40 Days to Personalized Education: A call to action September 20, 2012

*** If you need the cliff notes version of this post, skip down to the Call to Action section!

Last year I had a “hunch” about learning…specifically about curriculum.  That hunch turned into a full-fledged idea and a mission to do better for kids.  Everywhere.  Along the line I met some truly incredible people who taught me things I didn’t know how to do before.  Like wire framing (thanks @ianchia), and pitching ideas (thanks @houseofgenius), and how to go about picking up programmers (thanks@toma_bedolla).  Now I’m ready to share the culmination of all this work with you.

This isn’t just a post to tell you about what I’m doing, it is a call to action for everyone (yes, even you).  It is a request for you to join me in this mission in whatever form that may take.

I have a vision: to make personalized learning a reality for EVERY child. 

I know, it is big.  It is also doable.

For those who are new to following me, here was my original “hunch” written here,Dreams of Education:

“The problem with curriculum and textbooks is that they complete thoughts.  Curriculum and textbooks give the impression that learning has an end.  That when you have made it from cover to cover, the job is done.  I know in my own schooling this was true, I thought that school was teaching me what was important and that anything outside of the curriculum wasn’t important or relevant to my life…wouldn’t they have included it otherwise?  How did curriculum get this way?  Well, people realized that there was no possible way to cover every facet of learning, so they stripped it down to what they thought was important.  The problem? What is important to you may not be what is important to me.  What’s more, something that is very important to me may have been cut all together so I don’t even get the chance to know that it is important to me.  Humans tend to like things that are definable, we like things that we can put into a neat, orderly box and carry out in a predictable way.  It feels safe and manageable.  This is what led me to the following hunch:

What if curriculum was more flexible?  What if curriculum/schools/learning looked more like Pandora.  If you aren’t familiar with Pandora, it is an online radio station that plays the music that it thinks you will like.  You type in an artist or song and it creates a customized radio station just for you.  It is remarkably accurate.  Pandora almost never gets it wrong for me.  It is like they have a direct line to my brain and can predict what song I would like to hear next.  When it is wrong, I can give the song a thumbs down and it apologizes profusely for the error and promises never to play that song again on my station.  The other thing I love about Pandora: I can have multiple radio stations.  Because sometimes I really couldn’t think of anything in the world better than Frank, Dean, and Sammy; but other times  I also want a little Timberlake, Whitestripes, or Bangles.  What if curriculum looked like that?  What if learning happened as a result of typing in one subject or topic that a student was enamored with and a completely personalize learning journey began playing out for them?  What if students were led through a journey that was completely customized?  What if they had several stations mapped out for them?”

I believe this is possible.  I believe it is within our reach to create a completely personalized learning experience to every unique child.  I believe that we can honor humanity instead of treating our kids like widgets in a factory.  I believe that teachers should be teachers, focused on the needs and development of the child instead of teaching the masses through scripted curriculum.

This is The Learning Genome Project.

The Learning Genome Project will empower teachers and parents to become engineers of learning by providing each individual student the exact content they need, at the exact moment they need it.  The Learning Genome will enable students to explore the process of inquiry, experimentation, discovery and problem solving.  Instead of learning how to pass the next test, we will enable students to construct meaning and learn how to transfer that meaning to new life context.  At the hub, the Learning Genome is a platform that aggregates resources and, using a series of algorithms, provide recommendations of the BEST resources to meet the individual learning needs of a specific child.  The Learning Genome creates those serendipitous moments of finding just the right learning tool to meet the needs of children at the right time.

Much like Pandora finds that perfect piece of music, the Learning Genome will find the perfect piece of learning material to aid the student in learning.  The key to the Learning Genome’s success is crowd sourcing.  I will be drawing on educators around the world (that’s you!) to help me tag curriculum, books, lessons, videos, apps, websites and other educational content.  This collection of tagged content lives in the centralized ”cloud” and wil allow users around the world to find and access materials that best suit student needs.  By gathering information about the individual student’s learning style preferences, multiple intelligence strengths, social/emotional levels, interests and passion, the Learning Genome can help teachers to create customized learning maps for each individual.  This portion will be free. Every child deserves a unique learning experience.

In addition to the Learning Genome Hub (the aggregate), the site will include a complete Student Information System, planning tools, e-portfolios, e-learning, individual learning plans, assessment and blogging tools.  All of these will work seamlessly together for you go-to for learning and planning.

Changing the world here.

Call to Action

So…how can you help?  I’m glad you asked!

1.  Learn more about the Learning Genome at indiegogo.

2. Please consider investing in this mission (see the awesome perks that includes below).

3.  Blog about the Learning Genome with a link back to the indiegogo campaign (be sure to link to those posts you write in the comments below!)

4. Tweet about this project…a lot.  Let’s completely take over the Internet with tweets about the Learning Genome and taking over education for kids! Please make sure to link back to the indiegogocampaign so that others can learn about it! Use the hashtag #standagain (because after all, we are helping children “stand again” in their learning)

5. Offer your time as a Learning Genome Content tagger or beta tester

6.  Mention us on Facebook and like us on Facebook!

7.  Did I mention spread the word? Seriously, that is SO helpful!  You never know who might see that tweet and drop a couple thousand (or more) to make this project go!

8.  Time is of the essence.  I have 40 days starting NOW to make this happen.  eeek!  I need your help!

So, what are the perks to helping with this project?  

$5  gets your name on the Learning Genome Change Makers page.  You are changing education. That makes you a big deal.  I want everyone to know what a big deal you are!  I know many of you don’t think that your $5 can do anything.  Wrong.  According to my cluster map, I have hundreds of thousands of visits to this blog.  If each of you pitches in…we all win fast!

$10 Remember all those cool Bloom’s Taxonomy posters I made?  This campaign is now the ONLY place you can get them.  These are 8.5″ x 11″ versions of the poster.

$30 Learning Genome beta tester. You get the inside scoop and ability to play before ANYONE else.  I know, pretty cool.

$60 EXCLUSIVE A full size large-format print of my Bloomin’ Peacock mailed to you.  That awesome little Peacock looks even better large.  Did I mention this is the ONLY place you will get a big version of this?

$500 Even more EXCLUSIVE  you get all of my Bloom’s re-imagine posters in the large format.  Perfect for your classroom, library or as a gift to your favorite teachers.

$1000  My Searching for daVinci webinar for your school.  What better way to spend your professional development dollars than learning how to create a daVinci like culture of learning at your school?  Worth it!

$5000 For my corporate friends who want to see their logo in lights as a company that supports education and changing the world.  If you have an education company, The Learning Genome Project will be the place to be seen.

 

We have $85,000 to raise.  It sounds like a big number.  We can do it together.  I figured if I am going to lean on crowdsourcing to transform education, the funding should be crowdsourced too.  How awesome will it be to join together as an education community to say, together we transformed the way learning is done.  We changed things for every child in the world.  Yeah, it’s big.

From out of the dust, dreams #invisiblechildren March 13, 2012

In preparation for our next Parent University at Anastasis Academy, I’m re-reading Seth Godin’s education manifesto “Stop Stealing Dreams.”  In the manifesto, Seth proposes the following question:

 

“Does the curriculum you teach now make our society stronger?”

For the first time in my 9 year education career, I can say, “yes!”  Of course I have to preface that with, we don’t really teach a “curriculum” in the traditional sense of the word.  Instead, we have inquiry topics that give us a rough guide for learning and the Common Core standards that ensure the basics are covered.  (And I do mean basics. Have you read through them all?  They are underwhelming to say the least.)

 

I found the following to be all too true in curriculum:  “There’s no room for someone who wants to go faster, or someone who wants to do something else, or someone who cares about a particular issue. Move on. Write it in your notes; there will be a test later. A multiple choice test.”

 

When I was dreaming of a new kind of school, I knew that it couldn’t be tied to a one-size-fits-all boxed curriculum.  I have yet to meet two children who are identical.  We are all unique, we all have interests and passions. We all have our own set of gifts and weaknesses.  To measure every student against a predetermined “completely educated student” model isn’t going to work. Why is it that we keep pushing this idea that every child should look the same upon exiting their formalized schooling?  My guess is that we do it because we are lazy, because it is easy to take something that is measurable and create a system around it.  Only, humans aren’t easily measured are they?  I feel like every standardized test score should come with an asterisk next to it that explains the intricacies of the score.  “This score is misleading because….” Followed by the multitude of reasons that the score doesn’t really offer an accurate picture at all.

 

At Anastasis, we aren’t in the business of measuring kids against some antiquated idea of educational perfection.  Instead, we are in the business of dreams.  We work to teach kids to be brave and connected.  We help kids realize their passions and go out into the world with empathy.  I’m considering adding the following quote from Seth’s manifesto in our staff handbook:

 

“We do not need you to cause memorization. We need students who can learn how to learn, who can discover how to push themselves and are generous enough and honest enough to engage in the outside world to make those dreams happen.” -Stop Stealing Dreams

 

It’s one thing to believe these ideals and it is another completely to live them every day.  To be brave enough as a school to stop the madness even as we are asked about standardized testing, curriculum, and grades.  I’m proud of our little community for their bravery.  I’m proud of the way they support and help each other through those times when they aren’t feeling so brave.  I’m proud of them for sticking with us when they can’t point to endless standardized data to back up their claim that their child is learning.

 

Every 5 weeks, we get together as a school community for Anastasis Serves.  This looks a little bit different each block based on what we are working in our inquiry unit, what needs the community has and what opportunities are available to us.  One of our incredible parents organizes Anastasis Serves.  She works hard to take into consideration what the kids are learning, and what they could do as a school community that would grow us as global citizens.  This block seemed to have some major divine intervention.  One of our teachers, Lance, has a ministry called Impact Edventures. Through the ministry, he had been in contact with the Watoto Children’s choir and worked to get them to join us at Anastasis.  Words cannot express the tremendous blessing this was for our community.  The Watoto Children’s choir is a program whose mission is to rescue an individual, raise each one to be a leader, and ultimately rebuild a nation.  The group from Uganda began as a result of an enormous population of orphaned and vulnerable children and women in Africa.  Many of the children that make up the choir have lost one or both parents to war and HIV AIDS.  Watoto provides a home and stability for these children and tours around the world to spread awareness of the conditions and hopes in their country through song. This is an incredible group of children and adults.  Each child in Watoto has the opportunity to travel the world and sing in the choir only once.  Upon returning home, the children train the next choir who will travel.  You can’t help but fall in love with these children and have your heart-broken over the stories they share.  They have seen tragedy, but what our students noticed more than anything was the unmistakable joy that these children have.  They are thankful, loving and happy.

Denver Post 2012

View the video of Watoto with our students here.
@Michellek107 prepared our students for the Watoto’s arrival by teaching them a welcome song in Swahili.  Our students sang to the traveling choir to welcome them to our school and community.  I do believe they were impressed with our attempt!  They helped us pronounce and enunciate some of the words and taught our students to dance.  It was an incredible morning of cultures colliding and an opportunity for our students to realize that children are children no matter where they are from.  All of the children ate lunch together and played together.  Anastasis families volunteered as host families for the Watoto children.  The Watoto choir put on another performance in the evening and many of our families made a special trip back to school so that they could spend more time with the incredible group.  It is hard to put into words the blessing that this day was for our community.  (To see more pictures of our day, check out this article in the Denver Post.)

This is learning.  This is what education is about.  Connections.  Collisions of human stories.

 

One of the things that the Watoto children taught us was about what their lives would look like without Watoto.  Some of the children shared their pasts as child laborers.  This is where that divine intervention I mentioned earlier came full swing.  The parent who organizes the Anastasis Serves days does so months in advance.  This Anastasis Serves day was to happen the day that Watoto left us.  The topic: Child Laborers.  This was an unusual Anastasis Serves because our students weren’t necessarily “serving” others.  Instead, the goal was to help students understand what child labor is and to help build empathy.  We used Red Card Kids Lesson 5 on Child Laborers as a guide for our day.  All of our students, 1st-8th grade, gathered together for the day.  We began by talking about the “work” that our students do at home, or a job that they have had.  We briefly discussed laws in the United states that permit children who are 15 and older to work as long as the jobs do not risk their health, safety, or moral development and don’t interfere with their attending school.  We asked students why they thought these laws existed.  Currently, more than 200 million children between the ages of 5 and 15 work up to 14 hours a day instead of attending school.  It is easy to talk about child labor, watch a video, listen to some statistics and promptly walk away unchanged.  We didn’t want this for our students.  We wanted them to really understand the hopelessness, anger, and resignation that these children feel.  We planned out a simulation of what it means to be a child laborer.

 

Each student was given a situation card.  The card described the new identity the students had for the day.  They learned what their home life was like, what struggles their family was currently facing and what their job was to be for the day.  Each student was given a hammer, protective eye wear and a brick.  For the next 30 minutes, students used the hammers to break the bricks into sand for our imaginary road.  There was absolutely no talking, no breaks, no water, no mercy.  If a teacher saw a student slow down, they would yell at them to pick up the pace and threaten to lower wages.  You could see the frustration and anger in the students eyes at the unfairness of the situation.  We didn’t let them stop if they started to get a blister or their arms got tired.  We were mean. When we were finished, the students had to collect all of the sand and gravel into buckets and haul it to the dumpster and then were marched silently back to their classroom.  Teachers decided what the wage would be for the work.  It wasn’t always a fair  wage based on the work done (fair being $0.35 total). Some hard-working students only received a dime.  Students were asked to go back to their situation cards and decide how they were going to spend their money.  They could use the money to pay rent, to pay for rice to feed their family, or a small toy at our makeshift store.

 

The empathy for those children they had played with the day before was enormous.  Anastasis students of all ages talked about the injustice of child labor.  Asked questions like “why don’t they just rebel?”  Got teary eyed as they realized many of their favorite brands employ child laborers.  Vowed to change the world.

 

I was amazed and proud of our students. They took the simulation seriously and honestly considered what life would be like if they couldn’t go to school. If they broke bricks 14 hours a day for $0.35.  What would happen to them physically if this was their life. Asked hard questions about what happened if a child became disfigured as a result of their job.  They jumped to each others aid when a bucket got accidentally dumped and needed to be gathered again.  This day was culture building.

 

This look into child labor happened on a half day leading into our spring break.  Incredibly, the kids didn’t just leave the hard day behind them. Instead they worked together to start a movement.  @leadingwlove’s class created this site and are working to make LSGW a 501c3 foundation.  Here is the note they added as a result of the child labor day:

 

To Anyone with a Willing Heart & a Compassionate Spirit:
Here at LSGW, we are starting a Revolution, a movement to make a change in the world, to respond to the needs of people with compassion and justice! We challenge you to join us in the fight to end the injustice that plagues the people of this world. We hope you will be moved to make a difference.
Welcome to the official site of LSGW**, Let’s Save God’s World Foundation. Our purpose is to reel in the next generation of changemakers. God has blessed us with many resources and materials to begin this new and exciting project. We hope to work along side all of you in our exciting journey to make God’s creation a better place. Please check out the advertising campaign that the students in Mrs. Lauer’s class have put together to promote our cause, and spread the word!
**LSGW is an educational non-profit foundation and an official middle school learning process at Anastasis Academy in Lone Tree, CO. 100% of donations and fundraising go to the cause!
Enjoy and Make a Difference!
- Written by Lexxi, Jake, and Mrs. Lauer

 

I believe that these are the children who are going to change the world.  These are the children who are going to put an end to child labor.  These kids are generous enough and honest enough to make those dreams a reality.

 

This is the reason I can confidently answer “yes” to Seth’s question, “Does the curriculum you teach now make our society stronger?”

What Dreams May Come: A Sneak Peek into Anastasis Academy November 11, 2011

It’s a pretty incredible thing to see dreams come to fruition.

For me it started with an obsession and passion for creating rich learning environments where every student was recognized as an individual. In that first post I wrote:

“I have a dreams of education. I have dreams of the way that schools should look. I have dreams of kids who find their passions. I have dreams of schools as rich learning centers.”

I had dreams of stripping the “vanilla” away so that passions could emerge.

Dreams of ditching that boxed curriculum that we call an education and watching the factory model fade into the rear-view mirror.

Dreams of ending the practice of viewing teachers (and students) as expendables.

I had dreams of schools that were beautiful, that were designed with students in mind.

Dreams that education would stop looking so much like the McRib.

Dreams of breaking free of the box, of valuing students and teachers,  of using the right tools, of a school where a student’s inner da Vinci can break through, of a school that customizes learning.

I shared dreams of more fabulous failures.

The dreams started trickling into reality in March of this year (2011).  In March I started getting some hints that these dreams weren’t really all that far-fetched.  By May I had officially started a school.  In August we opened the doors to Anastasis Academy with our first 50 students in 1st through 8th grade and had hired a dream team of 5 truly incredible teachers to lead them.  In four short months we went from dreams to reality.

At Anastasis Academy, we lease space from a church building throughout the week.  We have our own wing with classrooms, a playground, a gym and a kitchen.  All of our furniture is on wheels.  This makes it easy to adjust space daily based on needs, it is also a necessity since we use shared space.  Twice a week we move all of our belongings across the hall into a storage room (if I’m honest, this is the part we could do without!).  We can’t complain about the space.  It is pretty incredible!

You will notice that we don’t have rows of desks.  No teacher’s desk either.  We have space that kids can move in. Corners to hide in, stages to act on, floors to spread out on, cars to read in.  We are learning how to learn together, learning how to respect other children’s space and needs, learning how to discipline ourselves when we need to, learning how to work collaboratively, we are learning to be the best us.

You won’t see a worksheet at Anastasis. We use iPads.  That isn’t to say that we ONLY use iPads, in fact, you’ll often see us building, cutting, pasting, writing on a whiteboard/chalkboard and even paper.  We do a lot of blogging, a lot of reflecting, a lot of Evernotting, a lot of cinematography, a lot of discussing.

Every morning we start with a 15 minute walk outside together…as a community.  We invite parents and siblings to be a part of our morning walk. Occasionally we have the dogs join in on the fun.  After the walk we come inside as a whole-school for a time of devotions. Again, this is a time for us to build community, to foster the culture we want for our school.  Families are invited to join us every morning.  We always have at least one family and, many times, multiples.  We pray with each other and for each other. We have hard conversations and funny conversations. We think together and challenge each other.

Matthew West joining us for devotions!

Our inquiry block is a time for hands-on transdisciplinary learning.  This is my VERY favorite time to walk through classrooms.  It is incredible to see the joy in discovery.  It is incredible to have a second grade student with dyslexia discover an app to make stop motion animations, teach himself how to use it and proceed to stand up before 7th and 8th grade students to explain how stop motion works.  I wish I could bring you all through the building during this time.  Every time we have a visitor the students pause long enough to describe what they are doing, the learning that is happening. I often have to pick my jaw up off the floor. These kids are amazing.

We have no curriculum. At all. Zip. What did we do instead? We hired the very BEST teachers we could find.  We gave them a base level of skills that we wanted students to have- an outline if you will.  We used the Common Core Standards as our baseline.  We don’t use the standards like most schools do. We use them to make sure that our students have the building blocks and foundations of learning in place.  And then we let our students and teachers GO. The standards are not a weight we are tied to, they are the underpinnings that make it possible for us to soar and take our learning anywhere.  When you look at the Common Core standards they are pretty underwhelming.  I’m glad they are! They provide us with just enough momentum to propel us forward and then off we go on a journey of learning!  We also have our big inquiry questions in place.  From there, we go where the learning takes us, bunny trails and all.  It is pretty fantastic.  Today one of our primary students came out to see me and said, “Look at this boat I found in this new library book. Can I try to make it?”  My answer: “Absolutely! What materials do we need?”  Together we made a list of all the materials I needed to pull together for him.  Tomorrow he will build that boat he is fascinated with and find out if it works the way he has planned.  That is learning!  Tell me what boxed curriculum allows time for that to happen? None. That is why we don’t have it.

In the afternoons we have more “content” area subjects (i.e. math and language arts).  In the primary grades this means students building the skills they need to support their inquiry.  In the intermediate grades this means honing those skills for better communication and more thorough inquiry.  Again, we don’t work from a boxed curriculum. We find the lessons, approaches, and materials that work for the individual student.  Sometimes this means working with manipulatives, sometimes it means exploring measurement outside, and sometimes it means using an app.  It changes daily based on the needs of the students.

We have mixed age level classrooms.  We do this for a lot of reasons.  Most importantly, it is good for older and younger students to work together and learn from each other; it is vital that a child be able to work at their developmental level and progress as they are ready to; and it deepens inquiry when students with different perspectives work together.

Once every five weeks we invite the parents to join us for Parent University.  This is a time for us to help parents understand this new way to do school.  Detox, if you will.  It is a time for us to show parents what best practices in education look like, why grades aren’t all they are cracked up to be, why play is important.  It is a time for us to think and laugh together. It is a time to get questions answered.

Also every five weeks, we hold a “Meeting of the Minds”.  This is a parent/teacher/student conference where we all get together and set our road map for the next 5 weeks.  Students write goals with the help of their teacher. They have ownership over what they have done the last 5 weeks and tell mom and dad what they have planned for upcoming 5 weeks.

Every Friday we have a learning excursion or an opportunity for an “Anastasis Serves”.  Learning excursions are field trips all over the place that help students start to recognize that learning doesn’t just happen when we are at school.  Learning happens everywhere we are and, if we are paying attention, all the time.  Anastasis Serves is a time for our students to give back to the global community.  Sometimes this is a door-to-door scavenger hunt for donations, sometimes this is learning about orphans around the world, or packaging cookies and letters to send to our troops.

We don’t do grades, we do assessment all day every day while we learn.  We don’t do homework, we pursue our families and passions at home.  We don’t do worksheets, we do interesting (sometimes frustrating) work. We don’t do boxed curriculum, we do on-demand learning.

We do mistakes. We do community. We do collaboration. We do messy. We do play. We do fun. We do technology. We do learning.

How do we do all this? We have a 12 to 1 student teacher ratio (or less).  We have incredible students, parents and teachers.  We have stinking smart board members who are invested in our success and trust our judgement calls.  We set our tuition at $8,000 (per pupil spending in our district) to show that even though we are private, this can be done in the public schools.  We started with nothing…well almost nothing, we had dreams.  There was no capital raised, no fund-raisers, no huge donation. We started the beginning of the year at $0 and put blood, sweat and tears into it.

This is not to say that we have it all figured out, that all of our students are perfect, that all of our staff or families are perfect. We are perfectly imperfect as every school is. We have days when the kids are BOUNCING off the walls, we have disagreements, tired teachers, stressed parents, a founder who has occasional melt downs (that would be me), students who need extra love and support, tight budgets, parents who demand different, scuffles, sniffles and band-aids…lots of band-aids.  There is nowhere else I would rather be. No other group of people I would rather work with. No other students whose germs I would rather share. This is my dream.

There are moments throughout the day when I am stopped in my tracks by the realization-this is my dream.

Operation Customized Learning: The Learning Genome Project February 19, 2011

“We have organized schools not by how kids learn, they have been organized by an easy way to teach.” -Daggett

In September I mentioned a “hunch” I was having about education and learning.  Since September I have fleshed out that hunch into a business model, prototype, and wireframe and am currently working with a team of programmers to make it a reality.  Last night I presented this idea at the House of Genius and got some great feedback.  It made me want to know what my PLN geniuses thought about the idea!  I would love your input on this project as I move forward, are there things that aren’t clear in my explanation of what I am doing? Ideas for how to improve it? Recommendations?  Below is a little background as to the “why” I am pursuing this project along with a brief description of my solution.

Education is currently operating from a factory model where students are treated like widgets. We push them through a system and expect that the result will be “educated” citizens who graduate with the exact same skill set to go to college or get a job.  Compounding the problem is boxed curriculum that schools use to meet standards.  That boxed curriculum reaches one type of learner in one way.  It is scripted and artificially paced.  The problem: we aren’t dealing with widgets, we are dealing with children, each with different interests, learning styles, passions, abilities, and developmental levels.
As a result of this educational model we have uninspired, unmotivated students that aren’t truly educated.  We don’t teach them in a way that really equips them to be successful in life.  We teach them how to play the system. That if they read the bolded words in their textbook-they can correctly fill in the worksheet, if they memorize the worksheet they can successfully regurgitate it back on the test. Repeat the process and they can graduate with an impressive GPA. That kind of “education” can go directly from a students eyes to their hand, only occasionally taking up residence in their brains.  This is what school “success” has been defined by, and it is getting worse.

Sometimes students will get lucky and learn from a teacher that can draw out passion and inspire learning; but with increased standardization and testing, teachers don’t have time to differentiate for every student. What’s more, they don’t know what they don’t know and may not be able to find the perfect lesson/website/book/video/manipulative for the student.

As a teacher I am deeply concerned about individualizing learning as much as possible, recognizing that every one of my students had unique gifts, talents, passions and that they bring something to the world that no one else does.  I started thinking about how we have managed to customize everything from ringtones to hamburgers.  We have managed to customize absolutely everything in our worlds except for education.  Pandora is a great example, enter one song or artist that you enjoy and an entire “customized” playlist is created based on that one song.  You end up discovering artists and songs that you didn’t even know existed, and 9 times out of 10 it becomes a new favorite.  If we can do this for music, why can’t we do it for curriculum?  This is where my solution comes in, right now I’m calling it the Learning Genome.  The Learning Genome is a platform that allows a group of approved educators (experts) to tag curriculum based on a set of learning attributes (much in the way that music is tagged for Pandora).  This tagged curriculum works in tandem with a student profile, an individualized learning plan,  learning goals (that can be pulled from state standards or learning benchmarks), and a school profile.  Teachers can enter a lesson or book that a student enjoyed, and based on that input a customized curriculum can be created for every student.  Just like Pandora, the Learning Genome would allow for multiple learning channels. The multiple channels are essential because students have a variety of interests and learning modalities.  Now teachers don’t have to endlessly search for the perfect curriculum for a student, the results are delivered to them.  Differentiation within the classroom becomes much easier.  Teachers can tailor curriculum to meet the individual needs of students in their classroom. Every child benefits from the ability to learn in a way that makes sense to them.
I’m working to make the Learning Genome completely free for educators (and parents/homeschool educators) to use.  The curriculum delivered will be a mixture of free/open-source and paid-for content (lessons, books, websites, videos, manipulatives, etc.).   The larger vision of the Learning Genome is to make it a complete learning management system complete with a virtual mentor program (Twitacad), electronic portfolios, blogs, wikis, planners, and an ability tracking system.  Those additional features will be added after the “hub” of the Learning Genome is in place.

The Learning Genome will be available to every school, everywhere. To fully realize the vision of customized education, I am working with a team in Colorado to start a school that will use the Learning Genome as the foundation for individualized learning.

As I said, this is a brief overview of a REALLY big project but I would appreciate any first thoughts that you have: good, bad, and ugly (but not too ugly ).

Searching for da Vinci February 10, 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59372146@N00/4295400745/

True learners are multidimensional, they are passionately curious about the world around them. The Gateway to 21st Century Skills blog wrote a few posts about Leonardo da Vinci, the quintessential example of a Renaissance Man, that got my wheels turning today.  da Vinci was a scientist, inventor, painter, sculptor, architect, cartographer, mathematician, and the list goes on. He had an insatiable curiosity and was deeply creative and innovative.  da Vinci is still highly regarded as a brilliant creative genius, his thirst for learning is just as relevant today as it was 500 years ago.  Here is my question, is the current education system set up to foster the da Vinci’s of the world?

I think education likes to imagine itself as creating a population of individuals who excel in a range of subject areas. After all, we include a variety of subjects and topics that we push students through so that they can learn a little bit of everything.  The problem: our students don’t really excel at any of them because they aren’t given the opportunity to become passionately curious about any of them.  The curriculum that we offer students is one dimensional, it’s purpose has become to prepare students for testing.  Did you get that? We have created a system that prepares students to take a test. Created by the system.  What do the tests tell us? That we have students who can pass tests.  Does that sound like educational incest to anyone else?

Let me give you an example from my student teaching experience 9 years ago.  When I was an elementary student, I didn’t have to take the state test for Colorado (CSAP) because it hadn’t been invented yet.  I took the ITBS test about every 3 years and thought nothing of it.  When I started student teaching, I was curious about this state test that I would be preparing students to take (and we were encouraged to teach students how to take it).  When we got the practice tests in, I flipped through to see what sort of content the test covered.  I wanted to make sure that I had equipped my students with the necessary knowledge so that they wouldn’t have those freeze moments that can throw a students into  standardized test tail spin.  As I was flipping through the 3rd grade test I read the following question:

If you wanted to learn more about Whales, which letter would you search under in an encyclopedia?

Now, don’t cheat and look below at the answer….you said “W” didn’t you?

That would be wrong.

The choices given to students: B, M, T, or F

Seriously.

The correct answer: M for mammal

The answer my 3rd grade students would guess: B for Beluga Whale

Number one: IF any of my students were searching for whale, you know where they would look first: Google. It wouldn’t occur to most of them to go to the encyclopedia as a first reference.

Number two: If my students were searching for whale in the encyclopedia they would look under the “W” first. You know what? They would find whale. They might eventually also explore mammal under “M” when they looked at the bottom of the article and read “see also mammal”.

Number three: This is the most ridiculous line of questioning that I have seen, what information exactly is that question trying to glean? That my students can think critically to solve a problem without an obvious answer?  I would say they did pretty well by choosing “B” for Beluga Whale.

Are we creating a culture that nurtures the da Vinci’s of the world?  No, we are creating a culture that has lost all sense of curiosity, passion, and exploration. We create a culture where there is one correct answer, that we will give you, so that you can pass a test.

If the current culture doesn’t foster a da Vinci outlook on the world, what kind of culture could?  One where students were allowed to explore passions. One where students were allowed to view learning as life. One where students could see that subjects of learning are not really separate entities, but rather that learning is multidimensional, overlapping, and interwoven.  When I look at what da Vinci accomplished, it is apparent to me that this is someone who understood that all learning is life, it is connected.  I suspect that da Vinci didn’t set out to be a jack of all trades; I suspect that he set out to learn and as he learned it led to other disciplines, interests, and knowledge.  What results: a man who was able to use his unique talents and giftings to change the world.

If we send all students through the exact same subjects, the exact same way, to meet the requirements on the same test, do we have any hope of fostering students who are able to use their unique talents and gifts to change the world?  Or, will they graduate from high school with a degree that sends them into the next system where they are now expected to undo all the learning that has made them look the same and decide what makes the unique?

I’m sending out a call to create the da Vinci culture.

Asking the right questions January 11, 2011

Today’s #edchat topic for discussion on Twitter was: In a time of cut backs in education for the sake of the economy, should sports and extra curricular clubs take a back seat?

Those “extras” we are referring to: the arts and physical activities (sports).  For me, this #edchat topic succinctly summarizes what is wrong in education today.

There is something wrong with a system that considers the arts and physical activities as expendable.  Being “educated” has come to mean one thing: having a critical mass of a certain kind of knowledge so that one can perform well on a test.  What type of knowledge have we deemed important?  Literacy, math, science (and in some cases engineering and tech to round out the STEM initiatives).  Aren’t we more than this?  I like to think that I am more complex and “whole” than the sum of these few subjects.  Isn’t there more complexity to life than just literacy and STEM?

Who has determined that these tests accurately measure all there is to know about being successful, being human?  I would like to meet those who create these tests. If what shows up on the tests is reflective of who they are as “whole” people, I think that they must be very one-dimensional and dull.

Want to know a secret? I don’t think I want my students to be “successful” if a test is the only measure of success.  I want my students to be thinkers and problem solvers, to discover their gifts and talents and use those to shape a better world. I want my students to be creative and innovative. I want my students to be whole.  If we truly believe that students are more than just the sum of the subjects taught in school, how can we think of cutting out the programs that make them more whole?

The problem with the conversation is that it has become an either/or scenario.  Either we cut the “extras” or we have massive debt. Either we cut the “extras” or we have to cut one of the “more important” subjects. This isn’t an either/or conversation.  Those “extras” are part of learning.  The “extras” are part of what makes us uniquely human.  Those “extras” are not special and separate, they are a part of that wonderful tapestry that makes us human.  To cut them out and treat them as expendable is to treat students as a machine whose sole purpose is to have a single outcome: perform well on a test.

I think the problem goes even deeper.  When you ask students, parents, or most teachers why we want them to do well in school, the focus is usually on graduation.  We want them to graduate…with honors.  Why?  Because, then they can go into debt to pay for college (of course!).  Is anyone else looking at this problem with jaw on the floor?  What happens after college? We search for a job where we can follow directions and earn a paycheck that we can use to pay off our college debt.

College used to make sense.  In a world that wasn’t well-connected, where you couldn’t flip on your computer and be connected to an expert for free, we relied on college to be a place to go and learn to think from the best.  Learning isn’t reliant on institutions any more.  Learning happens in-spite of the institutions.  I seriously struggle with the why of a university experience in the year 2011 (I struggle with the why of schools the way they look right now too).  When I think back to my university experience, what I remember is those few (3) professors that I had that made a difference in my life. I still have all of my lecture notes and correspondences from those professors. They were exceptional for what I needed.  Outside of those 3 professors the biggest impact was my life outside of academics. The rest of the experience: worked through so I could have the piece of paper that said I did it.

Back to the #edchat topic: should we cut the extras in light of a struggling economy?  This is the wrong question to ask. The question should be: In light of a struggling economy, how can we adjust our budgets and priorities (priorities being those things we spend money on) to include the “extras” as part of an education that meets the needs of the whole child?

We try to keep answering these questions with the same unimaginative thinking that dug us into this hole.

Just for a moment let’s stop and think about the arts and physical activities.  How many math and physics problems in textbooks use sports as a story problem?

Can you see where I am going with this?  Why are we teaching math and physics through artificial story problems out of an antiquated textbook?  Why aren’t we saying, “let’s go test this out with a game of baseball”?

We aren’t thinking creatively enough about how to solve these problems. We try to segment, and rank importance, and test. Instead we should be looking at how to solve the problem in new ways.  Life is complex.  When you look at nature it doesn’t segment itself off into subjects that are done separately.  Nature is art, science, math, language, engineering, physical all in one. It happens together seamlessly.

Watch a baby, or any young animal, as they figure out life. So much is happening simultaneously that involves language, math, science, physical activity, engineering, and art.  This is how we learn to walk, talk, engage others, and keep ourselves safe. This is the way that life happens and it is the way we learn.  The real problem is, as soon as we enter school, we stop life from happening and try to erect artificial boundaries and understandings to get a single outcome.  We strip away “extras” that teach life skills like pride, respect, collaboration, teamwork, and citizenship. We reduce students to the sum of 5 subjects.  Is it any wonder that depression levels are at an all time high? Is it any wonder that we have a population that is obese?  Is it any wonder that every advertisement we see promises us a better life?

We need to be more creative, we need a paradigm shift in the way that education is done. Our thinking has to shift away from one where certain subjects are more important than others. We have to reconsider priorities and how money is spent.

Think about how dollars are spent in your school-most likely a large amount is spent on:

• Boxed curriculum (heavy emphasis on those 5 subjects, heavy emphasis on one result, heavy emphasis on meeting one type of students needs.) The boxed curriculum is purchased and taught so that students will do well on the standardized tests.
• Standardized (or other forms) of testing
• Copy budgets (anyone know someone who prints off EVERY email that lands in their inbox?)
• Textbooks (out of date as soon as they are published)

In my mind this isn’t rocket science.  Adjust your priorities and the money will be there.  The real problem is that right now our priorities are all out of whack.

I propose a new question:

In light of a struggling economy, how can we adjust our budgets and priorities (priorities being those things we spend money on) to include the “extras” as part of an education that meets the needs of the whole child?

If we can think of new ways to answer that question, the original question will be a non-issue.

Isn’t there anyone who knows what education is all about? December 17, 2010

A few nights ago I was watching holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas.  This clip (one of my very favorites) stood out to me for a different reason this year:

As I watched Charlie Brown yell out in exasperation, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?” I thought, educators around the world are crying out similarly.

“Isn’t there anyone who knows what education is all about?”

We hear all kinds of answers from politicians, union heads, educators, publishers, education companies, news anchors,  “experts”, and movie producers.

In the end, we know what education is all about.

Kids.

If the answers we are getting from the “experts” do not start there, they aren’t really experts after all.

Kids.

That is what education is all about Charlie Brown.

Hijacked Words December 14, 2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greeblie/3338710223/

Sometimes words get hijacked and get new meanings and understandings associated with them.  This has certainly become the case for many educational words and phrases. Standards for example.  In education standards has become a dirty word because it has been hijacked and become synonymous with meaningless tests, scripted curriculum, and the stripping of creativity.  But, if we take a step outside of the system and remember what standards really are…it isn’t such a bad little word after all.  The problem with hijacked words is that the true meaning is often forgotten, and with it a little bit of truth and importance once associated with it.  We are so eager to dismiss the hijacked word as “bad” that, lumped with it, we dismiss the original idea.

In this morning’s #edchat, the topic was: Is the idea of digital native a myth? Do most kids already have the skills & knowledge 2 master tech 4 learning?

The conversation quickly turned to one of labeling kids and the belief that Digital Native is a myth because many adults are more tech savvy than their students.  There was a lot of discussion about kids needing to learn the technology, that they aren’t naturally gifted at using it.

It was at this point that I realized that Digital Native has become a hijacked word.  The idea of Digital Natives started with an article written by Marc Prensky.  You can read the article in its entirety here. In the article, Marc is painting a picture about the differences in the students we teach.  They think differently, view the world differently, and learn differently.  He says:

“It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of
their interaction with it, today‟s students think and process information fundamentally
differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most
educators suspect or realize. “Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain
structures, “ says Dr. Bruce D. Perry of Baylor College of Medicine. As we shall see in
the next installment, it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed –
and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up. But whether or not this is
literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed. I will
get to how they have changed in a minute.

What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for
Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is
Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of
computers, video games and the Internet.

So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital
world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many
or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital
Immigrants.

The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all
immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain,
to some degree, their “accent,” that is, their foot in the past. The “digital immigrant
accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather
than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program
itself will teach us to use it. Today‟s older folk were “socialized” differently from their
kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later
in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain.”

Here is what Marc isn’t saying: Kids born today come out of the womb knowing how to use all technology and use it well.  Even though Marc doesn’t say this, judging by today’s #edchat this is what many educators believe the term means.

Being a Digital Native has more to do with worldview than anything else.  If you are born in a time where GPS technology is built into every device you are going to think about reading a map differently than someone who grew up without GPS.  If you are born in a time where the printing press is gaining speed and books are ubiquitous, you are going to think about where information comes from differently than someone who grew up with oral tradition only.  Every generation has its technology “natives” and “immigrants”.  When I am around 8 year olds who are talking about Skyping each other after school I am an immigrant.  Not because I don’t know how to use Skype, not because they are better at utilizing it than I am.  I am an immigrant because I didn’t grow up with that technology as part of my world.  When I was a kid the best I could hope for was a cordless phone I could take into my room.  As far as the 8-year-old Skype user is concerned, Skype has always existed as part of their world.  That changes their worldview. That changes the way they think about communicating.  Compared to the 58-year-old I am a native. I have never known a world without color TV, remote controls, video games, or the home computer.  That is different from the world they grew up in.  It affects the way we view the world, the way we collect information, the way that we approach a problem.

I believe what Prensky was getting at was a matter of worldview.  I do not think he intended to suggest that students naturally understood how to use all technology, or that they could naturally use it well.  The point is that the technology blends into the background for them.  My students really don’t “get” how COOL cell phone technology is.  I am still amazed that I can pull out my phone and call anyone in the world no matter where I am.  My students don’t remember the days of the brick with poor reception, impossibly expensive cell bills, and that the first cellular phones weren’t actually all that convenient.  For them this technology blends into the environment.  It is a given.  This doesn’t mean that they will pick up every cell phone and know exactly how to use it. It means that when they approach learning and thinking, they do so with the worldview that we are connected at any time and in any place.

Consider this example: I was born in 1982. Home computers were, at best, novelties.  The first computer I remember playing on was the Commodore 64.  We used it to play a Top Gun video game with “amazing graphics!”  I thought it was REALLY cool that we had to use a joy stick.  We had a computer lab at school with Apple iie’s in it.  We played Number Crunchers and Oregon Trail.  The computer was for entertainment purposes.  It wasn’t until I was in 6th grade that I typed a “published” piece of work on a computer.  Everything was hand written first…in our neatest handwriting.  To this day if I am writing something important, I hand-write it first. I have notebooks full of blog post drafts, grant proposals, reports, etc. all written out long hand.  It isn’t because I don’t know how to use a computer, it isn’t because I’m not tech savvy.  It isn’t even because I really like extra work.  It all comes down to the worldview I grew up with.  You write first, then you publish. (My accent is showing.)  My students think it is ridiculous to write something before typing it.  They often ask why I would do that.  Because I’m not a native.

One last example: I grew up with cameras that used film.  Film was expensive to buy and process.  We had to take time getting a picture just right before taking it because we didn’t want to waste film.  My students have NO concept of this at all.  They take thousands of pictures, post them digitally and never worry about wasting film or money on bad pictures.  Even though I use a digital camera, know how to use the digital camera, know that I can take as many pictures as I want with it- I am still careful about trying to get a picture just right on the first try.  I still think I need to have every picture I take printed.  Different world views. For one of us the digital camera is native…I am the immigrant with an accent.

I think the idea of Digital Natives is important and has roots that need to be remembered.  When we look at students and call them Digital Natives, it isn’t because they know instinctively how to use every piece of technology. We call them Digital Natives because it reminds us that they are approaching learning with a different worldview.  They are approaching learning with a belief that technology is ubiquitous.  When we remember this definition of Digital Natives we will understand that technology and proper use has to be learned.  We will also understand that giving a Digital Native a 10-year-old textbook isn’t going to work. Technology is part of their landscape and we are asking them to learn in a way that doesn’t mesh with that worldview.  That is what Digital Native is really about.

 

Education doesn’t need any more Nip Tuck: Our Normal Approach is Useless Here November 23, 2010

Education isn’t about achievement, and yet, somewhere along the way that is exactly what its purpose became.  Somewhere along the line our perspectives shifted and we began to believe the lie.

The lie that the purpose of education is a number.

A grade.

We put so much emphasis on the notion that achievement is everything, that students began to believe that the number actually meant something.

That the number was everything.

If achievement is everything, education is surely at the pinnacle of its demise.  It can’t just be about the numbers. It has to be about more. It has to be about something more tangible, more real.  Right now we are in a cycle of implant syndrome (can’t claim this idea, came from my friend @matthewquigley who calls it “fake boobs”- stay with me here). We want our schools to look good on the outside, we want them to look perfect (like implants), but at the end of the day, what they represent isn’t real. There isn’t a whole lot of substance to them because substance isn’t the point. Looking good is the point. Getting noticed is the point.  This is the problem I have with focus on achievement and scores. The point isn’t substance, the point is to look like we have students who are performing at what we have deemed is an appropriate level.  When you get right down to it, isn’t there beauty in the imperfection?  Isn’t there beauty in natural learning process?  I love the opening scene of The Social Network movie where we see Mark Zuckerberg going on and on about scores and what else he can do to get in and get noticed. He says something to the effect of: If everyone gets a 1600 (perfect score on the SAT) what differentiates them?

Right now the education system puts the focus on what students don’t know.  We make students feel ashamed of what they don’t know and try to use that shame (of a poor grade) to make them work harder.  What if instead of focusing on what a kid doesn’t know, we help them realize what they do know?  What if we started capitalizing on what they know and used it to help them make connections in their learning?  What if we minimized the focus on achievement?

There are incredible teachers who have refused to sell students the lie that achievement is everything. There are incredible teachers who every day work to capitalize on what students do know and value students for more than the number.  My plea for education reform: minimize the focus on achievement and shift to a focus on learning.

Today as I was going through my overflowing Google Reader, I read this from Seth’s Blog:

“Our Normal Approach is Useless Here

Perhaps this can be our new rallying cry.

If it’s a new problem, perhaps it demands a new approach. If it’s an old problem, it certainly does.”

The direction of education is an old problem, our normal approach is useless here. It is time for education reform to be education re-imagine. Our normal approach is useless here.

Incomplete thoughts October 19, 2010

This video caused one of those hunches I was talking about in my post When Hunches Collide.  I saw this video last Thursday and immediately typed out a blog post but didn’t publish it because it somehow felt incomplete.  I thought I would give myself a day to let my ideas percolate a little more, but each time I came back to it I was left with the same incomplete feeling.  (I may very well need therapy to undo the lie that I learned in school: things that are incomplete are not worth turning in.)  I have watched this video 7 or 8 times now and each time I watch it, I notice  something different.  I think I believe if I keep watching it, this incomplete thought will reveal itself… it doesn’t hurt that each time I watch the video I feel like I am witnessing genius unfold. Those RSA animate guys know how to create!

In the video, Robinson talks about divergent thinking, the ability to come up with multiple solutions or answers to any problem.  He notes that there is a divergent thinking test which measures divergent thinking ability; at a certain level, one can even be considered a divergent thinking genius.  Robinson describes a linear test that was done with kindergarten students that followed them through the age of 15.  In kindergarten 98% of the students tested at the  genius level.  The percentage of students that test at the genius level drops steadily as the students get older.  Aside from getting older, formal education is the one thing these students had in common.  Robinson conjectures that we all have this capacity for genius level divergent thinking.  What happens in education?  We are taught that there is one correct answer and one way to arrive at that answer.  You see this all the time with kids and math.  They come home to complete a homework assignment and have an absolute come apart when they can’t remember the way they were shown how to complete the problem.  A parent steps in to help solve the problem, even arriving at the correct answer (as verified in the back of the book), but the child isn’t satiated.  Cue whiny voice and copious amounts of tears: “That isn’t the way that my teacher showed me how to do it *sniff* and we have to show our work the way we were taught or we don’t get credit.”  Not only are kids taught there is only one answer, they are also taught that there is only one acceptable “right” way to arrive at that answer.  Why has education been reduced to this?  I believe it is because that kind of education fits nicely and neatly into a box;  we can give a scantron bubble test to validate our methods.  Robinson notes that this one-right-answer approach is in the gene pool of education.  We want to  have the best education in the world and we try to answer that call by creating false measures to validate our feelings that we have the best education.  Forgive me for the metaphor, but it is like the dog that returns to its own vomit.  Divergent thinking is killed, creativity is stifled but test scores are high.  We want it all laid out nicely on paper: how many are we graduating, how many are going on to higher education?  But do high test scores really equate to better educated individuals?  Of course not.  High standardized test scores reveal students who can take tests.

Robinson’s mention of genes is what really caught my attention.  I have been thinking a lot about what genes currently make up education as we know it, and what genes make up learning.  In fact I wrote about the beginning of an idea here and asked for your help here.  Pandora (the radio station) works based on a set of “genes” or attributes that make up music.  It is called the Music Genome Project, modeled after the scientific research Human Genome Project.  The Human Genome project sets out to identify the sequence of chemical pairs that makeup DNA and then map them based on their location within the DNA and their function.  I’m not really a scientist (I just play one on my blog), but my understanding is that if we had a mastery of the individual genes, we could begin to isolate them and have a better shot of ending genetic diseases.  My thought is this, if we could map out the genes of education (read: learning) we could isolate the “diseased” genes in the current education gene pool and transform them accordingly.  If we could map out the learning genes, we could tailor learning to meet the needs of every student, Pandora style.  Right now education is ignoring all of the hundreds (thousands?) of genes that make up learning and focusing on two: logical mathematical and reading.  There is nothing wrong with these two genes.  They are important genes.  But we can’t ignore all the other attributes of learning.

And this is where my thought lies incomplete.  Is it possible to take on this kind of project?  Learning is incredibly complex and multifaceted…but then again so is music and DNA.  I don’t think it is an impossible task and yet I’m not sure what to do with it either.  I’m not sure that we can really transform education until we have the ability to truly customize it.  Until we can customize education, it will end up falling into a new set of standards.  They may be an improvement on the standard but they will still be missing something vitally important: the ability to meet the complexity of individuals.  Please understand, I am not recommending that students learn only those subjects they are interested in. I believe students can be interested in every subject if it is approached uniquely to meet their learning needs.  I use history as an example: in school I would rather have teeth pulled than sit through a history class and read through a textbook.  You can imagine my surprise when I got out of school and discovered that I really enjoy history, as it turns out what I don’t enjoy is textbooks. Learning has to be customized, it has to take into account the individual.  I believe mapping the genes of learning could bring us one step closer to realizing a customizable education.  So, I invite you to help me complete this thought.  Comment with your hunches, pass on your ideas and maybe those hunches will begin to collide into big, actionable ideas.

(Great advice from @mikemcsharry that helped me finally push publish “an imperfect idea launched will always beat perfection delayed indefinitely.” Thanks Mike!)