Being a part of the first ISTE Leadership Bootcamp was exciting. The opportunity to connect with and listen to so many visionary leaders in technology was exciting and provided the opportunity to expose myself to forward thinking in educational technology. Attending the Leadership Bootcamp affirmed my beliefs that educational technology must be progressive, question existing school policy, and expose students to the world in which they live at school.
We must begin to prepare our students for success in a knowledge based, technology driven, globally competitive world by providing time, practice and instruction in that world so they can experience that world in a safe, responsible and challenging way. No longer are schools confined by location or time as the opportunities for informal education increase. By communicating, collaborating and creating the future with our students we can begin to transform our schools into high performance environments where students are expected to be and are high achievers. However, in order to provide these experiences and environments to our students we must spend time in them and experience them ourselves. We must also reevaluate our school policies related to technology so they reflect the attitude of continuous learning.
Social online networking need not be solely for students. Lucy Gray discussed the positive opportunities that social networking has for teachers and how the sharing of such resources can strongly enhance an educators professional development. The development of a personal learning network for educators is a powerful tool and a first step in understanding the worlds our students encounter on a daily basis when they are not in school. The use of Twitter and other types of social networking connect teachers from all areas of the world and unite them in a common discussion rich in the sharing of resources. Student book reviews are no longer stagnant when students from other parts of the world comment on posts via blogs or twitter. Historical character studies become real when students reenact their lives via profile creations on Twitter. Finding opportunities to bring these tools into the classroom to enhance learning can provide engaging and authentic experiences for our students.
We have an obligation to our students to introduce them to a 21st Century global world through tools and applications that connect one another. This idea is often regarded as a fearful one by school districts because it opens the doors of our schools to the outside world. Often our school policies around the use of technology perpetrate this fear. Acceptable Use Policies are developed to provide a safety net surrounding this fear. Perhaps the most forward idea I heard at the Leadership Bootcamp came from Scott McLeod when he proposed doing away with Acceptable Use Policies and, instead, using the school discipline code to deal with problematic issues arising from the use of technology. After all, these types of disturbance are disciplinary in nature and should be treated as such. He suggested many school districts treated issues arising from the use of technology with a prohibition-type approach instead a Driving Under the Influence (DUI) approach. The prohibition approach denies the activity. For example, a ban on social networking by a school. The DUI approach puts mechanisms in place that deal with the small percentage of the population that have trouble following the law or rule. Prohibition failed in the 20th century and has no place in 21st Century schools.
Chris Lehman challenged us with a thought - "What if high school were not preparation for real life, what if high school was real life?" Ideas must live in practice. We must build systems and structures that reflect this vision if education is to succeed.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Wikispaces as Platforms for Essential Learnings
The curricula at Manitou Springs School District is defined by Essential Learnings. These Essential Learnings (ELs) represent what students are expected to know and be able to do in each curricular area.
Through the review of research on content, instruction, and assessment and the analysis of state and national standards, staff determine core sets of Essential Learnings for each grade level and course.
Moving these essential learnings off the shelf and into the foreground of lesson planning and assessment development may prove to be the greatest hurdle districts encounter. There are several companies designed to aid schools in their storage and tracking of ELs and we spent quite a bit of time examing the pros and cons of these organizations. Additionally, we met with other area districts who use these companies to house their ELs and determined that most were not using the services to their fullest potential for a variety of reasons. I suspect these reasons related to the large learning curve required to become fluent in the applications. These companies charged a large amount of money for their products while state funding for public education was decreasing.
So, we were faced with a decision, spend a large sum of money for a program that housed ELs and wasn't very user friendly or try to find an alternative. Though any application can be learned, the amount of staff development necessary to bring competency levels to the proficiency status also became a factor in choosing to move to Wikispaces as a platform for our Essential Learnings.
Wikispaces is fairly easy to learn and navigate. A Wikispace easily funcitions as a housing unit for information and essential learnings are no exception. However, it was the additional functionality of Wikispaces that sold us on using Wikispaces as the platform for our Essential Learnings. Through Wikispace training we're finally realizing the potential and value of having EL's easily accessible and searchable. In addition, the training has exposed teachers to the powerful and collaborative environment of Web 2.0. Suddenly, we're seeing a surge of interest in using and integrating technology in the classroom. Little by little, our essential learnings are becoming viable documents used in the classroom on a daily basis thanks to the creation of our Wikispace.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Educational Technology
On March 10, 2010 the Department of Education and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) met to discuss the future of technology in K-12 education in Washington DC.
The Department of Education presented their National Technology Plan which takes a look at the following areas related to technology:
I'd also like to offer my assistance with the teaching piece of this focused on how to better integrate technology into the classroom by continuing Tech Tuesdays at MSMS next year during our professional development time. Over the past two years Tech Tuesdays has fluctuated with attendance but rarely do we get more than five teachers attending these informal meetings to discuss using technology in the classroom.
Also, the FCC presented the National Broadband Plan which includes three recommendations:
The Department of Education presented their National Technology Plan which takes a look at the following areas related to technology:
- Learning
- Assessment
- Teaching
- Infrastructure
- Productivity
I'd also like to offer my assistance with the teaching piece of this focused on how to better integrate technology into the classroom by continuing Tech Tuesdays at MSMS next year during our professional development time. Over the past two years Tech Tuesdays has fluctuated with attendance but rarely do we get more than five teachers attending these informal meetings to discuss using technology in the classroom.
Also, the FCC presented the National Broadband Plan which includes three recommendations:
- Supporting and promoting online learning
- Unlocking the value of date and improving transparency
- Modernizing educational broadband infrastructure
Friday, March 19, 2010
Personal Learning Networks and Professional Development
Recently, our Professional Development (PD) team spent some time discussing the future of PD classes in our district. Given the declining enrollment in traditional offerings, our conversations focused on how to create learning environments that provide relevant content to all staff. Society has changed in regards to the demands placed on individual time constraints before and after work; however, the need to continue training in new pedagogies continues. Just how does a PD team meet these demands?
More and more teachers are discovering the benefits of life long learning through the creation of a personal learning network (PLN.) And though the validity of these PLN's are understood, the documentation of learning through these PLN's remains somewhat a mystery to most.
A dilemna arises regarding the documentation of credit from a school district when an individual begins to submit credit for their learning via their PLN on blogs, twitter, and other social networking sites. It's much easier for a school district to accept learning credits when an accredited university, college, or school district is doing the documenting despite the nature of the class or the learning. And though this dilemna is worth discussing and in need of change, it currently creates problems for school districts when these credits are being submitted for teacher relicensure requirements.
Awareness and understanding of what 21st Century Learning looks like needs to be understood and practiced by all before this chain of thought is going to change. Just as we must change our pedagogy to adapt to teaching in the 21st Century we must also adapt our learning in the 21st Century. As a result, professional development teams and the systems that document learning must also change. Change by becoming more versed in understanding how to assess 21st Century learning. Change by spending more time in PLN's so we understand what educators are doing when they speak of their own PLN. And finally, change by embracing all aspects of 21st Century learning.
How to Create a Lifelong Learning Network: Continuing Education is Based on Need to Adapt to Societal Changes
More and more teachers are discovering the benefits of life long learning through the creation of a personal learning network (PLN.) And though the validity of these PLN's are understood, the documentation of learning through these PLN's remains somewhat a mystery to most.
A dilemna arises regarding the documentation of credit from a school district when an individual begins to submit credit for their learning via their PLN on blogs, twitter, and other social networking sites. It's much easier for a school district to accept learning credits when an accredited university, college, or school district is doing the documenting despite the nature of the class or the learning. And though this dilemna is worth discussing and in need of change, it currently creates problems for school districts when these credits are being submitted for teacher relicensure requirements.
Awareness and understanding of what 21st Century Learning looks like needs to be understood and practiced by all before this chain of thought is going to change. Just as we must change our pedagogy to adapt to teaching in the 21st Century we must also adapt our learning in the 21st Century. As a result, professional development teams and the systems that document learning must also change. Change by becoming more versed in understanding how to assess 21st Century learning. Change by spending more time in PLN's so we understand what educators are doing when they speak of their own PLN. And finally, change by embracing all aspects of 21st Century learning.
How to Create a Lifelong Learning Network: Continuing Education is Based on Need to Adapt to Societal Changes
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Our Brains Think Differently
Just the other day I was writing an email and stumbled across the spelling of the word "alley." I couldn't remember if the word was spelled ally or alley. I looked up and asked my students. The response was brilliant. Here's how the conversation went.
Me: "How do you spell alley?"
Student: "Google it and then click on images, see what comes up."
I marveled at this brilliant response. My brain is geared to print. I grew up with dictionary pages and guide words. Using google to look up unknown spellings of words is not new to me and dictionary.com or google searches of webpages are my normal course of action when unknown spellings arise. After all, I'm proficient when it comes to internet searches. But images? This brought about a whole new understanding to how the teenage brain thinks differently than mine.
Here's a view of what comes up had I looked up the word alley:
Here's what comes up when I click google images:
Me: "How do you spell alley?"
Student: "Google it and then click on images, see what comes up."
I marveled at this brilliant response. My brain is geared to print. I grew up with dictionary pages and guide words. Using google to look up unknown spellings of words is not new to me and dictionary.com or google searches of webpages are my normal course of action when unknown spellings arise. After all, I'm proficient when it comes to internet searches. But images? This brought about a whole new understanding to how the teenage brain thinks differently than mine.
Here's a view of what comes up had I looked up the word alley:
Here's what comes up when I click google images:
Quite a different beast I'd say. Upon second review of this image search, I wondered how easy it might be for a teenager to get side tracked by the barrage of scantily clad photographs of women. What surprised me was that I didn't even remember these images popping up when I was looking up the spelling of the word "alley." To my surprise, when I did this activity for the first time, my eyes traveled directly to the image of a street alley and I went right back to my email. Would a teenager do the same?
Regardless of the response, our brains think differently and my job is to teach the teenage brain not the adult brain. Part of that teaching must involve knowledge of how to handle images like the above popping up when a student completes an image search because handle them they must. Understanding what is appropriate to view and what isn't is just as important these days as spelling the word "alley." A recent incident occurring during a news interview involving a bank employee caught on camera as he checked out pictures of naked women on his computer only emphasizes this point.
Many adults are under the impression that students are proficient in the electronic world. Though these students may be more proficient than most teachers, the truth of the matter is that students aren't as proficient as we may think. The internet is a whole new ball game when it comes to information. As teachers, we need to guide students towards the development of techniques that not only determine the credibility of information found but to determine whether or not sites are appropriate to visit based on domain names or URLs. We know they won't search the same way we do. The teenage brain is truly a different beast.
Finally, more information related to teaching internet search can be found on Finding Dulcinea website and the Finding Dulcinea blog.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Which Student Project Will Most Improve Education?
As part of the project-based model of conferencing that we use for the Flat Classroom conference, we have authentic outcomes. Through this process, participants learn HOW to design global collaborative projects but we also see the best proposals and can VOTE on which of these student-created projects most deserve to come to education. We have a couple of people who have already spoken with us about supporting some of these ideas with their time and effort, but for now, we need your votes. Read each of these videos and if you wish, you may read more detail on their wiki pages (by clicking on the name of their project) and then cast your vote. Feel free to use this as a teachable experience with your college classes and students.
Like-Write
Like-Write
| Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Conference Impact: Inspirational Museum Promoting Arts by Children Through Technology Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Conference Ah-ha: Amateurs Teaching Adults Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Conference When done, please vote ONCE below. Share this with other educators. From Cool Cat Teacher |
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