Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain

Photo credit: Thinkstock

Originally posted on http://www.edutopia.org/blog/homework-sleep-and-student-brain-glenn-whitman

 

At some point, every parent wishes their high school aged student would go to bed earlier as well as find time to pursue their own passions — or maybe even choose to relax. This thought reemerged as I reread Anna Quindlen’s commencement speech, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. The central message of this address, never actually stated, was: “Get a life.”

But what prevents students from “getting a life,” especially between September and June? One answer is homework.

Favorable Working Conditions

As a history teacher at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, I want to be clear that I both give and support the idea of homework. But homework, whether good or bad, takes time and often cuts into each student’s sleep, family dinner, or freedom to follow passions outside of school. For too many students, homework is too often about compliance and “not losing points” rather than about learning.

Most schools have a philosophy about homework that is challenged by each parent’s experience doing homework “back in the day.” Parents’ common misconception is that the teachers and schools giving more homework are more challenging and therefore better teachers and schools. This is a false assumption. The amount of homework your son or daughter does each night should not be a source of pride for the quality of a school. In fact, I would suggest a different metric when evaluating your child’s homework. Are you able to stay up with your son or daughter until he or she finishes those assignments? If the answer is no, then too much homework is being assigned, and you both need more of the sleep that, according to Daniel T. Willingham, is crucial to memory consolidation.

I have often joked with my students, while teaching the Progressive Movement and rise of unions between the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they should consider striking because of how schools violate child labor laws. If school is each student’s “job,” then students are working hours usually assigned to Washington, DC lawyers (combing the hours of the school day, school-sponsored activities, and homework). This would certainly be a risky strategy for changing how schools and teachers think about homework, but it certainly would gain attention. (If any of my students are reading this, don’t try it!)

So how can we change things?

The Scientific Approach

In the study “What Great Homework Looks Like” from the journal Think Differently and Deeply, which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students. For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as time management, sustained attention, and rule following, but let us not mask that as learning the content and skills that most assignments are supposed to teach.

Homework can be a powerful learning tool — if designed and assigned correctly. I say “learning,” because good homework should be an independent moment for each student or groups of students through virtual collaboration. It should be challenging and engaging enough to allow for deliberate practice of essential content and skills, but not so hard that parents are asked to recall what they learned in high school. All that usually leads to is family stress.

But even when good homework is assigned, it is the student’s approach that is critical. A scientific approach to tackling their homework can actually lead to deepened learning in less time. The biggest contributor to the length of a student’s homework is task switching. Too often, students jump between their work on an assignment and the lure of social media. But I have found it hard to convince students of the cost associated with such task switching. Imagine a student writing an essay for AP English class or completing math proofs for their honors geometry class. In the middle of the work, their phone announces a new text message. This is a moment of truth for the student. Should they address that text before or after they finish their assignment?

Delayed Gratification

When a student chooses to check their text, respond and then possibly take an extended dive into social media, they lose a percentage of the learning that has already happened. As a result, when they return to the AP essay or honors geometry proof, they need to retrace their learning in order to catch up to where they were. This jump, between homework and social media, is actually extending the time a student spends on an assignment. My colleagues and I coach our students to see social media as a reward for finishing an assignment. Delaying gratification is an important non-cognitive skill and one that research has shown enhances life outcomes (see the Stanford Marshmallow Test).

At my school, the goal is to reduce the barriers for each student to meet his or her peak potential without lowering the bar. Good, purposeful homework should be part of any student’s learning journey. But it takes teachers to design better homework (which can include no homework at all on some nights), parents to not see hours of homework as a measure of school quality, and students to reflect on their current homework strategies while applying new, research-backed ones. Together, we can all get more sleep — and that, research shows, is very good for all of our brains and for each student’s learning.

The Invisible iPad: It’s Not About the Device

MindShift | May 7, 2014 |

By Michael Cohen

Since the launch of the iPad in 2010, we have seen a revolutionary transformation in how we create, consume, and communicate. Whether the iPad is an authentic educational tool is not relevant, because it’s not about the iPad.

Is the automobile an authentic education tool? What about the refrigerator? Revolutionary inventions are not about the invention itself, but what the invention gives use the ability to do. A truly revolutionary invention should, in time, become invisible. No longer is it viewed as something special, yet its effects are far reaching. The lightbulb changed the way the world functioned. The world was no longer bound to productivity during daylight, or the length of time it takes your oil lamp to burn up. It was about what you would be able to do because now there was a constant and stable source of light.

While the iPad does a little more than a lightbulb, its success in eduction is based on the principle that the iPad does the same for learners as the lightbulb: It liberates us from the limitations of creative tools, the challenges of access to quality content, as well as our source of inspiration, and innovation being based on geographic location.

But in conversations around learning, the iPad needs to be invisible because we’re searching for something deeper than a manipulative touch screen device. We are looking to start a conversation, create a personal expression, and to fashion a brick in a collaborative digital structure.

The iPad isn’t a great way to take a test, or read a book, or even create a movie. For progressive educators, it isn’t enough to change how we use the iPad, but why we use the iPad — or any other device for that matter.

We use technology to liberate ourselves from mundane robotic tasks that lack any sort of creative drive or purpose. A robot can memorize 100 vocabulary words. The question is now, what do we do with those words? Do we use them for creative expression, or do we let them collect dust in the deep recesses of our brain? Technology is not here to make us lazy, or to avoid basic communication skills, but it is here to make us think critically, solve problems, collaborate, communicate, create, and ideate. Unfortunately, these words have far surpassed cliché status in education, as if they are the key to tagging successful learning outcomes, but the truth is that when the iPad is invisible, you really get to see those words in action. As long as our focus is on learning outcomes and the experience it brings.

INVISIBLE TECHNOLOGY

The idea of invisible technology is powerful. Its practical application for educators can be challenging, frustrating, and fill even the most confident learning facilitator with doubt. Invisible technology empowers its user to be independent, collaborative, and truly upend learning. How do we measure its success? Is there a definitive technology yardstick to build confidence not only in the student, but in the teacher as well? What are our goals and skills we wish our students to acquire, develop, and reflect upon? If our goal is to create an army of app-savvy iPad aficionados then we have utterly failed.

We are not trying to create students that successfully use technology, because they don’t actually need us for that. We have seen the viral videos of toddlers successfully executing in-app purchases on their favorite game, and their digital literacy skills will only increase with their exposure to new technologies.

Yossie Frankel stated it simply: We cannot confuse digital literacy with 21st century competencies. If we do, we rob our students of what we really can offer them, which is the ability to communicate, think critically, collaborate, solve problems, and create dynamic ways of internalizing information and sharing it with others. This is what our place is in learning. Yes, we will need to support them with certain technology skill-building, such as keyboarding skills, app fluency, best practices of sharing and storing, and the certain nuances of utilizing technology tools, but this isn’t a class or a workshop. Students don’t need theoretical workshops, they want hands-on action with a purpose.

The Future of Tablets in Education: Potential Vs. Reality of Consuming Media

When we teach learners to effectively and properly use traditional tools, our reason is not for the tool itself but for what we are able to achieve. No one gets excited over using a welder, but its ability to connect difference pieces together to create something unique and useful from raw material is where its value as a tool really shines. Our challenge with technology like the iPad is that it has so many different abilities, that the user is faced with a real dilemma of losing sight of what the tool accomplishes, for the experience of using the tool.

Before we even begin to think about how and where we place the iPad in our learning process, we have to nail down our goals, possible challenges, and the planned path of process. If we reach a point during the project and hit a road block, we can become flustered if we do not have even a rough outline to backtrack to a clear point of success. This all starts with identifying which skills we will need to use. In elementary and middle school, these skills need to be clear and simple so students know that right now they are “collaborating” or “problem solving.” We can expect these skills to be subconscious as adults, but this is not realistic for most students below or even at high school level.

Once our skill sets are assessed, we then can use these skills in our project-based learning experiences. Bloom’s Taxonomy, ISTE 21st Century Standards, and the UNESCO Competency  Framework are all great sources to teach these foundational skills.

The challenge for educators, especially directors of educational technology, is not to limit how our teachers teach, but to focus on the foundational skills and provide a clear and concrete formula for how different technological devices and applications will enhance these skills in order to give a learner the ability to create a product that will change the world.

Michael Cohen will be presenting on Invisible Technology at the July 28-30 EdTechTeacher Summit in Chicago.

Innovation Leadership

America is a country that has flourished based on innovation. The worlds of medicine, private industry, and nonprofits are now embracing innovation as a key to solving age old problems. Unfortunately, the policy makers in education are creating an environment where leaders in the areas of greatest need, our cities, are being left behind.

Can a leader in education be innovative, get results and stay alive in their job in today’s public education world of compliance and accountability? Yes, but it takes courage, commitment and focus! Our attention nationally has shifted to hiring and developing instructional leaders in order to ensure that the focus is clear on improving student achievement. The premise is that if all our leaders in education concentrate on the classroom we will finally straighten out the educational problems that have existed for many years.

We have once again focused too narrowly on symptomatic solutions. Yes, instruction is key to improving student achievement. However, our educational leaders need to broaden, not narrow, their leadership competencies to be successful in today’s world. Other sectors are emphasizing innovation, external partnerships and customer service. Is education that different that the focus needs to be so internal? I propose that we realize that the true instructional leaders are our teachers and we broaden the concept of leadership to improve our school districts and schools. Innovation and leadership have been separate terms for years as were instruction and leadership. If we broadened our viewpoint and begin hiring innovative leaders that are focused on sustainable results for customers (students), we would transform our educational system.

I have found in my research of 1000 leaders in education nationally that we have already begun to transform our cultures slowly. In fact, our most successful leaders have a broad base of skills and competencies. Yes, they realize the importance of instruction and are skilled at developing teacher leaders who inform decision making and create innovative opportunities for students. These high performing leaders embrace innovation and have the curiosity to learn from their teachers, colleagues, leaders in education and even other sectors about building truly creative learning environments for staff and students.

Unfortunately, too many of these high performing leaders are in our suburban districts. While there is great potential for innovative leaders to emerge in rural and urban districts they are often discouraged by the national obsession for accountability and compliance as the key to improving student achievement. They feel they can’t be innovative because their schools and districts are being declared under-performing and must focus on meeting state and federal requirements to survive, leaving no room or time to transform their cultures into exciting and innovative places for true sustainable learning.

The policy makers seem to think that leaders in urban districts can’t be trusted to find new ways to improve student achievement. They are wrong! The best leaders are the ones who are not afraid to try new ways to get results. In fact, these great leaders even reach out to both public and private sector partners to increase their bandwidth to include new opportunities for the students in their districts.

The following are 7 Competencies that will help produce innovative leaders that build creative, sustainable learning environments with high expectations and great results for students.

Seven Competencies for High Performing Leaders in Education:

1. Challenges the Status Quo
2. Builds Trust through Clear Communication and Expectations
3. Creates a Commonly Owned Plan for Success
4. Focuses on Team over Self
5. Has a High Sense of Urgency for Change and Sustainable Results in Improving Achievement
6. Commitment to Continuous Improvement for Self and Organization
7. Builds External Networks and Partnerships

Let’s change our focus now before it is too late and hire and develop leaders who can motivate our students and staff to achieving great results!

Hello, Is That Really You?

via BBC News

Big business wants your voice – not for customer feedback, but to tackle fraud.

Voice biometrics – the recording and analysis of unique voiceprints for authentication purposes – is one of the latest technological weapons being deployed in the war against fraudsters, thought to be pilfering at least £52bn from the UK economy each year, according to the National Fraud Authority (NFA).

UK financial services companies alone are conservatively estimated to be losing more than £5bn annually, the NFA says.

But the real figures are likely to be two or three times higher than this as so much fraud goes unreported.

Identity theft and account takeover are a big and growing problem, particularly in a digital era that has been a boon to fraudsters by presenting them with many more ways to harvest personal data.

Dynamic

The main advantage of voice is that it is much harder to spoof and steal.

“Voice is a dynamic form of biometrics, rather than static like a fingerprint, so it is harder to replicate and copy digitally,” says Emmanuelle Filsjean, global head of marketing for ValidSoft, which advises retail banks on security and helps European governments tackle cross-border benefit fraud.

Digital voiceprints contain over 100 identifiable elements. And, by using complex mathematical algorithms and the latest high-definition audio equipment, voice biometric companies believe they can now identify people accurately more than 97% of the time.

Most financial institutions and big service providers around the world are actively considering adopting voice biometrics.

Even identical twins, who share the same DNA, can be told apart from their voiceprints, making the technology reliable enough to be used as evidence in courts of law.

Failing

Voice is crucial because call centres are still the main way we interact with companies, despite the rise of online banking and shopping.

Traditional authentication measures, involving personal identification numbers (PINs), passwords, and “memorable” answers to stock questions, have proved fallible, largely because we are fallible – we keep forgetting them.

This is why we choose ludicrously simple PINs and passwords that are easy for us to remember – and therefore for others to guess.

Fraud investigators have found that about 10% of four-digit PINs stolen by fraudsters are simply 1-2-3-4, while banks report legitimate customers failing call centre authentication procedures 10% to 20% of the time because they cannot remember their security details.

“You can’t forget your voice,” says Prof Levent Arslan, chief executive of Sestek, a technology company that helped Turkish mobile phone company Avea register one million voiceprints in a year.

Your voice is also easy to use.

“Using our voice is the most intuitive way of interacting,” says Ms Filsjean.

Test

While no biometrics security system is totally foolproof, fraudsters using high-definition recordings of someone’s telephone pass phrase should still be caught out, voice biometrics companies maintain, because even the highest-quality recordings use some form of compression that blunts the highest and lowest frequencies.

Even a slight mismatch with the customer’s voiceprint will trigger a “live test” conversation that is almost impossible for fraudsters to spoof, particularly if they’ve only got a recording to use.

Barclays’ private banking arm, Barclays Wealth, claims great success after implementing voice biometrics.

Before introducing the technology, it found that 25% of fraudulent phone calls to its agents were able to bypass the bank’s security systems. Fraudsters using “social engineering” techniques – or blagging in the vernacular – were able to elicit security details from agents.

The bank would not disclose how much money was being lost as a result.

Barclays says that now the number of successful fraudulent calls is zero, because it uses technology from the company behind Apple iPhone’s Siri speech recognition system, Nuance, a leader in the field.

The voiceprints of suspected fraudsters are kept on a watchlist so they can be identified if they try again pretending to be someone else.

Tricky

Slovakian Tatra Bank is currently rolling out a voice biometric system that will authenticate customer identities while they are speaking to call centre agents.

About 10 to 15 seconds of natural conversation is enough to match the voiceprint with the one the bank has on record.

Turkish mobile phone operator, Turkcell, now has about 10 million customer voiceprints on its database.

“Most financial institutions and big service providers around the world are actively considering adopting voice biometrics,” says Almog Aley-Raz, head of voice biometrics for Nuance.

The tricky part is enrolling customers in the scheme, as different jurisdictions have their own privacy laws governing voice recording.

Before introducing the technology, it found that 25% of fraudulent phone calls to its agents were able to bypass the bank’s security systems.

“In many cases there is ambiguity around the collection and use of biometrics,” says Mr Aley-Raz. “But our best practice recommendation to our customers is to obtain consent for using the technology.

“Regardless of whether a given jurisdiction has specific provision for the use of biometrics, biometric data is personal, private, and should be treated with the same care as any other data of that type.”

Voice biometrics alone is not enough to combat fraud, however. Other technologies, such as communications data analytics, must come into play.

‘Profound’

All UK financial institutions have had to record phone calls for years, and this has led to gargantuan amounts of data sitting in servers, largely ignored. But now audio and video search software, coupled with sophisticated analytical tools, is making this data mountain much more easily accessible and useful.

“The enormously sophisticated technologies that dig into written communication are now being switched to the spoken word,” says Richard Newton, co-founder of OP3NVoice, a technology company specialising in searchable audio and video recording.

“This has profound implications for fraud detection. Analysis of emotions, stress, sentiment, and meaning is a fast-developing area.”

What you say, how you say it, when, where and to whom, can all be weighted by algorithms that learn to spot suspicious or anomalous patterns of behaviour.

As Glenn Perachio, forensics specialist at accountancy firm Ernst & Young, says: “It’s like searching for a hay-coloured needle in a haystack, so you need to adopt techniques, such as machine learning, topic modelling, and geo-spatial mapping, to help narrow down the search for that evidence of malfeasance.”

Voice biometrics and speech analytics, it seems, are finally striking a true – and productive – note.

The 10 Questions Every Superintendent Needs to Answer

Superintendents can do more to change the way a community thinks about itself, its children, and the future than any other position.  But it’s an enormously difficult and complex challenge—it’s actually four full time jobs including facilitating the leadership of an elected board, leading an improvement agenda, administering a complex organization, and building community. There are (at least) ten questions that every superintendent needs to answer to maximize their contribution.

1. What should graduates know and be able to do?

• State standards (particularly Common Core) are a great start but your school board should have a full expression of college and career readiness reflected in goals, graduation requirements, and policies; see Beyond the Core: What About Other Important Outcomes?
• I appreciate goals that attend to learner experience; see Good Schools Start With Good Goals and Deeper Learning for Every Student Every Day.

2. How to build public support?

• Every superintendent (whether they know it or not) is running a campaign to build support for public education—there may be a near term election involved or just the future of the community at stake.
• A broad dashboard of indicators (e.g., academic, financial, safety, and satisfaction) should form the basis of a regular report to the community.
• A campaign strategy must be multifaceted,  formal and informal, and incorporate a lot of listening as well as pushing targeted messages to specific audiences.  In addition to internal school audiences, I found the Chamber of Commerce useful, Rotary necessary, and faith congregations generally skeptical but important.
• Social media is a must, see 25 Smart #SocialMedia Tips For #EdLeaders and To Tweet Or Not To Tweet: There Really is No Question.

3. What kind of schools does the community want/deserve?

• This is the question Paul Hill posed in It Takes a City.  This question should animate community outreach.
• Start by auditing what kinds of schools are available from what zip codes. Do affluent families have more and better options than low income families? Location, transportation, and enrollment policies all impact access.
• Superintendents should focus on emerging job clusters and with community college leaders, consider ways to give students valuable work-based learning experiences and schools connected to employment pathways.

4. How do schools improve?

• Superintendents should have a well-developed (research/experience-based) view on how schools improve and how adults learn and develop. They should be fluent in assessment strategies and the use of data to drive improvement.
• School results (primarily performance and growth) should define their relationship with the central office in a system of differentiated supports (i.e., high performers get autonomy, low performers get prescriptive guidance).
• High performing schools should be encouraged (and rewarded) for expanding and supporting struggling schools.

5. What’s the innovation agenda?

• Improvement strategies alone probably won’t close the gaps and make the step-function improvement necessary—it will require an innovation agenda.
• Finding the right balance between improvement (i.e., consistently high execution) and innovation (i.e., developing/adapting new approaches) is a key role of the superintendent. Working in phases can help make a challenging agenda doable and affordable.
• Superintendents should remain abreast of the blended learning opportunity set including new tools and school models (see Blended Learning Universe and NGLC Profiles).
• In a district of any size, new school development should be part of the innovation agenda (see 10 reasons every district should open flex schools).
• Blended learning strategies and improved student access to technology should be infused into the improvement agenda.

6. How do systems improve?

• Superintendents should be well versed in district governance options, organizational design and change theory, and alternative improvement strategies.
• Based on community conversations (and answers to the first five questions), superintendent should decide on a unified systemic approach (what I call an enterprise strategy like Mooresville) or a portfolio strategy where schools and networks develop/adopt different school models (see the  Blended Learning Implementation Guide) and multiple operators are encouraged.
• A portfolio approach requires a system of managed choice to ensure equitable access to options (see a recent post by Andy Smarick on The Urban School System of the Future).

7. How to develop leadership?

• Superintendents need a well-developed view of and active role in talent development.
• Teachers and leadership should benefit from a competency-based sequence of learning opportunities and work experiences.  Like students, they should demonstrate mastery before progressing. See Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning.
• Teacher leaders should be identified and utilized to help drive and support improvement and innovation efforts.
• A community leadership development program can also help build community support.  Our local community program, Advancing Leadership, not only trains emerging community leaders but student leaders.

8. Who makes what decision ?

• The superintendent should facilitate a productive relationship with the school board with common goals and clear roles.  I’m a fan of John Carver’s Policy Governance model.  The Center for Reform of School Systems is a great resource.  For charter boards, see Charter Board Partners (where I’m a director).
• Sound governance and a clear strategy allows a superintendent to create goals and role clarity for teachers and leaders (i.e., what am I supposed to accomplish, what latitude do I have and what support can I expect?).

9. How to provide great support services?

• Teachers and school leaders deserve world-class support services.  Students and families deserve great information services, responsiveness, and links to community services.
• Districts may want to use a mixture of inside and outside services to meet these demands.  Depending on the answer to #6, there may be mandatory services (like busing) and what is optional services (like office supplies).

10. Who is helping you drive this agenda?

• Superintendents need to build a talented mission-aligned district management team.
• An aggressive improvement agenda requires strong project management capacity.  I’ve had good success using teacher on special assignment in this role (and as a leadership development experience).

Building community support (#2) and facilitating sound governance (#8) adds to the superintendents bank account of political capital.  Difficult work can require withdrawals from this account.  When you’re out of political capital, you’re usually looking for work.  A good superintendent is always trying to figure out where to push and how hard.

The innovation opportunity set (#5) is improving rapidly but that creates leadership challenges for superintendents.  The transition to personal digital learning suggests that superintendents should be community conversation leaders–facilitator of temporary agreements that provide goal and role clarity for a year or two.

12 Features of the Next-Gen Platform

EdTech 10: Put An Apple On It

Originally posted on GettingSmart Blog

Blended Schools & Tools

1. Next-gen learning. The Next Generation Learning Challenge (@NextGenLC) is a great framework for blended and personalized learning.  The national grant program that supports new and redesigned schools just announced 21 new Planning Grant and 16 new Launch Grant recipients winners. The NGLC recipients signal 10 trends and are worth watching.

2. Speaking of Grant Winners. 7 Chicago schools will get $100K technology grants from the Chicago Public Education Fund in partnership with LEAPinnovations, the first round of regional grants based on the NGLC framework. There is a lot of exciting EdTech momentum in Chicago–see our latest #SmartCities update, Smart Cities: Chicago Develops In “Leaps” and Bounds.
3. More Google in the “Classroom.” In honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, Google (@GoogleEdu) announced the launch of their new LMS, Classroom, that will lay over Google Apps for Education, making it easier for teachers and students to use the suite of collaborative apps as a full learning management system.

Smart Cities

4. Ask and You Shall Receive.  When you are lucky enough to have such a deeply talented PLN coupled with an equally as deep generous spirit the request to share their expertise by authoring a post is answered in spades. Last week, we started running the guest pieces covering so many issues affecting our cities today on both EdWeek and Getting Smart. Alex Hernandez (@thinkschools) details the essentials for growing innovative ecosystems while Phyllis Lockett illustrates why Our Kids Can’t Wait in Chicago and through the country.

For The Core

5. Blogging to the Core (#CoreMatters). The Alliance for Excellent Education (@all4ed) launched a new blog seriesilluminating best practices for implementation of the Common Core State Standards for struggling students, particularly. Starting next month, new content will be published on the first and third Tuesday of every month. The Alliance will use the series to bring attention to the methods for delivering on the promise and potential of the standards for all students, especially those who have been historically underserved by the education system.  Like the Alliance, we think the Common Core is a big platform for equity & innovation.

Digital Developments

6. Socrates Has A Point. Although the central goal of teaching and learning has never changed, our methods are transforming basically before our eyes. Slate’s post this week, What Would Socrates Think About MOOCs  discusses how modern technology allows for never before experienced interactivity and connection, allowing for communities of learners to form on a global scale. Also, the speed and capacity of computers to process information means that we can now “replicate and improve upon fundamental processes of learning.” Very interesting.

7. New Additions for Fuel Education. Although new itself, FuelED (@FuelEducation) is already announcing the newest additions to their course catalog– including multiple middle and high school math courses and career-building electives. Please see FuelEd Press Room for more information. Read Fueling a Personalized Learning Revolution to know more about how blended learning can provide high quality learning opportunities for secondary students.

STEM Gems

8. Robotics is All the Rage. 12,000+ students traveled to St. Louis, Missouri this past week for the FIRST Championship at the Edward Jones Dome. With almost 70,000 students competing in regional and district competitions– this culminating event was a huge celebration of STEM learning for thousands of enthusiastic and engaged students. We caught the Robotics fever too when teacher blogger, Dave Guymon, reviewed the new Sphero Curriculum (@gosphero) this week.

Teachers & Tech

9. Assembling the Dream Team. With 4,000 applications for 200 spots, LearnZillion(@LearnZillion) has been able to gather some of the most talented Math and English Language Arts teachers from across the globe. The team will come to New Orleans from June 4-7 to participate in Teachfest and kick off their summer long collaboration- where they will return to their hometowns and continue to work together online to create quality formative assessment tools aligned to the common core.

10. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! We know teachers are some of the busiest people we know. So we just want to be sure you didn’t miss the launch of our paper we wrote with Karen Cator (@kcator) of Digital Promise (@DigitalPromise) focused on how we go about preparing our teachers to innovate and inspire deeper learning for all students. Read Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning and check out the infographic on competency-based teacher prep.

What your Starbucks order says about you

The iconic soft drink of every state in America

Soda is as integral a part of American history as the hamburger or Nicolas Cage’s repeated attempts to thwart it, and while most soft drinks under the sun are now owned and bottled by one of three major companies, there’s still a rich tapestry of “hand-crafted”, mom-and-pop soda companies out there doing what they’ve been doing for the last hundred years or so — and doing it damn well.

Each state might call these products something different (soda, pop, tonic, fizzy yum-yum juice), but there’s no disputing that Americans love their soft drinks. And with so many folks brewing them across so many states, there’re bound to be some that rise above the rest. This map is an homage to sodas with intimate ties (not that kind of intimate) to different places; some are made exclusively in that state, some are loved the hardest in that state, and some are just the Dakotas, and make us confused. So here are the iconic soft drinks of every state in America (and you can click here for a blown-up version of the above image). Disagreements/comments/$.05 deposits (except in Michigan) can be made in the section below:

ALABAMA – GRAPICO
Grapico was founded in Louisiana in 1914, but moved to Alabama in 1917 — and there it has stayed, both physically and in the hearts of Alabamians.

ALASKA – PEPSI
Alaska doesn’t have as big of a soda culture as other states, but there is a Pepsi bottling plant there. So it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

ARIZONA – CACTUS COOLER
This orange-pineapple drink has a big presence in the Southwest, where it’s moderately preferable to actual cacti.

ARKANSAS – GRAPETTE
Grapette, once a grape soda titan of Arkansas, is now a Sam’s Club soda, but that doesn’t diminish its years of dominance in the Southern market.

CALIFORNIA – A&W
A&W was founded in California back in 1919, and their root beer remains a huge hit there to this day.

COLORADO – IZZE
These carbonated fruit drinks exploded onto the market back in 2002, and even though they were bought by PepsiCo in 2006, they remain a Colorado invention.

CONNECTICUT – FOXON PARK
It’s impossible to find a pizzeria in New Haven that doesn’t stock Foxon Park, a Connecticut-bred soda company that’s been around since 1922.

DELAWARE – OLD DOMINION ROOT BEER
Dominion, also a brewery, makes a heck of a root beer — it’s sweetened with honey & sugar, and it’s made right in Dover.

FLORIDA – ANY FOUNTAIN SODA OUT OF A 7-ELEVEN BIG GULP
Self-explanatory.

GEORGIA – COCA-COLA
The headquarters of the world’s favorite soda is located here. They’ve got a museum. RC Cola may have a strong foothold here, but this is Coke country.

HAWAII – HAWAIIAN SUN
OK, so it’s not technically a real soft-drink since it’s not carbonated. But ask any Hawaiian what their favorite beverage is, and they’ll tell you it’s Pass-O-Guava (or POG) nectar. And Hawaiian Sun makes the best.

IDAHO – IRON PORT
This one’s not a brand, but rather a style of drink sold at soda fountains throughout Idaho — Iron Port is kinda like root beer with a spicier kick.


ILLINOIS – GREEN RIVER
Originally the product of a brewery facing restrictive Prohibition policies, Green River grew to be Illinois’ favorite soft drink, and has been produced by a multitude of bottlers over the years.

INDIANA – TRIPLE XXX
Although it was founded in Texas, Triple XXX is now an Indiana institution that’s famous for its root beer, and for the fact that only one of two remaining eponymous restaurants is located there.

IOWA – SIOUX CITY SARSAPARILLA
Named after the Iowa city, Sioux City Sarsaparilla is widely regarded as one of the best sarsaparillas out there and was even mentioned in The Big Lebowski. Damn, dude.

KANSAS – LOST TRAIL ROOT BEER
A tried-and-true Kansan brew, Lost Trail’s root beer has been made in-state since the frontier days.

KENTUCKY – ALE-8-ONE
Around its production center in Winchester, Kentucky, Ale-8-One is a supremely popular ginger-and-citrus soda. It’s also the only soda invented in Kentucky to still be in existence. So there’s that, too.

LOUISIANA – DELAWARE PUNCH
Despite its name, this drink isn’t affiliated with Delaware (it’s actually named after a grape variety), rather it’s a Southern fruit soda with a grape kick that’s found in select stores in the Louisiana area.

MAINE – MOXIE
Even though it was originally invented and produced in Massachusetts, no state is more nuts for the weird flavor of Moxie than Maine, which has even gone so far as to name it the official state soft drink.

MARYLAND – SHASTA
Shasta’s first soft drink was a ginger ale produced in 1931, and, despite being named after a spring in California, was distributed (and beloved) locally, in Maryland.

MASSACHUSETTS – POLAR
Bay Staters are crazy for Polar, which’s got a huge number of varieties (try the Orange Dry!) available all over the state, and which are bottled in Worcester.

MICHIGAN – FAYGO
Faygo is perhaps best known nationally for being appropriated by Insane Clown Posse, but this refreshing Michigan soda’s wildly popular in its home state for its multitude of flavors and relatively low cost. This could’ve gone to Vernor’s as well, but Faygo is more ubiquitous throughout the state and is still made in Detroit, so it comes out on top.

MINNESOTA – SUN DROP
This citrus soda may’ve been introduced in Missouri, but it’s got a strong foothold in Minnesota and the upper Midwest.

MISSISSIPPI – BARQ’S ROOT BEER
Barq’s was invented in Louisiana, but first sold in Biloxi, Mississippi, when its founder moved there in 1897. That’s some old-timey root beer.

MISSOURI – IBC ROOT BEER
Once Missouri’s most famous soda company, IBC is now owned by Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, but that doesn’t make its eponymous root beer any less delicious.

MONTANA – FLATHEAD LAKE
This one’s pretty niche, but Flathead Lake produces “gourmet” sodas out of Montana in flavors like huckleberry and sour cherry.

NEBRASKA – KOOL-AID
Kool-Aid is Nebraska’s official state soft drink (one of only two states to have one) and was invented there in 1927.

NEVADA – RED BULL
More a postulation than anything, we’re just assuming that everyone in Nevada needs Red Bull to keep going.

NEW HAMPSHIRE – SQUAMSCOT
Brewed and bottled in New Hampshire, Squamscot comes in flavors like birch beer, strawberry, and the mysterious “half & half”.

NEW JERSEY – BOYLAN’S
Bottled in various locations all over New Jersey since its founding in 1891, Boylan’s now makes a hell of a black-cherry soda, and all of their offerings come in retro-style bottles.

NEW MEXICO – BLUE SKY
Blue Sky’s a natural soft drink producer founded in Santa Fe in 1980. It doesn’t operate out of there anymore, but we kinda had to pick it due to its inherent Breaking Bad parallels.

NEW YORK – DR. BROWN’S

No New York deli would be complete without a case full of Dr. Brown’s, which comes in an array of flavors that include cream, black cherry, and… celery.

NORTH CAROLINA – CHEERWINE

There’s no disputing — North Carolinians love their Cheerwine.

NORTH DAKOTA – COCA-COLA
DAMMIT, WE COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING FOR NORTH DAKOTA. So we just made their soda Coke. Get your act together, North Dakota!

OHIO – CHERIKEE RED
Rarely found outside Ohio, Cherikee Red is a cherry-flavored drink that was first produced there back in 1969.

OKLAHOMA – DUBLIN DR. PEPPER
A variety of Dr. Pepper that uses cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup, Dublin Dr. Pepper was discontinued back in 2012… but you can still find it in soda fountains all over Oklahoma. You go, Oklahoma!

OREGON – THOMAS KEMPER
Thomas Kemper was founded in Washington, but popularized in Portland when it was bought by a local company in 2006, and is now a local icon. They’re the purveyors of fine, old-fashioned HFCS-less sodas.

PENNSYLVANIA – A-TREAT
A-Treat started in 1918 in Allentown and continues to be the hometown favorite of many a wayward Philadelphian. Their birch beer is a must.

RHODE ISLAND – YACHT CLUB SODA
Yacht Club is one of Rhode Island’s beverage companies (and may well be one of its only companies, period), and they brew a wide variety of sodas, from birch beer to grape to peach seltzer.

SOUTH CAROLINA – BLENHEIM GINGER ALE
Since 1903, Blenheim has been producing some of the country’s finest ginger ales in Hamer, South Carolina — in mild, hot, and diet varieties.

SOUTH DAKOTA – COCA-COLA
The Dakotas have really got to ramp up their soda game, because South Dakota, too, was impossible to find any soda for. Pretty safe to say they like Coke there, though.

TENNESSEE – RC COLA
Famous in the South due to its status as one half of a working man’s lunch (the other being a Moon Pie), RC Cola’s made in Georgia, but it’s pretty beloved in Tennessee, as well.

TEXAS – DR. PEPPER
If you ask a Texan what kind of Coke they want, chances are their answer will be “Dr. Pepper.” (Sorry, Big Red.) Granted, “Coke” is their word for soda, but it’s still pretty telling.

UTAH – SPRITE
Utah’s huge Mormon population can’t consume caffeine, so they’ve gotta drink a lot of Sprite.

VERMONT – SWEET WATER
Vermont’s Sweet Water Bottling Company produces nine all-natural soft drinks in the spirit of the state (namely, Maple Soda).

VIRGINIA – CHEERWINE
Yeah, I know we already put Cheerwine as North Carolina’s favorite soft drink, but it’s definitely Virginia’s, too. You’ll have to share, North Carolina.

WASHINGTON – JONES SODA
Jones Soda’s famous nationally for making some über-weird soda varieties of dubious repute, but their standard flavors (some of which are still pretty out there, like blue bubble gum) are quite refreshing.

WEST VIRGINIA – MOUNTAIN DEW
Data doesn’t lie — West Virginians are nuts for Mountain Dew. Even moreso than the rest of America. It’s almost to the point of being detrimental.

WISCONSIN – SPRECHER ROOT BEER
Sprecher is a pretty standard brewery in that it makes beer, but it’s a little more well known for its sodas — particularly its root beer, which has Wisconsinites foaming at the mouth in more ways than one.

WYOMING – JACKSON HOLE SODA

Advertising itself as “the best dang old-fashioned soda in the whole dang country”, Jackson Hole is very much a Wyoming creation. Their Snake River Sarsaparilla is a must while viewing some Grand Tetons.

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