Information Is Not Intelligence

I was watching C-Span2 yesterday morning and Dr. Conrad Crane, Director of the U. S. Army’s Military History Institute, was discussing counterinsurgency. One of his reflections in a response to a question concerning the data our military is getting from various sources was that “information is not intelligence”. He also stated that, in order to decide is the information was valid, the source had to be confirmed and the information had to be verified by other sources before it was considered good intelligence. These statements made me pause.

Further research of Military History Institute publications revealed the following judgements: “(One of the) critical characteristics of the new national intelligence community follow: It will demand the rapid transfer of the proven process of intelligence requirements (such as) definition, collection management, source discovery and validation, multisource fusion, and compelling presentation, to … (the) constituent elements of our nation.” 1

“The challenge within the intelligence community … is to determine ‘what to share’ and ‘how to share. Sharing intelligence raises … key issues: … (we) must determine what information is relevant.”2

The point of citing these quotations is to emphasize there are processes, mindsets and skills that are extremely important to anyone seeking good intelligence (in non-military terms, the truth):
--- Finding information
--- Distinguishing it’s relevance to the problem
--- Determining it’s validity and reliability
--- Rearranging and reorganizing the information based upon the expressed problem
--- Making conclusions
--- Composing compelling communications of these findings

These are the same processes, mindsets and skills that are essential for our students to be successful as they compete in a flat world.3

Citations:
1 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College

2 National Security Challenges for the 21st Century
Edited by Dr. Williamson Murray
October 01, 2003
The Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College

3 The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
Thomas L. Friedman
2005

Third Grade Student Technology Mentors

I was fortunate to assist a third grade teacher as she had her students begin blogging by writing an essay on "My Christmas Wish". The teacher had two goals: the first was to have her students concentrate on using upper cases letters in correct places; the second was to increase her students' motivation with using writing to communicate with others.

There were hindrances to having a class of 25 third grade students use a blog. The first was the security issues involving blogging and complying with COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). At the same time, parents' and administrators' apprehensions concerning children communicating online had be addressed. Therefore we chose to use David Warlick's Landmark Class Blogmeister as our communication tool because it has a myriad of security layers. For example, no outside person could read the students' blogs unless he knew the class password. Also, the teacher chose the feature which allows her to approve each blog and comment to a blog submitted. She also chose to use pseudonyms for the children.

Another difficulty derived from the tendency of Class Blogmeister to time out if it was open too long. We overcame this by first having the third graders type their stories using a word processor (MSWord). This posed a further difficulty because inputting their stories was time consuming due to the students not being able to keyboard well. One advantage of using Word is that it showed the students where they misspelled words and students had to choose the correct spelling. The students learned this function quickly and did surprisingly well editing their own work. Students were then shown how to save their work in the school's network.

Next they were taught to log in to Class Blogmeister (a link was put onto their class links page), how to input their articles using copy and past functions, and how to upload their blog articles for teacher approval.

To do all this in a lab situation with the entire class was a daunting goal. Therefore, the teacher and I taught a group of third graders to do these steps before the scheduled visit of the entire class to the computer lab. Using the computer in the classroom as a station, we taught one student who then taught a second. The second student then taught a third and so on. The teacher knew that these students were learning the aforementioned steps adequately because they were able to immediately demonstrate their learning. A cadre of ten students was thus taught the steps to produce a blog.

In this particular school, scheduled time is given each week for access to the computer lab. The students in the lab were shown (using a projector) the general steps of creating their blog. The cadre of students who were trained then helped others as they then began to type their articles onto Word and upload them into their blogs. The group did an excellent job in mentoring the other students while the students who were taught were very receptive to these young mentors.

The third graders' articles were commented on by eighth graders in the school. When the third grade students read the comments, they were extremely excited about having someone read and comment on their work. They also shared their stories with their parents. On a side note, the third grade students expressed a need to the lab supervisor to learn how to keyboard properly so that they might type their stories faster. They will be a group of motivated learners when this will be addressed the second semester.

In the end, this learning activity was a successful educational venture due to student experts who shared their learning with others.

On a side note, the teacher mentioned that, in the past, this class would moan whenever they were asked to do writing. Now, they are excited when asked to take out their blog journals and even remind the teacher when it is time to begin writing. Students now view writing as an opportunity to communicate.

What Factors Should Drive The Curriculum We Teach?

I enjoy listening to teachers, and think their common wisdom is worth paying attention to. For instance, the September issue of Edutopia Magazine asks "What factors should drive the curriculum we teach?" I asked my graduate students, all teachers, to respond to the question “If you had to list three factors, which would you choose?” I had emphasized that the operative word is “should”.

The leading factor listed was a medley of outcome based learnings which had a common theme of skills and ideas which supersede the limited goals, curriculum maps and tests most states think of vast importance (see Restricting the Vision). Some of the comments were:
-- “Teach them how to think critically and outside the box.”
-- Teach them to be inquisitive, how to ask questions, how to dig deep for answers.”
-- “Students should be taught real world issues, how they apply to their life, and how they can make changes.”
-- “Real learners would have the broader skills than (state) standards if they are ever going to go anywhere in life. It's too bad you can't find these skills anywhere on a (curriculum) roadmap.”
-- “Teach them skills they will need in the work world, skills to be successful in life and skills to appreciate the world.”
-- “Learning how to learn, learning how to fail and how to adapt to change.”
-- “What you want your students to … be able to do once they are out of your class.”

The second most listed factor which should drive the curriculum was “state standards and curriculum roadmaps”. I suppose this item appeared frequently due to the fact that many teachers have accepted this form of outcome based education and the standardized testing that accompanies it. Or at least they’ve accepted the reality that it wasn’t going to go away (one teacher offered the comment “Unfortunately, standards” in her list).

The third most mentioned factor was “topics / issues in which the students are interested”. There was a strong realization that learning won’t happen if the student doesn’t buy into what is being taught.

The fourth factor was “addressing student needs and readiness”. I think this was important because teachers, being the pragmatists they are, need to address where students are before they start them on an educational journey.

The fifth most mentioned was not what students should learn but how they should learn; i.e. learning with teachers who emphasize the processes of problem-based, product -based and engaged learning along with other critical thinking activities. I suppose that the theme of these comments really meld with the most mentioned theme above. In reality they are just two sides of the same coin: by using these types of learning processes, wonderful skills result as products.