edutwist.com - teaching and technology

I don’t like mirrors, because I don’t always like what I see. I consider myself successful, efficient, and capable, but while preparing for this new school year, I took a deeper, honest look at my professional self and found some lurking flaws that need repair. There are several areas I need to improve in order to become the supportive, responsive technology integrator that I want to be. This year, I’m making some bold promises to myself and the students and teachers I support.

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… To be patient

Not an automatic virtue for me!  Athough I certainly should know better as an educator, I forget what it’s like to be new at something, and I often skip over steps because I assume students or teachers have prior knowledge. Then, when I find myself working with a student who barely knows how to click a mouse or a teacher who’s never mastered basic file management on a PC, I’m frustrated because they can’t follow my instructions easily. They’re missing important background skills and prerequisites. As a result, the step-by-step progression in whatever new process I’m trying to teach becomes tangled up in backtracking - all because I didn’t build in enough time to allow remedial teaching. That leads to a tone of impatience that isn’t fair to my clients. I want to slow down and make sure I find out what they know before I move on. Furthermore, I’m going to expect that many people are in need of remediation, which is perfectly OK. The learners are more important than the process!

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… To meet my learners where they are

Whether this means understanding what they already know and need to learn, or whether it means meeting them at more convenient hours and locations, one of my goals this year is to reach out to students and teachers in a more accommodating way. Can I meet teachers in the morning before school or in the afternoon after school hours when they have more time to spend with me, rather than use their limited planning time? Is it possible to spend extra time with students after school or before school when they’re working on multimedia projects and need one-on-one help?

One idea my team and I want to continue this year is holding “tech fests” at our schools, sessions after school in which 4 - 6 different classes are held simultaneously and teachers rotate to the topic of their choice. The schedule allows teachers to visit two sessions in one afternoon, so the staff development event resembles a mini-conference without a keynote speaker. We did this last year at a few of our schools and the teachers enjoyed the convenience of the schedule, the variety of topics, and the ability to tailor their training to suit their individual needs. Thankfully, I work in a district that structures its technology integrators into academic teams. With two powerhouse teams of six middle school-level trainers, we can come together to conduct tech fests like these and, in one afternoon, meet many of the curriculum training needs for 100+ teachers!

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… To provide more resources

Teachers expect to receive paper handouts when they come to a training session, especially the “veteran,” traditional teachers who admit that computers are not exactly in their comfort zones. In trying to cut back on paper waste, I don’t want to deprive these teachers of tangible resources, so I’ve started making more video tutorials and putting them on the school servers for easy access. Teachers and students appreciate the videos because they show processes and skills in action, and they can replay the videos as much as necessary. My collection of video tutorials is still small, but one of my goals is to expand my selection, cover more topics, and keep the videos short, easy-to-follow, and on demand. These also can be emailed to teachers when someone asks for help, as long as I keep them under 5MB in size.

I’ll also continue to collect internet resources to enhance the curriculum topics and the staff development topics that teachers cover. Students, too, need resources. They particularly need guidance in picking and citing credible websites. If I build my bookmarks at my delicious site and tag them effectively for easy access, I can quickly retrieve resources or send the links to students and their teachers.  Along with introducing delicious to teachers, I also hope to hook teachers on diigo and form some useful interactive groups so we can share resources.

I also will continue to teach students and teachers how to use easybib, one of my favorite citation engines that will create a finished, alphabetized, and correctly-formatted bibliography as a Word document.  Media and information literacy are two crucial components included in 21st Century skills, and I hope to incorporate these topics within other class projects, as well as teaching citations as a stand-alone lesson.
 

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… To give teachers & students more of a role

Becoming a facilitator and refraining from coming across as “the expert” is every teacher’s challenge.  Students learn best when they are self-directed and actively inquiring and exploring, not when they are lectured at or spoonfed information.  The same principle is true for teachers. As a technology integrator and trainer, I need to fight my tendency to take over in my mentoring role. Although I’m supposed to be modeling a lesson and gradually including the teacher to prepare him or her to take over the teaching role, It’s easier sometimes (although wrong) for me to simply teach the entire lesson and do all the work, especially when teachers resist participation. Their resistance is usually unintentional - perhaps they’re uncertain or unsure of their role or afraid to step out of that comfort zone they’ve sat in so long. But I’ve also experienced situations in which teachers purposefully avoid participation. Some have sat at their desks checking email or filing papers while I taught a lesson. Some have even left the room, leaving me with their class.

This year, I will plan more formally with teachers before the lesson, being sure to steer the lesson in their direction and including them from the start. I’ll be more explicit in defining our roles as co-teachers in the classroom integration, and make it clear that they will be taking over the lesson.  I’ll also be sure to give them ownership of the actual plans:  finding out their curriculum objectives, learning about their students’ prior knowledge, tailoring the lesson to the teacher’s style and comfort level.

At the same time, I will be pushing independence and “taking it up a notch.”  For those teachers and students who are comfortable making and using PowerPoints, I will challenge them with the principles of PowerPointlessness as described by Kim McDonald and illustrated in this video by Don McMillan.  Another example of stretching the skills inolves using a “mashup” of applications. For teachers and students who have mastered the use of digital cameras and digital storytelling using PhotoStory, I will encourage them to push further, perhaps by taking their finished PhotoStory files and editing them in MovieMaker to add video and animation to their products.

Other ideas brewing for my professional improvement include developing cross-curriculum projects, problem-based learning units, and global outreach initiatives with other teachers around the country and the world.  If I stretch out of my own comfort zone,  I can try to extend the reach of my learners, whether they are teachers or students.
 

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“I promise…” image by flamingText.com

This blog expresses the personal opinions of the author and is not affiliated
with nor representative of any company, employer, or other entity.
Posted on August 25th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

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First, the bad news… Teachers work long hours, many “off the clock.”

There’s nothing like the actual experience of teaching for a vicious shakedown of your idealism topped off by an icy shock of the cold, real world. Veteran teachers have war stories that will curl each other’s socks.

When I came into teaching, all gooey with philanthropy and altruism, I envisioned changing the world. In my first week as a middle school teacher, I was thrown into three different subject areas (although I was hired for only one), assigned to travel on a cart with no classroom of my own, and introduced to my collaborative special ed co-teacher whom I had never met and who would be sharing my class, although her teaching style was radically different from mine. Block schedules were new to me. Collaborative teaching was new to me. There were countless irritations and frustrations that challenged my patience and rattled my good intentions. And according to most people I talk to, my situation would have been considered a blessing by many other new teachers!

So what is one of the biggest pet peeves for teachers as they start their school year? It seems universal: Most teachers must use their own personal time to get everything done.

This lack of time is especially apparent at the beginning of the year, when so much preparation and organization is required. Inevitably, school administrators fail to allow enough time for teachers to prepare their classrooms or they neglect to build planning time into teachers’ week before the students arrive, so teachers need to arrive a week early, work on the weekends, and stay late at night to complete their preparations before opening day.

I don’t believe this is an intentional oversight and I don’t believe it’s careless planning. It seems that administrators themselves often are pulled in several directions, feeling heat from the central office to disseminate schoolwide or districtwide concerns and policy as soon as teachers return from summer break.

Just how difficult is this time crunch for teachers?

I can share several perspectives about starting out a new year by calling on my friends across the nation and worldwide who meet in the Plurk online community. Earlier this month, NedraI began a Plurk thread that asked the Plurk community about the time teachers are given by their districts to prepare for the upcoming year. (By the way, if you click on the “Plurk Thread” link, you’ll see that Nedra has changed her Plurk background since the following screenshots were taken)

She tapped into a crushing reality for some new teachers, who find out quickly that the leisurely pace of college and the semi-detached stance of student teaching no longer apply. It’s “show time” now ~ and, unfortunately, much of the performance is delayed in the meeting rooms.

The posts continued about the lack of time and the demands made on teachers during the first planning week before the students arrive. Check out the brutal truth in the final sentence of this post:

For many teachers, the beginning of the year sets a tone that will echo throughout the school year: There’s simply never enough time! And to be honest, as an experienced teacher, I can attest to the fact that the lack of time continues until the following June. So if you’re a new or new-to-be teacher, buck up and get ready. As roswellsgirl says in her post, “teachers must use own time.”

Wow! Can you feel the tension? The complaints are justified and understandable! And this lack of time is only one of the negatives about teaching that newbie teachers haven’t yet faced.

So why is it that so many teachers return and stay in teaching in spite of such odds? What do they find that they love about teaching?

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The good news… Teachers fuel the future by touching countless lives!

The White House, for all its controversial involvement in NCLB, redeems itself momentarily by suggesting ten meaningful reasons to become a teacher. My personal favorite from this list:

#5: To see the world through a child’s eye while sharing your knowledge - and to learn something in return.

Learning as a two-way street! To me, this is a huge benefit. The process of exploring concepts with your students inspires curiosity that grows into an energetic dialogue, benefiting both students and teachers. I’ve learned more from students than I ever learned from books or teachers… an ironic truth.

Joel, at the blog So You Want To Teach, shared a post he titled “9 Reasons To Quit Teaching (And 10 Reasons To Stick)“. When you visit this blog post, it’s easy to get caught up in the first list, the “negative nine” - just as it’s often too easy to whine and complain rather than find the positive in any situation. Moving on to his positive list of 10, this reason speaks to me deeply:

#3 Because there is more personal satisfaction in this field than any other.

Amen! In my previous career, my work only mattered to a minimal number of - well - unimportant people: my boss, her boss, and maybe occasionally, a board of executives. When I examined my motives for staying in that career, I asked myself what impression it would make on the future. What would I leave behind? Some pay stubs, a few minor accolades, and countless years of identical nine-to-five commutes. Uh- no, thanks!

Then I became a teacher, where no two days were ever the same (no two years were ever the same) and where I was certain that at the very least, I made a difference in some small way to at least a few students on their journey “up the line” to adulthood. I’m a nurturer. I like to grow things. What better field than teaching?

From Heidi Pence’s blog, called “Teach, Teach, Teach” arises the bigger view of teaching as a social cause. The social and domestic challenges that plague our society - poverty, oppression, abuse, and ignorance - follow children to school and set malicious odds against them. As educators, we can help liberate children from the self-fulfilling prophecy of failure and equip them to overcome these and other hurdles.

… it is up to us as a society, community, school district and teacher to change for the better, the lives of all of our children.

We should remind ourselves and each other frequently about the reasons we teach - the calling that we felt to enter and stay in a profession that is often thankless, low-paying, and stressful. There will be countless times that we will need a reminder to bolster ourselves against the negatives. As nurturers and lifelong learners, we know the benefits of what we do. We just don’t always feel them!

And by the way, I need to bust a rumor. It’s only partially true that the reason educators love to teach is because they have the summers off. Having summers off is like R&R for soldiers on the battlefield. It’s self-preservation!

As a parting smile, here’s a mashup using David Letterman’s format for the “Top Ten Reasons” countdown about teaching:

This blog expresses the personal opinions of the author and is not affiliated
with nor representative of any company, employer, or other entity.
Posted on August 10th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Most of the people I know in the real world offline don’t read blogs; even fewer write them.  We bloggers tend to forget that we’re in the minority, because our virtual blogging environment seems ubiquitous and natural, as if everyone in the world is here with us and because bloggers have increased in number exponentially in the past several years. 

We become entrenched and focused and comfortable online - but the truth is, whatever audience of readers I have exists only in the surreal microcosm of cyberspace, still largely unpopulated in relation to the “real world.”  I’ve had my personal “Aha!” Web 2.0 moment, and although I’d love to have my family and friends here with me, the learning curve for Web 2.0 interactive web sites hasn’t yet tailspun around to smack my offline friends in the side of the head like the V8 commercial (Doh! I coulda had a Web 2.0!). Many don’t know what Web 2.0 means, and many couldn’t care any less about it!

So imagine their perplexed and worried reactions when I ask them, “Do you Plurk? Do you Twitter?”

They think I’m suggesting obscene acts.

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Plurk is my informal, online PLN (professional learning network), a social website similar to Twitter online. Think of Facebook in fast motion. Plurk’s rapid-fire forum allows swift and wide-reaching responses to various questions and topics, providing me with a frontline pulse of current issues and trends.

I don’t mean to glorify Plurk as a totally professional network or relegate it purely to academia, because it is, after all, a “social network.” It can become quite chatty. At times, it provides mundane and trivial information, such as unsolicited peeks into users’ kitchens when they announce what’s cooking for dinner.

On Plurk, each member’s post or response is limited to 140 words (longer paragraphs can be continued in another response), and the beauty of these one-liner conversations is that they provide a sweeping glimpse into topics from a variety of viewpoints - admittedly without much depth, but with surprisingly enough breadth and reach to become a provocative and informative resource when the topics probe into meaningful professional issues.

Discussions on Plurk are a bit like mingling in the hallways between sessions at a conference, where you might overhear snippets of discussions and catch the electric buzz of current cutting-edge issues and innovations. And because of its abbreviated nature, Plurk is a repository of headlines and flashes - a frenzy of previews and teasers that spike my curiosity and sometimes inspire further investigation.

Interestingly, Plurk can also become a portal into more in-depth exploration. I’ve been able to “attend” actual conference sessions online via Plurk, when members backchannel and provide links to web2.0 sites such as CoverItLive or when they take instantaneous notes onto Plurk during events such as the July 2008 NECC. Summaries and reviews of workshops and training sessions are frequently linked in Plurk, which allows vicarious visits to information that otherwise would be inaccessible.

The people I’ve “friended” on Plurk are mostly educators with a focus on technology; some are media specialists, some are classroom teachers. I also have befriended marketers, webdesigners, and other professionals who deal with communications. Through them, I’ve been introduced to countless websites, ideas for lessons, and professional resources.

So, if you’re one of my baffled real-world friends who wonders what in the heck is the big deal about Web 2.0 and SN (social networking), check out Plurk and look for me with the username sharon_elin. You might find new friends and new ideas there!

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And for you adventurous friends and colleagues from the real world who are new to the concept of Web 2.0, here are two videos that offer abbreviated snapshots of the benefits of Web 2.0 websites. Simply put, Web 2.0 is the interactive version of the World Wide Web, where we, as users, contribute and upload rather than merely view the websites.

The first video, by Carla Arena, exemplifies both brevity and style. It takes only 64 seconds to get its message across. The second video is by Michael Wesch, Professor of Cultural Archaeology at Kansas State University, who studies the phenomenon of Web 2.0 with his students in his “Digital Ethnography” course.

If you’re curious and want to explore some of the hundreds of interactive tools available in the Web 2.0 sphere - most of which are free to users - check out the wonderful site, GoToWeb2.0, which provides a categorized list of links to various applications. Roll your mouse over any of the logos on the site’s homepage for a brief explanation of the application or click to visit the site.

Another site, AppAppeal, with its “Map of the World 2.0″ homepage shown at the top of this post, also provides clickable links to the hundreds of available web 2.0 applications online.

This blog expresses the personal opinions of the author and is not affiliated
with nor representative of any company, employer, or other entity.
Posted on August 6th, 2008 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »