Case 3: Polictical Imperatives

Political Imperatives, Take Two

Bringing about change in humanity, having awareness of human rights issues throughout the world gets to access to information and the information age. Movement from the enlightenment project, a philosophy where knowledge is gained by the impartial, objective observer to the 21^st enlightenment where the world moves to a consciousness of the empathic society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo

Human Rights, Free Speech and Freedom of Expression

What role do individual citizen journalists play in shining light on human rights abuses?

Individual Citizen journalists have the ability to bring to light issues that would not have been told otherwise. They can insight an emotional response from the population that can impact decision makers by either informing them of the existence of an issue or by causing them to respond to issues that they themselves may have created.

Here is a link to a website that is called Witness. Witness uses video to open the eyes to the world about human rights violations.

http://www.witness.org/index.html

Here is an example of a video campaign that was used to bring light to an incident that happened in Oakland California

http://hub.witness.org/oscar-grant

In what ways are citizen bloggers challenging mainstream media in creating awareness about social and political issues?

They are presenting a view that is different than that of the mainstream media as they are not filtered by anyone, nor do they have any limitations in terms of the information that they share. On the other hand, there is no one validating the information. A lot of the information is personal in nature with regards to opinions the lens through which they present the information.

  

Political Imperatives and Education

After reading the chapter on Political Imperatives, specifically the disaster that happened at Wakerton Ontario I was very intrigued by the information that Vicente presented by Jens Rasmussen. Rasmussen created a two part framework that aims to help explain both how accidents occur and how they can be prevented. (Vicente, 2004, p. 271). A couple of questions arise for me as I try and apply this to education. What would an accident in education look like and how can we use this framework to help prevent it?

To begin I thought that it would be interesting to apply his first figure, one which outlines the levels of a complex technological system involved in risk management to the political landscape of education here in Alberta.

Public Opinion-->	Minister of Education	<--Changing Political Climate and Public awareness
	Alberta Learning
	Local Board of Education	<--Changing Market conditions and financial pressures
	Principal and School leadership
	Teachers	<--Changing skills and levels of Education
	Students being taught	<--Fast pace of technological change

There are a number of interesting things that become apparent when applying his level framework to education. As a individual one of the lower rungs of this political ladder it is often very difficult to see where you fit. The first thing that appears to me is the top down nature of the political ladder of Alberta Education. The Minister of Education being influenced by the public applies policies to the ladder to help meet their expectations. There are financial pressures that the local boards feel as a result of the policies that the government chooses to apply to the public and this leads to either, an increase or decrease in funding for everything from dealing with failing or inadequate infrastructure to special programs to meet the needs of all learners. Finally it is becoming more apparent of the technological impact on the learning of students. This change is fast paced and is forcing unforeseen changes to the education system as a whole.

Although I have not included the arrows on the central column, we can talk about the information flow within this system. Student learning and their success is communicated up through this chain to the top. The information arrives on the desk of the Ministry of Education and decisions about the effectiveness can be made. The question arises as to the information that is arriving. Is it solely based on the standardized tests that are administered throughout the year? Is there any anecdotal evidence making it's way to the Minister? It appears to me that the financial pressures and the public opinion outweigh the feedback that is coming from within the system itself otherwise there is insufficient feedback that is making it's way. .

The question then arises as to what an accident might look like in education? There are the obvious accidents that may happen at a school setting that will capture headlines like Wakerton did. These would include, accidents leading to death on things such as field trips or intruders taking the lives of staff and students like in Taber, Alberta. Accident might be an understatement for these events and adjustments have been made in the form of increased paperwork for field trips, more formalized meetings to discuss possible accidents, and the implementation of lockdown procedures monitored/evaluated by local authorities.

But there hiding under the headlines is the greatest accident of education. One that will not capture the headlines like Wakerton or Taber. One where the mission of Alberta Education is not properly met; "Every student has access to educational opportunities needed to develop competencies required to contribute to an enriched society and a sustainable economy." (Alberta Education, 2010, p.1)


To this end how can we evaluate this short coming of education. "Access to opportunities" begin to become apparent when financial pressures mount and public policy dictates the ending of programs, programs designed to meet the needs of every learner. I think of individuals who are falling through the cracks of education, as teachers are overworked with increasingly larger class sizes. What is the boundary of economic failure, the boundary to unacceptable workload, the boundary of real safety for education? I would hasten to state that we are moving ever closer to these boundaries as education is placed under the press of economics and not being evaluated from a bottom up feedback approach. We must call on our politicians to reconsider their approach to modifying education using the litmus test of public opinion, as it is a fickle beast, one of which does not have the long term benefits of every learner in mind.

References

Alberta Education. (2010). Guide to Education. Retrieved from http://education.alberta.ca/media/832568/guidetoed.pdf

Vicente, Kim J. (2004). The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live with Technology. Toronto: Vintage Canada

Organizational Change in Medicine- Recent Developments in Alberta

Reading the chapter on organizational design and it's impact on the ability of organizations to respond to error invokes feeling of disgust and anger. The realization that the way in which an organization suppresses the reporting of errors through it's attempt to catalogue errors and hold people to account, should motivate tremendous change. This change needs to happen particularly in the field of medicine. Is change currently happening and if so is it changing for the good?

To the credit of the Airline industry, they seemed to figure it out, 40 years ago. The development of the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) to allow pilots to report near misses without the ramification of potential firing was a brilliant idea, one that should be modeled by other large organizations/fields. It is beyond my belief that such a sophisticated field such as medicine with it's wealth of highly, highly educated individuals at all levels would not have figured this problem out. Why has there not been the development of a third independent party that would catalogue and share potential problems/solutions for doctors, nurses and the field of medicine as a whole? Think of the potential cost savings both financial and in lives. It is utterly tragic that people continue to die as a result of the blame and shame culture that Vicente writes about. It is horrific that society as a whole does not demand change for the sake of tax payers dollars and lives.

What is happening here in Alberta?

I did some research to see what type of reporting measures we have here in Alberta within the field of medicine. It turns out that the Alberta government recently established a framework for patient safety called the "Patient Safety Framework for Alberta" in September of 2010

The Patient Safety Framework contains 5 key principles which include:

1. Patients are the primary focus,
2. Organizations create a patient safety culture,
3. Information about adverse events is shared in a transparent manner,
4. A systems approach is required to understand and address the complexity of factors that contribute to error
5. A continuous improvement approach strengthens an organization's ability to use new knowledge to make informed patient safety improvements.

It was very exciting to see that there was an acknowledgement of the systems role in harming patients. "Errors are viewed as one factor contributing to patient harms but many other factors in the system also play a role" (Health Quality Council of Alberta, 2010, p.6) How does this framework measure up to the principles that Vicente's writes about on the formation of ASRS?  Is reporting of problems voluntary, confidential, non punitive and to an independent body within this framework?

This particular document highlights 6 strategies for the framework:

1. Implement a Provincial Adverse Event Reporting and Learning System
• the details of this system are not included in the document and thus can not be evaluated with regards to the reporting process
• It is my hope that they are able to make the reporting voluntary and confidential and that this system is an independent body to whom reports are filed.
2. Establish a Provincial Patient Safety Network
• Here is where the experts get involved. This is similar to what Charles Billings created within the ASRS. He had former pilots and experts in the field evaluate and catalogue the reports. The province has something similar in mind as well. 
3. Implement a Model of Safety Management
4. Organizations will develop an implement operational policies on a just and trusting culture, reporting and learning from adverse events, informing and disclosure
• Appears to attempt to get away from the blame and shame culture. This appears to be essential to ensuring that reporting actually will happen. That the culture of medicine get away from burying mistakes and begin a dialogue to talk about them.
5. Build knowledge and Capacity to support patient safety
6. Implement a patient/ family Safety Advisory Panel

It appears as though there has been an attempt to start to address the issue of reporting errors within the field of medicine here in Alberta. It is my sincere hope that the the Health Quality Council of Alberta is successful in establishing a framework that is as effective as the ASRS has been for the airline industry.


References

CTV.ca (September 20, 2010). Making it Easier to Report Medical Errors. CTV Calgary. Retrievied from http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100920/CGY_patient_error100920/20100920/?hub=CalgaryHome

Health Quality Council of Alberta. (September 2010). Patient Safety Framework for Albertans. Retrieved from http://www.hqca.ca/assets/pdf/Sept20/HQCA%20Patient%20Safety%20Framework%20081010.pdf

Vicente, Kim J. (2004). The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live with Technology. Toronto: Vintage Canada

  

Cockpit Resource Managment for teachers?

In reading the chapter titled "Staying on the same page: Choreographing Team Coordination", Vicente writes of the development of Cockpit Resource Management (CRM) within the airline industry. In a nutshell, CRM is a training program that was developed in response to the problems that arose from poor communication that was happening in the cockpit. Pilots were not being trained prior to that on how to communicate and delegate roles effectively in a crisis situation. He recounts the dramatic but tragic the story of a flight crew trying to figure out if a light bulb on the control panel in the cockpit was burnt out. Meanwhile the plane is not being flown by anyone and disturbingly enough the plane crashes killing 99 passengers. The concept of CRM has been applied to other fields including; the operating room and the control room of a nuclear power plant. Although these are very different fields than education, are there not components we could include in the training programs for teachers?

From my experience, training for teachers is a lot of theory and not a lot of practice. The most important part of my teacher training was when I actually ended up in the classroom. Situational type of learning provided me the opportunity to try and put theory into practice. For the most part I did not experience any crisis nor did I encounter too much difficulty as there was always my partner teacher to count on. Can teacher training be improved? Is it possible to incorporate some of the ideas that CRM introduces for teachers? My thought is yes.

What types of situations could a teacher encounter that may require some training? Here is a list of a variety of situations that a person who was designing a teacher training program might consider:

1. dealing with a defiant student,
2. being a sub and dealing with a defiant class,
3. being a sub and teaching outside of your area of expertise,
4. being a sub and not having a lesson plan,
5. planning a lesson in a particular setting/ booking the setting and then not have the setting available,
6. an accident in the lab,
7. an accident while on a field trip,
8. an incident on a field trip that is to happen over a number of days,
9. having a lesson planned and not having access to technology that you thought you would have access to ( Internet down, projector not working) etc. . .

There are so many situations as a teacher that you face that you do not have any training for. You muddle through, do your best and hope for the best. For the most part these are not life and death situations and thus teacher training does not pay attention to these situations.

There are other aspects of CRM that could be applied to teacher training. The idea of involving the video camera, and video taping a teachers lesson should be integral to the training program as well as part of an ongoing self evaluation of teacher practice. School leaders could have colleagues, or leadership video a lesson that a teacher presents and then debrief with the teacher immediately following the lesson. The teacher could take the opportunity to reflect on the video in the presence of the colleague or leadership. Initially there may be some reservations on the part of the teacher, but given the potential that this could become a part of  regular practice then it would gain greater acceptance particularly if there is a sense of  improvement in teaching practice as a whole.

CRM was a great idea for the airline industry and has applications much further abroad. I am not sure that CRM has been applied to the field of education but the potential is there. Improving teacher practice, providing greater training and as a result improving students outcomes. Teacher training needs to be constantly evaluated. Applying CRM to the field of education and teacher training could be a really good thing.

Vicente, Kim J. (2004). The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live with Technology. Toronto: Vintage Canada

Cell Phones and their use in Schools

Always Connected, Always Distracted

Cell phones and their use in schools is something that the entire field of education needs to consider. Recently Dalton McGuinty, priemier of Ontario was quoted at in the Globe and Mail commenting on the use of cell phones in schools:

“Asked for his comments on the Toronto District School Board's plans to rethink a policy that restricts cellphones to lockers during the school day, Mr. McGuinty observed that there is a “right way and a wrong way” to use technology in schools. “Telephones and BlackBerrys … are conduits for information today, and one of the things we want our students to be is to be well-informed.” To paraphrase the Premier: Given the ubiquity of wireless technology, we might as well figure out how to use it effectively in schools.”

Donald Norman writes on the use of cell phones and the impact that it is having on people in general. He writes of the benefits in terms of the availability of contact with friends and family over great distance.
". . . today we can be in continual contact with friends and relatives no matter where we are, no matter the time of day." (p.149) He also writes of the isolation that these devices create. "Walk down the street of any large city in any country of the world and watch the people on their cell phones: they are in their own space, physically adjacent to one location and one set of people but emotionally somewhere else." (p. 152) The contact that is created through the use of the phones and instant messaging in general appears to have a very superficial aspect to it. Norman writes: "We can hold continual, short interactions with numerous people, thus keeping friendships alive. But the more we hold short, brief, fleeting interactions and allow ourselves to interrupt ongoing conversations and interactions, the less we allow any depth of interaction, any depth of relationship." (p. 156)

Keeping in mind Norman's thoughts and the movement to use them in schools what implications does this have for education? Personally I think that cell phones are going to be allowed in the classroom in the near future. How are teachers going to deal with the influx of these phones? Are students going to be able to handle the responsibility of using the phones appropriately in the classroom? Will other issues such as FOIP become more and more apparent? What rights with the teacher and the other students in the class have as well? Schools are going to need to plan for this on slot. School leaders need to begin to prepare for this and initiate discussions with their staff about how to deal with it. School leaders are going to need to have their staff aligned, providing a unified voice about the use of cell phones.

Cell phones are going to provide a great opportunity for teachers and school leaders to talk about character development. When is it appropriate to use a phone? There are obvious times when it is not. Conversations about there use need to happen with students to help educate them about appropriate use. For instance, a teacher may converse with the student, talking about a variety of different times when it is not appropriate to use a phone. Students could be asked: Is it appropriate for you to use your phone while you are driving? Why not? (It is distracting to the driver and not safe)  Is it okay to use it when you are at the movies? Why not? (It is distracting to others) Is it okay for you to pull your phone out at a family dinner? Why not? (You are not being present with your family) Is it okay for you to use it on a first date? Why not? (You are not making a good impression with the person you are on the date with)

Cell phones have their place in society. They keep people connected with each other not unlike anything that we have seen before. The difficulty is clearly establishing what it's place is and having students learn it. Cell phones can be distracting to the user as they multitask, distracting to others as they observe their use, they remove the user from the situation in which they are physically and finally they impact they way others perceive you. Given this students will learn to recognize the times when it is appropriate to use a phone and when it is not.

Norman, D. (2004). Emotional Design: Why we Love(or Hate) Everyday Things. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Pleasure = work

There are numerous technological devices that I personally enjoy on a daily basis. I am sure that everyone has a favorite device that they like to use throughout their day. For myself, I enjoy using my ipod when I exercise, the computer and my cell phone to stay connected with others, the personal video recorder (PVR) that is hooked up to my television. The question arises, What is it about these devices that I enjoy so much. 

Donald Norman speaks to this enjoyment of technology in his book Emotional Design. He states: "Technology should bring more to our lives than the improved performance of tasks: it should add richness and enjoyment" (Norman, 2004, p. 101) He highlights considerations when designing things for pleasure such as physio-pleasure, socio-pleasure, psycho-pleasure and ideo-pleasure.

These different pleasures elicit inspiration for the incorporation of pleasure in the design of the product that we are creating for class, Launch Pad. Is there some form of music/ sound that we should be considering? An aspect that we can pull from movie or a video game that would allow for the creation of Csikszentmihalyi's flow. For example the introduction music that is used for TED talks or a sound bite from a Star Wars movie. How can we create such a visceral response, do we need to hire someone. On the other hand, at what point do you see yourself going overboard. There is a delicate balance that needs to be achieve. It is just enough to focus on some simple detail that changes, like Googles title, which would provide that surprising novelty that Norman speaks about.

Keep it simple, is my thought. The product we are designing is more of a platform for information. A well organized and timely link to information that is going to meet the needs of the learners who click on it. I guess there is the focus. The focus will need to be on the quality of the content. This leads to the next question,  a question that was posed tonight during our presentation. How will we determine that the content that we have selected for our platform will meet the largest number of individuals who will be accessing it. Enter the field of market research?

The Design process I am learning is not a simple one. There are multiple layers that need to be considered prior to the generation of a new product. You may have an idea that is a great one but the devil is in the details. Hard work and careful consideration of what you are trying to accomplish, and the need that you are trying to meet are paramount. And so it continues. . .  

Spry Werx unveils Launch Pad

So here you have it. After meeting with my partners we have come up with what I think is a great little product.

Here is our pitch for our User Centered solution.

Spry Werx Introduces Launch Pad on Prezi

Here is the concept map outlining the ideas that are the foundation of the product that we have come up with.

A big thank-you for the feedback.