I Have a Dream that people everywhere will be able to read "I Have A Dream"

The "I Have a Dream" speech is under copyright. Even on TheKingCenter.org, they have an image of the pages of a book with the speech, but it is displayed such that it is exceedingly difficult to read. I totally understand they have a RIGHT to enforce copyright...but whether the copyright holders like it or not King's most famous speech has become a part of our nation's shared legacy, and I just wrote them to beg that they not enforce that right.

We have free access up until 1923 to the words of people who had a voice...but those who had a voice were a select group. As the 20th century wore on, more women, immigrants, and minorities were able to speak--but we don't hear them nearly as easily. I feel if our copyright laws didn't stop public sharing of our history at 1923, we would be a far, far more progressive and knowledgeable country. 

The prompt on the site was "I have a dream that..." Here's what I wrote:

I have a dream that you will make the text of "I Have a Dream" freely available online, so kids and adults around the nation and the world have an opportunity to learn from this speech. It has incredible, terrific power to teach--about human nature; about the power of focus and determination as well as hope and trust; about the most conflicted, vexing theme of our nation's history and present. And--as an educator of English and literature I must add--it is also an incredible text for studying rhetoric, persuasive techniques, poetic language, word choice, and features of the spoken word versus the written.

I respect that you have the right to enforce copyright. But I beg that you gift the world the privilege of free access to this incredibly important document. We currently have free access to the words of many tellers of the American story, such as Patrick Henry, Lincoln (and indeed all of our presidents), and Mark Twain. But the affect of copyright laws has been that the tellers of our history are restricted to privileged white men. Undeniably, those men have a vital story to tell--but it's not the only story, and the copyright laws have unwittingly perpetuated their antiquated prerogative.

We can't ask all post-1928 world-changing texts to be made freely available (though I think that would be very helpful for reviving and nurturing a civic mind and a sense of compassion and understanding in our country)--but MLK's speech--that is really an exceptional, special piece. Please, reconsider your enforcement of copyright.

(Update: The 1928 was an error. It's 1923.)

MOOCs are not classrooms--but they're pretty amazing

Many of you have probably seen this talk by Daphne Koller, or one like it. She talks about the origin and goals of Coursera, a system that provides MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) from top universities for free to anyone in the world with an Internet connection.

There are plenty of user complaints about online courses, most of them revolving around peer grading (graders don't always grade responsibly or competently) and the lecture-heavy blahbeddy blah of the courses themselves (the platform and reach may be revolutionary, but the pedagogical method is anything but). And the idea that you can "teach" in this format is a fairly maddening claim to most educators (depositing a one-size-fits-all packet of information into a zillion  people's faces with zero interactivity is not "teaching").

But.

Come on! It's amazing! Knowledge is power. MOOCs may not be "classrooms" but they are libraries of knowledge and they have the power to reach hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people.*  They cannot replace schools, or teachers. But they can open a brand-new door for remarkable but underresourced people who can activate that knowledge into growth and action (in a class of 100,000, if even 1% are driven further, that is a pretty impressive mass).

When women gain access to knowledge, they are healthier, their children are healthier, and their societies' economies are healthier. When young men gain access to knowledge, they broaden their understanding of how they might find their place in the world, of what it means to be strong. When any person gains access to knowledge, (s)he develops a mental and psychological framework that would have been impossible without that experience. How can we deny the power of this resource?

MOOCs also provide an unprecedented opportunity to hone and improve the delivery of knowledge. To paraphrase Koller, when two people get a test question wrong, it's meaningless, but when 2000 people do, conclusions can be drawn. Imagine if we could harness just some of the data the millions of American children produce in school, and use it to improve our school system.

Yes. I am aware that this is exactly the kind of thinking that has led to misguided policies related to data-driven instruction, student assessments, and teacher evaluations. But that is because of the patronizing, almost imperialist stance the policy-makers in our land--the legislators and their loud fringe constituents and their very persuasive corporate backers--have adopted toward teachers and teaching. It's their conclusions that are tone-deaf and unhelpful--not the possibilities. You can't solve everything with data and you can't squeeze data from everything. But there must be SOMEthing meaningful we can draw about learning from the digital and analytical powers available. We just need to ask the right questions, use the right tools, and be humble about the incompleteness of what that data can really tell us in a rich and unpredictable human transaction such as teaching. (For the record, we're 0 for 3 there).

Something like 96% of MOOC enrollees never finish the course. Of course that wouldn't be acceptable in an education system--but that's okay, because a MOOC isn't a classroom. If 4% of registrants gain something significant from a MOOC, that's a lot of souls.  A MOOC's strength is  numbers, reach. The strength of excellent teaching is the opposite: personalization, and depth. MOOCS are not classrooms. But they're pretty amazing.



*(Frankly, given our warmongering natures, the ability for one person to communicate convincingly to masses of those numbers is a little staggeringly terrifying, but let's stick to the positive use of that capability for this post, shall we?)

Technology, Teaching, and TED

I wrote earlier about the value of riffing on, rather than condemning, the Khan Academy open-source content model. Others will no doubt take the idea and run with it, and who better than TED, the much adored clearinghouse of “riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”?

Ted has created a body of educational videos now available in Beta. At this point, most are TED footage of inspiring people giving talks and seem shoehorned in to this purpose; a smaller number are animated shorts illustrating  a smattering of interesting but decidedly noncentral concepts described in voice-over. The resulting selection is high quality, but odd--supplemental pieces to be used in the classroom to add dimension and whimsy to a topic.

TED gives kudos to Khan, as it should, but these videos, idiosyncratic as they are right now, are far more engaging and effective than the Khan ones. Their pedagogical surround is also excellent--especially the essay-answer style thinking prompts.  They ask for true critical thought, not irrelevant connections or evidenceless opinions that plague so much response work kids are asked to do. Viewers must think about the video, think about something else they know, and draw specific and thoughtful conclusions. And viewers can open and close the material seamlessly while watching the video, a sensible design that makes a fantastic difference in ease of thoughtflow and workflow.

If you register, you can “flip” a video, by which they mean, in this context, that you can customize it with  your own links and questions, and you can share your “flipped” video with other teachers. (It’s confusing that these proponents of "flipping the classroom"  are introducing a different use for the term “flip” here; I wish they’d thought of a different term.) You can also track the number of views, and kids get instant feedback on the multiple choice questions, though I'm unclear on the logistics of student interaction, such as log-ins and saving answers.

Really, it’s quite good. It’s exciting. And I’m not among the throngs of adoring TED boosters.
I’m a bit confused by TED. I like the talks. I don’t love them. They lack depth and…I don’t know. Substance? I know they’re supposed to be inspirational, visionary—not nuts and bolts—but they come off a bit like marketing to me, like the speakers are trying to sell an idea or a product. And I find the surround at once self-important and breezy.

That said, TED, dedicated to visionary ideas as it is, is ideally suited in many ways to participate in re-envisioning school, and TedEd seems an exciting, promising start. A bit random in topic—so far—it’s in beta—but substantial and thoughtfully crafted in content and usage. And! It’s all free.

Ups and Downs with the Khan Academy

Here’s a clear and interesting summation of the rise and (relative) fall of the Khan Academy. Sal Khan, a very smart and caring guy with no teaching background at all, created thousands of simple videos explaining or demonstrating various school topics, from math concepts to history lessons, and put them online for free use by educators, or anyone else. One goal was to “flip” the classroom—get the lecture out of the way via video (which has the added advantage of naturally individualizing instruction, as students pause and rewatch or fast forward as needed) and save the in-class time for focusing on specific areas of challenge or interest and on collaborative work.

Another goal was also to improve educational access--to circumvent expensive textbooks and other  proprietary paid content and content management. If you register as a teacher, you also get access to  tools for tracking student progress. Schools around the nation have been using these videos as another tool for their teachers and an accessible way to work with changing up the use of class time.

I love the idea of flipping classrooms, for a number of reasons (genuine use of technology the way adults and children in  RealLife actually use it, for one, and making more efficient use of time together, for another). And I'm very interested in the improvements open content will bring to paid content, in pricing, flexibility, and responsiveness. But, while I appreciate his effort and passion, Khan's teaching leaves something to be desired. The videos I looked at are confusing and frankly a bit dull, and sound pitched for an adult ear.

Hey, it’s a wide range of materials, freely accessible and readily adaptable to any educator, child, or curious person, and, while Sal Khan is not a teacher, he does seem to know his stuff, contentwise. The Academy is a reasonable, and gigantic, source for raw materials a teacher could integrate into his or her lesson. But I was a bit perplexed about the effusive welcome and Hallelujah surrounding the Academy, and surprised that the Gates Foundation backed it up with tons and tons of money given its nature as a one-man show of raw material.

So I’m glad to see the critiques about his pedagogy and a slowing down of the celebration. That’s healthy. That said, I find roundly rejecting the videos, and making fun of the premise, completely and totally unhelpful. Khan broke ground on a concept, and the publicity, fanfare, and money behind it will put wings on the process of repetition and improvement—very quickly, others will take the idea and run with it. I’ve already seen other examples from teachers who flipped their own classrooms beautifully—they use similar software to record their own lectures and demos, but they also know their students and their pedagogy.

The videos and other tools have been helpful for some. Those who don't like them can skip them. And maybe--certainly, really--the Khan dream will spark even better ways to combine technology, learning, and limited class time.