80% is a waaayyy too optimistic estimate, in my opinion. My experience has consistently been one of disappointment by my colleagues in teaching. I would go as far as saying that at least twice that, or about one in four teachers at the very least, are hopelessly and completely irredeemable.

I love the software, and I am amazed that there are not more people using it. I think there are three reasons why GeoGebra is not used more widely (at least here in the United States):

(1) There is still a general distrust of free, open-source, web-based software. That distrust may be rooted in a perceived lack of quality (“if the software was any good, they would be selling it”), or that it will not be free forever, or that it will require a certain degree of tech-savvy that I may not have, or that that (conspiracy theory alert, as I bite my nails to the quick) it will allow hackers to take over my computer. I mean, shouldn’t high quality software be installed from a CD? You can’t possibly get a high quality product from a web download, can you?

(2) I think Geometer’s Sketchpad still has a large market share. Part of this is through school licensing. As an example, I ran a GeoGebra workshop this past summer for a larger suburban district here in SW Ohio. There was one geometry teacher who had worked very hard to convince his district to purchase a 250 computer license just a week earlier. After just one 6 hour workshop with GeoGebra, he realized had (actually, his district) been screwed…er…had failed to do his due diligence. Though there are teachers in this district who are using GeoGebra, there are others who feel honor-bound by the licensing agreement made by their employer.

I see this in colleges, too. Each semester, I speak to a math education cohort group at a College on the other side of town. Two years ago, I visited this group towards the end of their semester. I shared GeoGebra with them, only to learn that they had just finished a large “Teaching Geometry with Sketchpad” project that required each student to pay for a student version of the software at the bookstore on campus. After getting the group to make simple web pages with dynamic applets in less than 30 minutes, they nearly turned on the professor of this group.

(3) Related to the school licensing, there are many individuals who have purchased this software, and are not about to see their hard-earned money go to waste. I also believe that for many teachers (the 90% implied in your post), if you have GSP, you are comfortable with it, and after five years or so, you have a hard drive FULL of GSP sketches for every conceivable situation ( I know I did before I made the switch). GeoGebra IS different (besides just being better), and there is a learning curve to the software, and for many, switching is not worth the time or effort.

It’s the “good” that’s the kicker here.

Goodness knows there’s no shortage of easy, fun, and free web junk that some will try to shoehorn into the classroom in the name of “technology” or “innovation,” but that is nothing more than eye candy and window dressing.

The “good” is what I spent time last semester exploring when I had the opportunity to teach an undergrad ed tech class at CSU. It’s the “good” that that 10% of educators at the front of the curve can help to vet.

The best experience I’ve had with encouraging teachers to try something new is to use it myself. Invariably, someone will ask, “Hey – what program is that?” or “How did you make that?”

Dan – I would like to add WolframAlpha to the list. I have not figured out a good way to take advantage of this, though. I guess I should just give my students the address and see what they figure out?

Scott – Yep. But what will they use in the real world? Hopefully Open Office!

Easy only comes when we have a shared archive of WCYDWT media, tagged and searchable for every topic.

So how is that new site doing, anyway?

Dan, This is my first comment on your blog, but I have read with interest for quite some time. I am a science teacher, soon to be science education professor. The idea of how to improve teaching is constantly on my mind.

I find myself disagreeing greatly with your notion of free, easy and fun (mostly the easy and fun part, because what I propose as necessary is definitely free).

The reason I am so opposed to “easy and fun” is because encouraging real learning is not easy. If it were, everyone would be a great teacher. Instead, developing and maintaining high quality instruction abilities takes time (a LOT of time). I don’t think you would disagree.

Because of the inherent difficulty of real learning and teaching, they are not necessarily “fun” in the sense of entertaining. While effective teaching and deep learning are both worthwhile, and the rewards are enjoyable, the process is often fraught (sp?) with frustration and difficulty. I think about working out, while I enjoy the feeling of having worked out, and enjoy the benefits to my health, I would not call the actual workout “fun”. Worthwhile? Absolutely. Fun? No.

Of course this does not mean I believe learning has to be boring! I prefer the term engaging rather than fun. This could be semantics, but our words are what we mean and ought to be chosen with care. I worry if we send the message to teachers or students that learning should always be entertaining, we are setting them up to not engage in difficult, but worthwhile activities.

While the fun/engaging differences might be reconciled, I see no place that I can budge on the claim that reform ought to be easy. I think I see your point that in order for teachers to “get on board” the new stuff has to appear easy, but that just means that we need more dedication from our teachers. Or perhaps teachers who are dedicated to a different purpose.

Which brings me to the free thing I think we need to “reform” education. A change in philosophy & purpose. There is no cost associated (other than time) with changing our instructional purpose from skills to understanding or from memorization to application. What your 80% needs is not something that is free, easy and fun. Instead, they need to consider what their goals are for their students. Once the goals are articulated, they must consider how to best achieve their goals. If a teacher’s goals is to have students simply gain a skill or have 90% accuracy on a timed test….well, they need to either re-evaluate their goals, or leave education.

I know all teachers “say” they want students to deeply understand content and be able to apply that understanding to the real world. Yet, so few teachers actually teach in a way that would help students actually do that. A worksheet is not real world. I word find is not deep understanding. Aligning our practiced purpose with our articulated purpose needs to happen. We don’t need a tool to do that, other than perhaps a mirror. :)

I think that what you’ve written is probably true if we are talking about ‘teacher-level’ reform, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true about school-level reform. I’ll give you the best example:

Laptops.

I had an old colleague of mine visit SLA today, and it was fascinating to me to view the school from the eyes of someone who was with me at a school that shared a basic pedagogical foundation w/ SLA… I was again struck by how some of the decisions we’ve made that were different from my last school have helped shape the place, but I was also struck by how many of the ideas really are made possible by the laptops.

And they weren’t easy to figure out how to use, and they certainly aren’t free. But because we made that decision at the school-level, we were able to make it and (so far) sustain it.

We have to look at what is possible from the teacher level, yes… because the school (and policy) level is going to be a tougher fight, but let’s not forget what is possible when it’s more than just a single teacher in their classroom trying to affect change.

Coming into education from the commercial software industry, I can vouch for the importance of “easy” as critical to getting people to use your software. Unless an app/site has some incredibly mission-critical functionality, it had better be useful in 5 minutes or less or it will be “adios!” and on to something else for that potential user.

I define “easy” as being able to do something that is useful the first time you try the program – in fact if possible the app should start up with something useful for you to modify and not just a “blank page.” This doesn’t mean the app needs to be trivial, just that the the common actions are easy, more complex actions can still be figured out without a manual, and very deep functions are possible.

Speaking from experience, this is *not* trivial to engineer, both on the usability or the software installation side of things. One reason the web makes so much sense as a software platform is that it eliminates most of the installation/compatibility side of problems.

Dan, Touche :) However, I am curious what your thoughts are on other parts of my reply. I know your use of “innovation” seems to be focused on technologies rather than philosophies (so we might be comparing apples to oranges), but your post got me thinking about root causes of why some teachers are the way they are. If we can get at the root cause (what makes the 10% willing to be innovative), then we can really get somewhere! I mean, do we really want to cater our innovation efforts to the lowest common denominator, or attempt to change the motivation of the 80% so they become the top 10%.

i would venture there are very few teachers who don’t *want* to be in that top 10%, who don’t *want* to do great things in their classroom and truly engage their students….i don’t think it’s a willingness or unwillingness to be innovative or excellent.

i think they’ve just never seen anything they thought was better AND accessible? or maybe if they have, it’s not part of their weekly diet?

usually one or the other (seeing better and actually finding better accessible) is off balance. sometimes the educator is not spending time in places where he/she sees best practices in action. collaboration breeds innovation…one of the reason dan craves pushback so much…and many teachers don’t have that venue. i know i haven’t until the recent few months, and that change has mentally opened up unlimited possibilities for me. others may indeed have that venue, and get to observe great techniques in action, but but find them inherently out of reach…whether by lack of confidence, lack of skill, or lack of resources. and i suppose that’s the meat of the “easy, fun, and free” directive. if you want to raise the bar for the masses…teachers AND students…the bar must be perceived as accessible.

it’s all about the sell…

Dan, you also have to realize what we’re up against. Google Reader and in fact your Blog are both blocked by my school’s web filtering (Social Networking) and we’re not allowed to install software like Geogebra without getting the IT department to (eventually, if they feel like it) install it, and then fight with them when it doesn’t work correctly on some machines (since they’re too incompetent to be able to do a Push install across the network so they come in and do it on every machine individually). Just last week I had a lesson that I tested using a student account on Friday, and on Monday it was blocked. Eventually things like that wear down even the most enthusiastic teachers.

Oh, I actually got them to install Geogebra, but it’s a fight, every time I try to do anything innovative. Right now I’m fighting to get the Business Office to actually order the high speed video camera that I put in my budget last year (and got approved) so that I can make videos to use with Tracker in my Physics classes.

great point Rhett… listening is huge. especially to students. what are they doing and saying about what you are saying and doing.
i also think if we would listen more to each other, there would be less repeating of conversations and more doing – more learning happening.

and you’re right – standardized tests no longer will even touch the surface. i mean – that’s like the good enough piece …maybe.
i have to emphasize again… personal learning network/environment’s are what i believe to be the best way for any of us to optimize learning. we all have our own brand – if we really want to sophisticate or expertise it, we have to hone in with like-passioned/focused people.

that’s what i want for my kids.

Dan, Blogger and PBworks are easy, fun and free. We recently had PD in our building on them, and I don’t believe a single teacher uses them.

I teach online coures on classroom web site creation and Web 2.0 tools, like podcasting, screencasting, message boards and using wikis, and no colleague has ever said, “will you help me learn to do this?”

Worse, still, I told an upper administrator that I’d be happy to do some PD, free of charge for the district. I was never taken up on it.

Does all this make me skeptical about teachers being innovative and open? Yes.

Maybe I’m cynical. Or, maybe they’re just lazy.

Good for you, David. It’s nice to know that other veterans are reaping the rewards of the Smart Board and learning that we have to continue to ask questions.

What about Tumblr? At my school, the tool has spread quickly from teacher to teacher with minimal PD. It’s easy to get going using the dashboard to just follow other Tumblr blogs to see what’s going on around school and beyond (like using Google Reader for the greater web), and to make text posts summarizing what’s going on in the classroom (replacing class newsletters for parents). That eventually leads to creating posts to share images and interesting finds from the internet. Then they slowly begin expanding their use of Tumblr’s features like ‘hearting’ others’ posts, reblogging, creating a photo gallery, posting a video they’ve created (leads to Vimeo), etc. In this way, Tumblr is acting as the gateway to other uses of technology.

Note: this Tumblr trend started by using it in one classroom with all students as something of an off-the shelf LMS and digital portfolio.

@Roberto-

You’d think Google would have done a better job integrating reader and their blogs in a similar way. I haven’t used Tumblr but that sounds pretty appealing for people starting off.

I’d be interesting in those examples as well.

I’m jumping back nearly a week in the comments (apparently it’s been quite a week, I blame DST).

I think the site you are creating is brilliant. I agree that it will make WCYDWT more accessible to many more teachers. It would thrill me beyond belief if 80% jump on it.

It’s possible that my concerns stem from being an elementary school teacher rather than middle/high. In my experience, many elementary school teachers, even really fabulous ones, are intimidated by math. Many teachers who would never use a textbook for social studies or English rely on a math textbook for everything. It’s hard for me to imagine them being able/willing to open things up in the way WCYDWT does. I hope I’m wrong.

I firmly believe that WCYDWT is so much more powerful than a traditional math textbook. I want it to spread like lice in a kindergarten classroom.

great post.

Many of you have vastly overrated the ease of educational computing.

thanks for this in particular.

Dan,
I’m also missing the part where you think WCYDWT is easy. You gave a “proof of concept” – for the tasty / easy graph:

1. cover up all the fruit.
2. have an argument about where fruit goes.
3. work mathematical terms into the conversation as they become useful.

I think 2 & 3 require quite a bit of mathematical imagination on the teacher’s part plus skills in steering group conversation. Neither of these are easy. This kind of conversation will veer from the “right answer” if you really do allow student to discuss their theories. It takes understanding more than the mechanics of how to solve problems as the textbook suggests to a greater and wider understanding of how to see student conceptions, misconceptions, and perhaps new ideas as viable paths to possible solutions. That kind of mathematical imagination is not “easy” to develop.

I also agree with Dina’s line of questioning. I think the creation of these WCYDWT problems helps you anticipate student reactions. Finding them, tuning them, and testing them out hones your skills. Plus, over time, you’ve become more adept at steering the resulting conversations towards the math you are trying to teach.

I’m just not seeing how handing these artifacts off to a different teacher shortcuts the process. And I certainly don’t see this as “easy.”