meL’s Word

I remain frustrated by our lack of technology use.  My district is far and above most districts its size in terms of the technology tools we have available for teachers and students – yet so many of these tools go relatively unused.   At the beginning of the school year our district superintendent admonished four schools who did not make AYP last year – “if you do as you have always done you will get what you have always gotten” – didn’t make too many friends with this statement, yet he is correct.  I frequently hear variousteachers complain that the students can’t/won’t learn, yet they are teaching the way I was taught 30+ years ago.  I was bored to tears in middle school and I didn’t have a computer, video game, Wii, PS2, DS, etc. to go home to.   Now that I am in education, I really get the whole Charlie Brown teacher thing – I hear it all day long.

Okay, done venting – Jackie Gerstein has put together this wonderful page – go look and be inspired: http://classroom-technology.weebly.com/index.html

For many of you school has been going for a month or more.  For my district, this is the beginning of the third week.  The new school year brings many changes for us – a new student information system and along with it a new gradebook for everyone to get used to.  Neither of my middle schools made AYP this year so the pressure is on.  Everyone is under stress – teachers, building administrators and central office administrators.

I started the new year off by moving into a new office – no mold, I have a cubicle to call my own now (hence a place to keep my stuff so I can move out the pile from my dining room floor). 

Hopefully I can move some teachers to try some new technologies that might make a difference.

So, for anyone who reads this, you know I haven’t written anything in a few months. No particular reason, just haven’t been terribly inspired. Our students are done for this school year, teachers are soon scattered to the wind for two months. I’ll be attending NECC in DC (yippee!!).
Last month I got tossed like a rocket from one of my horses and shattered my wrist.

Unlike Humpty Dumpty, it was put back together again – albeit with a plate and lots of screws. Hopefully physical therapy will get it more or less back to the way it used to be.
Last summer I taught a course in Web 2.0 tools for teachers in our district. Had a great time doing it even though we had very little time to get a LOT of work done. This school year we repeated it. I have mixed feelings about its success. Over the summer the teachers finished the work in about 5 weeks. During the school year it seemed the teachers were too bogged down with teaching. We did get some really nice work though. Next fall we are going to teach shorter courses and see how that goes – less material in less time. Hopefully it will go better. The state of Virginia is changing the focus of their technology plan to student use of technology. I can hear the moans and groans of teachers already. I will spend the next couple of years trying to convince teachers that if they have students more involved (using technology) attention and grades will both improve.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a webinar with Dan Tapscott, author of Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital (hosted by Discovery Education).  This was the first I had heard of Tapscott and I was intrigued by his message.  His latest book, Grown Up Digital, is the result of a $4.5 million dollar study of the Net Generation (those aged 12 – 30).  This generation is transforming the way the world works.  Through their innovation and collaboration, the world is changing the way things are done (except for education).  I firmly believe every administrator and decision maker in education needs to pay heed.

Tapscott states that the traditional broadcast model of education (I teach, you listen and take notes) is no longer working.  Education needs to be customized to a more interactive and collaborative model.  This makes sense, after all the studies looking at the way people learn, we still teach to the auditory and visual learners.  What about those who learn by doing?  Students today listen to a lecture, takes notes (maybe) and memorize enough to pass a test.  This isn’t truly learning.  It is memorization. 

Arne Duncan, our new Secretary of Education, proposes “flipping” NCLB – perhaps he should read Tapscotts books first.   How about truly revamping education? 

I started playing with Diigo recently and am rapidly becoming an advocate.  I frequently run across pages that I don’t have time to give a good once over, so I will put it in a Favorites folder called “Look at Later”.  Over the years I have gone through that folder and looked at sites and wondered why in the world I bookmarked it.  With Diigo’s highlighting and sticky notes, I can highlight the important stuff and write myself a note for later.  What is not to like about this?

My daughter (3rd grade) is embarking on her first science fair project.  I used my teacher tools to create a group and account for her.  Last night we bookmarked and highlighted pages for her to come back to when she needs.  The bookmarks and highlights are private.  If this were a class working on a project those would be shared with other members of the group.  Creating a student account was super easy, and I liked that I could choose whether or not she could alter her profile (not allowed for under 13s).  Had I been creating a whole class of usernames/passwords I could then print those and cut into strips to hand out to students.

As an ITRT I can bookmark, highlight and make notes on pages to share with other ITRTs or teachers.  I can also see what pages are bookmarked/highlighted/”stickied” by others in groups to which i belong – this allows me to see what others with the same interests are reading.  Again, what’s not to like about this?

I ran across this discussion on Classroom 2.0 and it really got me to thinking about the implications.  I work with technology and love it (and have a hard time understanding those who don’t/won’t embrace it).  The question made me wonder if this is the real reason more teachers don’t use more technology.  While I think of technology in terms of making things easier, I do have to admit it isn’t always convenient.  Sometimes the problems are poor planning (lab is booked, etc.) but there are times it simply doesn’t want to work right.  I work with teachers that shrug their shoulders and go on, some give it up for the day but will try again, but there are those that will never try again. 

Sure, sometimes technology is more work – but often that initial workload pays off into less work later.  One of the comments in the post talked about a teacher not wanting to implement something new because it would mean more work.   Unfortunately, that is a sad reality.

I am a fan of Karl Fisch – I tend to agree wholeheartedly with so much of what he writes in his blog, The Fischbowl.  A few weeks ago he wrote a post called “What’s the Purpose of School?” In the post he loosely quoted a David Warlick (who I also admire, but don’t follow as closely as I probably should) post with a similar title, What’s the Purpose of Education?.  I read the Karl Fisch post and then read the original David Warlick post.  The government’s answer to the question is

• Cover the standards
• Make AYP
• Improve performance on government tests
• Produce a competitive workforce.

Most would agree, as I do, that this is not the entire answer.  As a parent I expect more than that, much more – I don’t give a hoot about the standards, or the government tests, or AYP.  Sure, I want schools to treat all children as individuals that can learn.  I don’t want a child to be successful based on which school he or she may have (or have not) gone to.  But I also don’t want what my child learns determined by some state committee that decides what is important and what isn’t.  I don’t want pacing guides that dictate how much time is spent on each topic - doesn’t that leave children behind?

Sure, I want my daughter to be well prepared for college if she so chooses (which I hope she does).  I also think that preparation is more than standards, more than AYP, more than government tests.  Education should be more than that.  Teaching her the standards does not prepare her for the world beyond the brick school she is in.  Teaching her using the same methods used when I was in school so many years ago is not going to prepare her for the 21st century.  Her education should provide her with a vast range of tools to use in a variety of situations – and the knowledge of how and when to use each tool most appropriately.

I walk the halls of the schools I work in (two middle and one elementary) and if children are the future, then what I see often frightens me.  I don’t think many these students are being prepared for the world beyond school – certainly not the competitive one they will encounter beyond graduation.  I live and work in a rural area beyond which many do not venture.  I have had students who will never leave the Delmarva peninsula, which is sad.  The future on the Eastern Shore seems bleak.  There is little industry beyond chickens (either the chickens themselves or the grain they eat), beyond the (dying) industry the waterman struggle in, beyond the tomatoes we grow.  We may have a rocket port here in the near future, but how many locals are prepared to work in that industry.  So many of the people who will work in that industry will not be locals.

As our nation struggles in dire economic times, are we preparing the future leaders of our country to compete in the ever-changing global environment?

I just read an article from Alan November’s November Learning site called Banning Student Containers.  The premise of the article is that students use “digital containers” – blogs, iPods, instant messanging, YouTube, video games, and of course, cell phones.  Students access these containers for information and to stay connected.  However, in school students doen’t have access to these containers – in fact, schools tell students these don’t have anything to do with learning.  At home the student picks up these tools or applications, moves from one to another – all self-directed, self-taught and highly motivating.  At school the student can’t access academic podcasts which would help him learn (such as Grammar Girl and numerous other podcasts geared towards learning).  The student can’t post class notes to his teacher’s blog so all RSS subscribers could know what went on in class.  The examples continue, but you get the drift.

November argues that students should be allowed to access and use their digital containers at school to make school both more motivating and more rigorous.  He makes the statement “what if paper had been banned because at one time a student wrote some inappropriate content without a teacher’s guidance?”  (”But what if a student writes something bad in a blog?  What will I do?”)

Oh how I wish I could convince more people to make the jump into the wired world.  The teachers that embrace the wired world are the movers and shakers.  The students that are allowed to connect and collaborate globally are the future leaders.  To all the teachers that complain that the students won’t learn – what are you doing to teach the way students will learn?  Recently I added a quote I read in ISTE’s Leading and Learning from Lisa Wilson of The Mentoring Center – “If we don’t start teaching the way our kids think and play today, we will continue to keep the entire nation behind in developing the innovative, first-to-market, high-tech tools of tomorrow.”  I’ll take it further – if we don’t use these tools we will no longer be teaching, we will simply sound more and more like every adult in a Charlie Brown video.

I recently read a post on Steve Dembo’s Teach 42 blog about whether or not joining Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) was bad for morale (Is joining a PLN bad for morale?).  Steve cited two examples of teachers leaving positions after learning what others are doing with technology in their classrooms and realizing those things won’t come to fruition in their current positions.  It made for many interesting comments from teachers all over.  Many teachers are in similar positions.  Many are in positions similar to mine – they fear budget cuts will eliminate their position. Some teachers in technology specialist positions were now wanting to go back to the classroom and use all these new technologies for themselves.  How about you?  Do you read about things other teachers in other schools/districts/states are doing and become disillusioned because you know whatever it is won’t happen here?  Or are you the one setting that example for others? Do you read about other teachers and simply think “no way”, or “how in the world?”

During my daily travels on the web and through edtech journals, I am always finding new tools (I especially like the free ones…).  Then I try to figure out which teacher can best use the new thing and come up with some ideas.  Recently I sent the link to GoAnimate to our middle school TAG teacher.  Her students loved it!  They have created historical and political animations.  One grade used it to create recycling commercials. 

Another tool I ran across and passed along to a lot of teachers was Pocketmod.  It calls itself the free, recylable personal organizer, but I saw it as a wonderul way to make pocket-sized study guides.  The TAG students used it to create storybooks for kindergarden and first grade students.  A sixth grade science class used it to create study sheets for their benchmark exams.