Another side of the coin

I was reading in T.H.E. Journal, a nice little free education tech journal I subscribe to, and found a blurb from Computer Science Teachers Association stating that the number of computer science courses being offered in high schools has dropped by about 20% in the last few years. Naturally the article claimed this was a big problem. "Our innovation economy requires that students take an interest in computing, but a host of factors point in the other direction." said the CTSA director. 

As I read the article I just thought to myself, "Well, most of computer science is coding and computer logic." (At least it was in 2000 when I last took a CS course). This is exactly the kind of stuff we're farming out to India. It's just a sign of that trend and the decreased importance of left-brained thinking that we're offering fewer CS courses. Kids can be interested and highly talented in computing without knowing computer code.

I said as much to a friend and she disagreed. She said her son was a programmer and they were finding that subcontracted coding led to miscommunications and lost time. Apparently he said the pendulum was swinging back to keeping coding in-house since it's more efficient to have your team under one roof.

I wonder which perspective is more accurate. I'm inclined to think that her son's argument was partially wishful thinking on his part. That said, A Whole New Mind was printed 2 years ago so it's possible trends in outsourcing to Asia have changed slightly. All the same, Pink's argument for the importance of right brained thinking seems to still be valid either way. 

Texting and learning for "Generation Z"

I was thinking back to a conversation our cohort had in Austin in which we discussed the differences between four generation groups. I think it was the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the Millenials. A lot of words were said about how impatient and tech-centric the Millenials were.

Some people may recall that I had raised my hand but when Dr. Zipperlen called on me I declined to speak. It was the end of the class period after all and I'm pretty sure it was Thursday too so we were all ready to get out of there and take a break and the Oasis. What I had planned to point out though was that by the definition of a "Millenial" (born 1980-2000) Mary Anne and I were Millenials and I really didn't think it was fair to lump us in with the kinds of kids we were describing. Granted, I've admitted to appreciating video games and the potential for technology to help reach kids but I'm still very disconnected from "kids these days".

This was driven home for me in a big way last week when I was listening to NPR on the way home. There was a story about Utah passing a law to ban text messaging while driving. The spin was that to help monitor this certain companies were developing programs that would shut off cell phones to all but emergency calls if the phone detected that it was in a moving car. "'Driving While Intexticated", there's a term I'd never heard before.  My immediate thought was "Why would you need a device for it? If it's dangerous and illegal the kids will stop". 

Then they interviewed a girl who had been in TWO car accidents caused by her texting. The first caused pretty serious injuries to her with a long recovery. Here's a quote from her on not texting while driving: "I tried really, really hard not to," Terry says. "Then it got to the point where I would do it only once every 5 minutes. I would rarely do it — it got to the point where when I was alone in the car, I would do it," she says. "I don't know — it's just so addicting, I just can't put it down." Wow. Just wow. This is after TWO accidents. I text in the car once in a while but if Texas passed a law against it I would stop. 

Here's the link to that story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113132868&ps=rs

Anyway, I'm saying all this to point out the speed of change. In Dr. Zipperlen's class we were identifying generations in terms of roughly the same time periods (20 to 30 years) but my discomfort with being lumped with Millenials really points out that things are changing so quickly that nowadays a 20 year period is too wide a gap to try to draw major generalizations about people. I had a Nintendo hooked on to my TV at the age of 5 but the kids in my classroom have had a cell phone and a Nintendo DS in their pocket since they were 4. And that girl from the article? She's 19. So she was born in 1990. She's separated from today's 5th grader by 9 years.

As educators we really need to pay attention to the specifics of the diverse people working with us. Plenty of the teachers in our classrooms at this point were born after 1980. That still doesn't make them very similar to the children in the classrooms. And who know what kids in 5 years will be like. But as leaders in education we'll need to be able to come to terms and hopefully identify with all of them.

Fortunately A Whole New Mind offers some nice practical ideas for trying to stay current with some of these changing trends in the portfolio sections.

Unnecessarily-Left-Brained thinking...

Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind says: "And if a picture is worth a thousand words, a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures" (50).

So....

IF

1 picture = 1000 words

AND

1 metaphor = 1000 pictures

THEN

1 metaphor = 1,000,000 words

But...

The metaphor he used to follow that claim was only 34 words...

:-)

Linguistic Syngery

The word "breakfast" is a pretty good word. It conjures good thoughts and feelings of home.

The same is true for the word "burrito". Who doesn't like burritos?

I submit to you that the expression "breakfast burrito" commands positive connotations and emotions that amount to much more than the sum of its parts.

New Blog!

I just set up my new blog! I've been avoiding these just like I avoided cell phones for many years. That said, I think I will enjoy blogging. Communicating through text has always been one of my favorite things. 

More to come.