Developing Education

You may remember a few weeks ago when I discussed how I take advantage of the government marking system in the province I work to provide me with great professional learning? (here’s the post) It seems I am not the only one.  During the downtime from marking, I connected with the other teachers at the same marking table, and one was quite interested in my iPod program and general beliefs I have on technology in the classroom.   Before the marking session was over, we had exchanged contact information, and I had left it at that.  I have had enough experience with teachers to know I am not likely to hear from these people until June when they (and I) had an opportunity to slow down and reflect on the year.  However, I was wrong.  This teacher saw some value in what I had discussed with her, and has subsequently booked me to teach my first PL workshop with the staff of her school.

I am excited about the prospect of this, and really want to dig in and make the learning useful.  The school is supposed to send me some general areas of focus, but I wanted to highlight just a few messages I would like to get across to teachers in a session like this:

• The importance of “Good Teaching” to “Good Technology Use” – I’ve mentioned this in several ways before, but good use of tech is not to simply change the medium of the assignment.  The ultimate goals is like groupwork, by joining forces you create something better than the sum of its parts.  Web 2.0 tools have the ability to do this IF we use them well, and choose our uses carefully.  It is up to the teacher to design effective and authentic tasks that will inspire students to use the web effectively.
• It‘s not about a ‘Silver Bullet’ – One of the things I think about a great deal lately is how tunneled our vision can become as teachers, and how often we think of one tool as the ‘right one’ for a task.  I am trying so hard right now to find ways to allow students to choose, to make even the presentation form open to them.  This semester my 30-2′s have the option of producing any media text that fits the task they were given.  I hope against hope that they ALL create very different assignments and use different tools (some of which I will have shown them in class) to create them!  When I give presentations and talks, I try to use a different web tool each time to show teachers that any of these tools can be effective.  It is the message that is important.  I also ‘cheat’ when I want to use a new web 2.0 resource.  The unit before I want to present it to the class, I ‘leak’ it to one of the high-fliers.  That student uses the tool before everyone else in a similar way to how the class may use it.  I then have the student report back on the process, difficulties and strengths of the tool, so I know from a student’s perspective how effective it is.
• You must think about what will happen when technology fails, and enlist student support - I don’t want to scare teachers who are just starting out with using technology in their classrooms, but the truth is it does fail. Often. Even to the best of us.  If I didn’t really believe in this point, I wouldn’t have the iPods I do in my class.  I knew there were going to be network issues with the iPods, and I knew that as well as my own iPod worked, managing 37 of them would change the game.  Likewise, any technology you will use with a large group (even if it is to present to them) will have bumps, glitches and moments where you just have to wonder why you even tried.  However, if we can get over our teacher pride, we find most classrooms (at least in middle/high school) will have a student or two who not only is able to help, but wants to.  Use these free supports to help you and their peers to work with technology to get the class rolling again.

I’m enjoying the process of putting together resources for teachers, and I am very much looking forward to teaching this session.  Rest assured I will have plenty to say about the experience afterward.  By the way, I still have openings for this semester if anyone from warmer southern climates wants to fly me in for workshops!

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day!

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