richm

 http://mrlevine.blogspot.com/2007/07/teachers-talk-im-presently-in-middle-of.html

Teachers Talk

I'm presently in the middle of teaching four consecutive graduate level courses. The vast majority of the participants are K-12 classroom teachers, with a smattering of other staff such as librarians, social workers, speech therapists, etc. The courses mostly have a technology-education theme, except for one on Problem Based Learning, a course I very much enjoy to teach.

Working with teachers always interests me. They are the grunts, the ones in the trenches, and as such they are also the people whose thoughts we should always listen to. The following quotes are some reflections from these teachers:

--Sometimes shy students will participate more online. --I need to stay current with what I know my students are already doing. --I am here because I feel my teaching style needs to model my students' learning style. --Are we engaged in the love of learning and are we engaging our students? --Are we failing to embrace social networking sites such as My Space because of our lack of interest or understanding and choose to ignore and block them because that is easier than embracing them? --My questions are how to get my staff interested and informed about the use of technology in wikis, blogs, etc. Our teachers are not against it, but like many elementary teachers, they are already swamped with other issues. --I am excited! I don't have any questions right now, but I am sure that I will have them after we get the school year started and I get my students using the wiki spaces. This is so cool!! --How do I get my colleagues on board with wikis and blogs when we have so little department time together to even share about these tools and our schedules are so full that we only have small blocks of time to communicate? --As an art teacher, this is a spectacular way to portfolio student work. Each student could have their own wiki that shows their work. It could serve as a culminating assessment piece for a student's course of school. It also allows for a wider audience to view the work. --(We need) easier access to computers, tech. support (it is a big hassle now) and more training. --Too many teachers just use programmed software products with the students when they go to the lab-they seem to be unaware of all the different aspects of technology that they can tap into. --I have been consistently frustrated by people I work with or people I know who think that technology use automatically makes the lesson better. PowerPoint notes are not automatically better than overhead or chalkboard notes, if they are given and used in the same fashion. --Technology will improve learning when it is part of an intellectually challenging lesson or unit. --I wish principals would build reading the research and responding to it into their staff development at the building level. It is only when we are informed and come to understand the research that we will embrace the instructional practices we are being told to use. --I feel that technology needs to be used for far more than increasing test scores. --In my opinion, it would be nice to see each student with his/her own laptop at all levels. Of course, I know money is a huge factor but I am sure we could make this work if it was a focus. If teachers knew that the technology is easily available, they would do more with it. Once a week in the computer lab does not create or allow a technology literate environment, especially, today. --I have started to learn how to write/submit blogs. I think blogs could have many functions, and I find them fairly easy to use. Plus, they seem somewhat informal, which is nice. I like that people can comment on what I have published. Also, I'm motivated at the idea of having others read what I post...just like the students! :-)

What reflections would you like to add?

Labels: graduate students, reflections, teachers

posted by Rich Levine | 9:57 PM 1 Comments:

erich said...

One problem with some of the MySpace issue at least at my school is that it has had some negative impact on staff and students which has made it somewhat difficult to entertain the idea of using these tools. Our school has made an attempt at doing technology professional development but it seems to be failing. I am going to try and use some of these tools this year to see if I can show the other teachers in the school that they can be used in a positive way that can have a lasting impact on the students. 8:41 PM

Why is it so Hard for Educators to Focus on Their Own Learning?    

That’s a question that I’m really trying to get my brain around of late. In the past few weeks, I have really ramped up my rhetoric to teachers in terms of trying to get them to examine how these technologies challenge their own personal learning. How can the connections we make with these tools affect their own learning practice? How can they begin to understand what the implications for learning are for their students until they at some level understand them for themselves? And so on. And for the most part, heads nod politely in agreement.

But, here’s the thing. By and large, most of the questions that come up during the workshop or the presentation run along the lines of “how do we keep our kids safe with this stuff?” or “if I want to put up my homework for my kids is it better to use a blog or a wiki?” or “so parents could subscribe to these RSS feeds, right?” All good, useful, legitimate questions. But very far removed from the personal learning focus I’ve been trying to articulate. In fact, when I stand by these teachers and hear their questions, when I look at them directly and say “well, that’s a great question, but I really want you to focus on your own practice here, your own learning,” more often than not what I get is a scrunched up face, a biting of the lower lip, a feeling that their brains are saying “AAARRRGGGHHH.”

And even as I sit in this session with Tim Tyson at Building Learning Communities, one principal says “I want to learn more about these tools so I can help my teachers use them in the classroom.”  I want to jump up and say “No! You are missing a step! You want to learn more about these tools for yourself so you can help your teachers learn from them too.”

So what’s that all about? Is it just habit? Is it just such a focus on curriculum delivery that “learning” is all about how to do that job better? Is changing the way we do our own business just too darn hard? Or is this such a huge shift, this idea that we can actually learn through the use of technology that most people just don’t think they have to go there, that they can just keep using it as a way to communicate without the surrounding connective tissue where the real learning takes place?

Or, maybe it’s just me…

(Photo “Having to read the old books again” by Edublogger aka Ewan McIntosh.)

Technorati Tags: blc07, learning, education, read/writeweb

 richm Says: July 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm

I have trouble just getting teachers to come to a free professional development on any technology let alone the web 2.0. Until there is a major shift in state requirements and No Child Left behind takes a back seat it is going to be an up hill battle for the masses to adopt these changes.

http://www.edutopia.org/iste-new-educational-technology-standards

ISTE Unveils New National Educational-Technology Standards By Chris O'Neal

The International Society for Technology in Education has unveiled the report "National Educational Technology Standards for Students: The Next Generation," which covers six key areas: creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making; digital citizenship; and technology operations and concepts.

When the original NETS was published in 1998 -- it's hard to believe the standards are almost ten years old -- I recall viewing them as a nice set of benchmarks toward which many of us worked. At the time, I taught middle school and can still remember the challenge of teaching those concepts. I had barely enough equipment and little support, and I spent a lot of time teaching students how to click and drag. The mechanics far overshadowed true integration.

Fast forward ten years: Now I'm the father of an eleven-year-old daughter who, I swear, came out clicking! Thinking back to the original standards and knowing what Chloe is capable of now, I realize the importance of updating these standards. Technology is so much faster, smoother, and more reliable than it's ever been.

Our collective educator group is much more savvy as well, now that we've mastered clicking, dragging, and publishing to the world, as well as integrating more higher-order uses of technology into our learning environments. The new standards speak beyond the actual technology; just look at the topics listed above. The standards are not about pushing buttons -- they're about pushing our minds.

I think beefing up the standards was the best thing to do. Over the last few years, I've read some great books, done a lot of research, and worked in technology-rich schools all over the world, and I think we can all agree that these types of environments make for a more intellectually healthy student.

We all have high expectations for technology, so it makes sense to also raise our expectations of students' abilities with technology -- both in and out of the classroom. I'm still concerned that in a high percentage of classrooms, the original standards are barely addressed. (That percentage may be shrinking, but not fast enough; see my post "The Digital Divide Within.") In addition, this country still has not found solutions to the issues of home-based access and the digital divide, which quietly fester in the background. But if we don't raise these standards and our expectations of students' capabilities in technology, we won't have a common ground from which to advance.

I love the new standards. However, I don't want them to become a checklist or a fill-in-the-bubble sheet of isolated skills -- that goes against the grain of what they are about. I want to see classrooms where students thrive in the midst of rich content and in a flat world. I want to see classrooms in which teachers maximize the knowledge of all these born clickers and MySpace minds, and learning environments in which we share the excitement of these technologies while learning together. (See my post "Students as Classroom Tech Support.")

I'm going to follow these standards in a new Learner 2.0 class I'm teaching this fall, and I will encourage my peers to adhere to them as well. I'll post the syllabus here soon, and my fellow teachers and I will blog about our experiences as we incorporate these new lessons into our classrooms. Let me know what impact these standards have on you. Do you already have ideas about how to enrich projects with these standards in mind?

* Chris O'Neal's blog

« Technology Policy Makers BLC 2007 Reflections »

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• Date : 19 July 2007
• Categories : Human Resource Development, School 2.0, blc2007, blc07, Learning Communities, Adult Education, Education, Instructional Technology, Educational Technology, Technology Integration, Technology

23 07 2007

Erik Rich (18:44:47) : Your comment is awaiting moderation

Educators have access to a lot of things but one problem is knowing how to use them and not being afraid to use them. The Web 2.0 is not new to students because they are growing up in the middle of it but there are still teachers that barely use email and do so because they have to. I agree that educators need to be more proactive and challenge there students to use these new technologies for purposes other than making their friends jealous or boasting about things they do or do not have but right now in education, professional development on using these technologies effectively in the classroom are not always available. Our school recently tried to do professional development after school in various areas of educational technology and most were poorly attended. So I ask you how do we make these teachers unafraid?

 http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/07/dont-be-too-proud-of-web-20.html

Don't be too proud of web 2.0.

erich said...

I have to agree that the web 2.0 makes people look like experts even more than that original WWW. Before you had to make a conscious effort to have a website which included buying a domain name and knowing how to use html or an editor. Now anyone can go on the web and post their dribble whether it is important, funny or irrelevant in any form. One of the biggest problems educators like myself are having is managing information for the next generation. Today's generation is bombarded by information but they have few skills on appropriately using the information that is on the web. As open the web 2.0 is there are definitely things educators need to do to get students ready to use it. July 24, 2007 8:07 AM