Monthly Archives: July 2013

Fluoresce

Image of Coulter Counter lit up

(This machine doesn’t actually use fluorescence, but it was far more photogenic than the machine that did. Coulter counters count cells using changes in impedance. Sorry about sacrificing scientific accuracy in the name of art. It’s the designer in me.)

In our lab, we used Picogreen, a reagent used to sort out double-stranded DNA from RNA, single-stranded fragments, and random free nucelotides. When the reagent encounters double-stranded DNA, it binds to the molecules and fluoresces. Keeping track of the fluorescent signals helps the scientists to know more about the quality of their samples.

I’ve been feeling rather like a free nucleotide floating in the miasma for much of this project. The past week, however, I had to put together a slide show for my lab explaining what I learned, and I realized that more “stuck” than I realized. I missed the individual signals, but found substance in the aggregate.

So my fluorescent moment is that learning can be slow and subtle, even to the point where we might miss it on the first scan. But once the catalyst starts to work, and we know what to look for, those tiny points of light coalesce into something illuminating, brilliant, beautiful.

One Giant Leap

40 years ago last week, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon.

The computer system that guided Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins on their iconic flight was less powerful than a USB thumb drive.

This story has been running through my head over the past week as I have been musing the question about implementing the Common Core, NC Essentials, and digital learning tools. On one hand, I do think that the standards will have more administrators paying attention to whether or not teachers are using digital learning tools. On the other hand, I also think that, without a clear understanding of what “implementation” can mean, we will end up with more stories like the one Christina Lowman shared, wherein “ELMO on” is interpreted as “digital learning.”

As educators, it is incumbent upon us to talk about what “implementing digital learning tools” means, and to remember that it isn’t the technology but the tool-user that is our moonshot. In what ways are we helping students use digital learning tools so that they make take their own giant leaps?

Curriculum

On the long drive home from Raleigh tonight, the thought occurred to me that writing curriculum is akin to writing poetry. It’s easy to get distracted by the how, the words, the activities, the we coulds, and so difficult to stay focused on the what, the big ideas, the spaces and rhythms, the multiple layers compressed into the most spare, efficient use.

My verbosity shows my hand. I need to seek poetry.

Fumbling Towards the Clear Blue

photograph of sky through trees

DNA polymerase, transcriptome, amplicon, pyrosequencing…

I teach elementary school.

So far, much of what I’ve encountered in the lab has involved highly technical aspects of molecular genetics, all of which is completely new to me. I’ve been able to connect the work obliquely to important things my students need to know (scientific notation, microorganisms exist everywhere, many different people choose to become scientists), and I’m sure more connections will pop up once the back burner does its work. But those connections are of secondary importance.

Right now, the piece I will hold most dearly when I am once again with my students is the lost; the feeling of helplessness that pervades so much of my time in the lab; the frustration at trying to run full pace up a mountainside without a path, map, or proper shoes. I am grateful for Belen’s wise and patient teaching and for the support of lab mates Vicky and Cassandra. But I am a driven person, and the feeling of being the weak link gnaws at me. The mountain is as much my own ego as anything else.

As a specialist in gifted education, I work with students who are also driven. They, too, teeter on the brink between an all-consuming hunger for knowledge and a total, paralyzing fear of failure. Like me, they often veer towards safer passages rather than bushwhack their way through unknowns.

I think back to students who brought forth tears when pushed into that gray area. “I will hold you close,” I have said to them, “but there is no turning back. I need you to head this way.” I tell myself that now with each tiny new word added to my lexicon, each remembered step, each molecule of knowledge: each hard-won fingerhold en route towards the clear blue.

Hacked

Technophile?

Luddite?

Cyborg?

Earlier today I read an article on the computer-controlled cockroaches at NCSU, and I could hear the sci-fi (g)rumblings of the tech-no-philes growing in my head. Equally, the sci-fi promises of technophiles (in the conventionally-spelled manner) also rang out. But practically, what might this brave new world mean, particularly in the context of elementary education?

Cybernetic cockroaches aside, technology in the classroom is maybe a little less brave/new than either side would like to admit. I remember when my (personal) elementary school won an Apple IIe from the grocery store, and getting to use it to program triangular turtles FWD 25. Before that, overheads made think-alouds more transparent (pun sort-of intended), and even earlier, my parents ducked-and-covered to filmstrips intended to bring a touch of movie magic to mandatory matinees (ding). Pencils, pens, mimeographs, textbooks, hornbooks, styluses, tablets (stone or otherwise), each era has had some sort of tool at the ready to disseminate information.

So in some ways, the idea of “new” technology in the classroom is a continuation of what has always been there. Filmstrips begat overheads begat Powerpoint begat Prezi, with mutants, sports, hybrids, and other adaptations along the way. On the other hand, the promise of a truly individualized learning environment never really materialized. Even more, the dark shadows at the edges of this Utopian dream seemed to multiply as rapidly as technologies do today. Are people too dependent? Can we still pay attention? Can we survive? What are the implications for access/restriction of access?

As a teacher in a high-poverty school, I wrestle daily with these shadows. I watch my children, either plugged in and downloading or staring jealously from the side. What strikes me, though, in both cases, is how my students think about technology. They see it as unlimited infotainment, tidbits of interesting available for their consumption. It is everyday magic and unquestioned.

This, to me, is the most interesting challenge I face in leveraging technology, and one that extends beyond the question of accessing the Internet to watch a flipped video. To me, this challenge is about the very stuff of education: teaching for freedom. In his book, Radical Equations, Bob Moses frames education as a civil right in that it makes individuals and communities more free. In our post-modern age, I believe that teaching for freedom includes enabling students to reclaim the old meaning of technology, to re-define technology as a tool that they can control, manipulate, and re-mix in their own quests for freedom.

I have posted before about the Maker Movement, and I still feel that the Maker spirit is one way to reclaim technology. For example, at Maker Faire NC this year, tatters, 3D printers, and a trebuchet shared the same venue. Though the technologies showcased differed in electronic components and associated time periods, all displays showcased people learning, sharing, and pushing the boundaries of the tools available to them in order to realize their personal dreams, to become more free in the existential sense. This is the technology I strive for in the classroom.

Cockroaches optional.