting. Unlike Bitstrips.com, which is an entertainment site open to the public, BitstripsforSchools enables teachers to create virtual classrooms, which are essentially walled gardens that have no links to the wider web. These classrooms are just for students, and the teacher is in control. Administrative functionality allows teachers to monitor all activity within the class, and moderate content before it’s shared with the class.

Another unique aspect of BitstripsforSchools is that it gives teachers the ability to create specialized activities, and even share them with other teachers. This makes the site much more versatile and applicable to specific curricula. For example, if the class is reading a certain book, the teacher can create an activity that involves adapting a scene from the book into comic form. Any subject, from language to social studies to science, can be turned into an engaging comic-creation activity. And, as these activities are shared between teachers via the Activity Library, BitstripsforSchools will become exponentially more useful – teachers can search for activities by grade and subject, and add comments or ratings to assist other teachers in finding what they need.

Can you talk a little bit about the creativity available to students on the site – while basic character traits are available, it appears that students can customize each of their characters? And what attributes are available should they try to ‘cartoon’ themselves?

One of the key ideas behind Bitstrips is that it’s not just about making comics – it’s about making comics that star YOU and your friends. This makes the experience more personal, fun and engaging. So, when developing the character builder, we tried to make it as flexible as possible, so that it’s easy to create an appealing, recognizable caricature of yourself or anyone you know.

One of the special features we’ve added to BitstripsforSchools is a class picture that lives on your homepage. As each student creates his or her character (also known as avatars), it automatically appears in the group shot. So, when a teacher creates a Bitstrips classroom, they get to watch this scene fill itself up with cartoon versions of the whole class, which is a lot of fun for everyone.

Can you describe the types of emotions and actions available for characters? Is this fairly limited at this time?

One of the best things about building characters on Bitstrips is that there’s so much you can do with them. These characters are not just simple designs, they’re actually very expressive little puppets that can convey a lot of nuanced information without even using a word balloon.

So, from a single character design, there are truly endless possibilities when it comes to facial expressions and body language – which plays a big part in the unique way that comics can visually communicate thoughts and feelings.

How about the strips – is there a limit to the number of frames available or can a student create a story length cartoon?

A comic can have up to eight rows, with as many panels per row as the action will allow (usually no more than four). Generally this seems to be more than sufficient – though, for those students with more epic inclinations, they can build longer stories by creating multiple chapters. On Bitstrips.com we’ve had users create ongoing series with hundreds of episodes.

Talk a little bit about the art library currently available (characters, scenes and props). And what is in the works for expanding this library?

In addition to the characters, there is an art library containing a growing selection of props, furniture, backgrounds, and special effects. We like to think of the items in the library not as clip art, but rather as ‘smart art’ – that is, any given object may have multiple viewing angles as well as different states. For example, we have a banana that can be peeled, drawers that open and close, and water that transforms from a drop to a puddle. Discovering these extra states (and finding uses for them) has proven to be a fun part of exploring the library for our users.

The art library also contains full scenes, which combine backgrounds, props and furniture to make it faster and easier to create your comic. We’re working on new batches of artwork and plan on releasing regular updates throughout the year. We get lots of requests for specific items to be added to the library, and we try to make sure that the most commonly requested bits go to the top of our list of new things to design. Currently we’re working on some major updates that should really add to the fun – new clothing, animals, musical instruments, and more…

Your site notes that students can email their comics home, print them out, or paste them into other applications. What are some of the other common applications students can use?

For those who want to work beyond the confines of the comic strip format, graphics from Bitstrips can be copied and pasted into other image editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop. We’ve seen people copying their characters into posters, calendars, Powerpoint presentations, profile pics for blogs and Twitter accounts – you name it. Some industrious folks have even created flipbook animations on Youtube by exporting individual panels as frames. We’re constantly amazed to see Bitstrips art pop up in the least expected places.

What are some of the not so obvious, indirect learnings that Bitstrips can offer students?

There’s been a huge amount of emphasis lately on the power of comics as a tool for enhancing student engagement and literacy. We’ve also seen teachers use it for other subjects – art, social studies, even math.

Meanwhile, whatever the subject being studied, there is always the underlying fact that BitstripsforSchools is a social media application, and I think learning to use social media in a constructive way is very important for today’s students. While using Bitstrips, students will find themselves indirectly learning about appropriate online behavior, digital collaboration, and other essential skills for navigating the increasingly complex world of the web.

One real key aspect of comics is its ability to help students who are English as Second Language Learners. Are there other languages currently available for teachers?

BitstripsforSchools is currently available in English and French (we are a Canadian company, after all). It is very likely that in the near future we will add more versions of the site in different languages. We’ve already got users in every corner of the globe, and since the teachers write the activities and their students write the comics, there’s really nothing stopping anyone from using the tools in any language. But, as demand increases, we will certainly add more support (ie properly translated interface, activities and documentation) for other languages.

Educators are always concerned with Internet safety – talk a little bit about what filters/precautions you have in place?

While developing the site, we were very aware that safety would be a prime concern for teachers, and thus it’s been a major factor in how we set things up. Our guiding principle is that the teacher is in control. When a teacher opens an account, they create a ‘virtual classroom’ that is essentially a walled garden with no links to the wider internet. Students can still access this classroom from their home computers, but there’s no way for anyone outside the class to access it, and no way for the students to stumble upon any content that hasn’t been reviewed by their teacher.

We have a number of moderation controls, designed to help teachers track and deal with all the activity within the class. They can choose to have all comics sent to them for review before approving them to be shared with the other students. Students can flag comics or comments as inappropriate, at which point they are rendered invisible to the rest of the class and brought to the teacher’s attention. Comics containing profanities are flagged automatically.

Can you briefly go over the pricing structure and what comes with each pricing level? Can teachers sign off and on easily (so as to have access for one, two or three month periods should they choose)? And do you foresee a time when there might be a very basic option available to schools for free?

We offer subscriptions on either a monthly or annual basis. For a single-classroom account, which supports up to 40 students, it’s $9.95 per month, or $87 for a full year. Teachers with more than one class can also get a multi-classroom account, which supports up to 6 classrooms, for $29.95 per month or $265 for a year. All accounts come with free updates and upgrades, and unlimited comics and activities.

It’s possible that some day we might be able to figure out a more basic version that could be freely available – but we still have a lot of work to do before we can afford to develop something like that. In the meantime, any teacher can try the full-featured service for free by signing up for a 14-day trial account. All paid accounts also include the free trial for the first two weeks.

Can you provide teachers a couple of contacts that are currently using BitstripsforSchools should new potential users want to pursue specific questions about the site and its application?

For a contact outside our company, I’d point people to the blog of Doug Peterson, who is a Computers in the Classroom Consultant here in Ontario, and is also part of the OSAPAC committee that recommended the license to the Ministry. He’s been a great evangelist for Bitstrips, and has posted some great articles on his blog, like this one.

Meanwhile, any potential users with specific questions should feel free to get in touch with us directly anytime by emailing us at info@bitstripsforschools.com. We’re always very happy to talk with educators about the service – direct communication with teachers has been a huge part of the site’s development since day one.