Technology In Education Online

There were four sessions throughout the day. Here is a brief review of the sessions:

 Session 1 – Project Based Learning That Works - Great Ideas for You – Thematic Planning – The LEADS model (Literacy is Essential to Adolescent Development and Success ) is built around thematic, cross-curricular units.  The core reading materials, novels and expository/informational text are utilized to incorporate this cross-curricular approach.  The presenters gave an example of Project-based Learning by presenting YouTube videos showing this model in action.  Integrating curriculum through ideas – LA teacher, SS teacher, and Math teacher are thinking of ways to integrate these themes/ideas.  They pointed out that collaboration time is essential.   

Session 2 – Drop-in Time- Web 2.0 tools- They spoke of how they could be used in the classroom with students. The presenters demonstrated interesting sites:

For more information go to: http://dropintimewithweb20.wikispaces.com/

Session 3 – I presented “The Project-Based Web 2.0 Buffet! Eating It All Up! I spoke about the collaborative 6^th grade project. I’ll be posting my presentation on my website.

Session 4 – Developing and Supporting Teacher Leaders – The Academy of Teaching and Learning – http://southjerseyacademy.com/. It is run by teachers for teachers and started in 2000. 

All sessions are free. The only responsibility of the school districts are providing teachers with substitutes while attending.

There are 4 components -

1. governance committee – gets feedback from others to determine who are speakers, i.e. teacher leaders in the area then plan/organize
2. EIRC – take care of cost, meeting place, etc.
3. Quarterly meetings – meet on a specific topic – teachers drive the topics based on feedback
   1. Keynote in AM, breakout, lunch, return for big group activity, burning issues
4. Website – collaboration, professional growth

Once again a very enjoyable day at this annual conference. Thanks to all the folks at SRI – ETTC for putting this together!

Today’s theme has been my quest today. All sessions I’ve attended have been Web 2.0 related.  If I were highlight the day I’d say there are just an incredible amount of “cool” stuff coming out all of the time related to Web 2.0.  Just when I thought I was catching up to things, something new comes along.  The run down of sessions today:

Starting off the morning attending Alan November’s presentation: “Cultivating a World-class Work Ethic”.  If I were to reflect back on the session the key thing is that we must think of our learning from a multitude of perspectives.  If we study, for example American History, do we only source out of Google only from an American perspective?  Do we, with all of this technology available, open ourselves up to a more global perspective?  And if we restrict what we teach and our approach to how we teach  what are we preparing our students to become.  There are so many great things available to students today, especially with Web 2.0 tools that by placing all of these barriers in our educational approach we don’t create life-long learners.  We are leaving our students the job of teaching themselves outside of school. Students must and should have a say in their own education.

The remainder of the day I spent going to various Web 2.0 sessions.  I think when you talk about creativity and empowerment Web 2.0 is the future….for now. Who knows what the next big thing is coming around the corner!  This can be looked at in two different ways: 1) Why learn this stuff if it is going to be passe in no time, or; 2) This is some exciting stuff and it allows me to continue to bring in new ideas to students!  People were talking about YouTube, Digg, Blogs, Second Life, Habbo & Club Penguin, MySpace,  and Facebook to name a few. The whole idea is taking a bottom down approach rather than a top down approach towards education. Forget about memorization and regurgitation. Let’s move away from this focus on standardization especially since we can’t even get the “experts” to agree what these standards are and how we measure students’ progress.

The final thought of the day is this: If we talk about transforming our teaching methods with Web 2.0, we must think about how we teach ourselves.  If we are attending conferences, I think we need to develop conferences more towards being interactive and hands-on.  People may argue that with larger conferences this is an impossible task.  However, lets’ think about how a conference might work/ look differently. Attendees come to the conference, for those that don’t have a laptop, attendees are given a loaner system to take with them throughout the conference.  An attendee walks into a session, round tables are setup where people sit down, open up their laptop, and begin to walk through using these Web 2.0 tools.  How can we afford this?  I’ve seen vendors, such as Gateway, Dell, and HP, at the conference. Why not tap into their resources to provide the loaners?  The same with software. We have Apple and Microsoft at the conference. Why not have them participate in this process to provide the operating systems.

Actions speak louder than words! Why not re-invent our conferences and make them more like what we talk about when we talk about Web 2.0 philosophical approach to learning.  Let’s remove the chairs lined up in rows and create a a round table experience with a more collegial, interactive experience!

Having recently visited several colleges got me wondering how far, if at all, had colleges and universities moved toward a more constructivist approach toward educating students? My son is preparing to graduate from high school in June 2008. We did a tour of several schools and sat in on presentations given by school admissions counselors about the academics at each school.  What was amazing, startling, disappointing, etc.  was some colleges still taking a traditional approach in educating students.  What was especially shocking occurred while attending an information session at a liberal arts school.  When asked what the percentage of classes take a more project/inquiry based approach rather than a traditional testing approach the counselor seemed to stumble a bit with the question. She responded that there maybe a course here and there that takes a more project based approach. However, most of the courses are traditionally based.

As we walked through the library of one of the schools I was glancing at what students were working on.  A number of students seemed to be preparing for exams.  The question in my mind became are we continuing to perpetuate students to become better test takers?  If this is the case, what happens to those students that are to become future teachers?  If their methodology of learning is by memorization and regurgitation then what will be their expectations of their future students?  Will there be opportunity for future teachers to move beyond this mind set if they don’t know any other way?  It is especially disconcerting when I see a liberal arts college take a traditional approach to education.  It seems to be a dichotomy to me seeing a school call themselves a liberal arts college and at the same time taking a teaching to the test approach in educating their students.

Therefore, if this is still the approach a majority of our colleges still take, then is it not surprising that this approach has trickled down to our K to 12 school environment?

What does it take for people to be active members in a learning environment?  Is there a magical answer to this question?  The reason I pose this question is due to my wondering how do you get people involved with technology integration.  For example, I’ve started to build a moodle (<a href=”http://www.techinedonline.com/moodle”>http://www.techinedonline.com/moodle</a>) with various topics being covered. I’ve noticed quite a few people coming to this site, but not a single comment, suggestions, request, etc.  So I’m left to ponder whether building such a site is a worthwhile adventure or is simply providing a repository of information enough.  I enjoy putting this site together and offering information to others.  However, it’s hard to know what direction to take with this site without knowing what peoples’ needs are or what they are looking for.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand people have other things happening in their lives and taking the time to respond is not a priority. However, this is the same dilemma I’m faced with in my work.  How do you get people to use the knowledge and resources at hand in order to better integrate technology into the classroom? Are expectations too high?  I ran into this situation a couple years ago when I introduced the concept of a discussion forum for teachers to use as a way of communicating with each other, as well as offering their own knowledge to share with others? Guess how many people participated? At first, a few people posted to the forums but those numbers quickly faded within the first couple of months.  I also setup a Tips and Tricks website for teachers. And what was the reaction? Most people stated they would just rather ask me then look at the site.  What strikes me as being somewhat baffling is that we tell our students to look for the answers rather then come to the teacher to give you the answer. Yet, we often do the same thing that we attempt to dissuade our students from doing.

Alan November, last week at the “TechForum Northeast 2007″ talked about how he had peoples’ blogs tied into his course website and still had people adding to it now even though the course ended this past spring.  I think I’ll try that within my moodle and see what happens. His thinking, which I agree with, is that people need to have some connection or feeling of ownership for it to be successful. I also liked his idea of using Skype to open up lines of communications. I’ll continue to offer skypecasts over the next few weeks (look for notices here) to see what kind of responses I get.  I’ll have more to say about last week’s conference later on.

Working with teachers today I had time to reflect afterwards on the day.  Often times after doing a training or in-service I spend time reflecting on how things went.  The thing that struck me the most was how much energy people can devote to resisting change or looking at things from a different perspective.  The in-service today was a follow-up on teachers having recently completing the 21st Century Details Questionnaire.  Several teachers could not move away from the focus of it not working for them.  The thought came to me…what if instead of saying “this doesn’t apply to what I’m doing” or “this if fine for older students” teachers thought how can I make this work for me!  How can I take the concepts and strategies that are applied to older students and tweak it to fit my grade level?  What a novel concept. At times it does feel like I’m battling those windmills!

At times the stars and planets align perfectly with each other.  As I was working on my doctoral EPP, I was trying to look at how using a Moodle would fit into what I was attempting to accomplish.  Mainly, my goal is looking at how possibly can a Moodle fit into a constructivst approach and at the same time evaluate teachers use of it.  Well, back in May I went through training to become a <a target=”_blank” href=”http://www.loticonnection.com” title=”LoTi Connection”>LoTi </a>certified mentor. After completing the training I began to look at the various LoTi levels and it dawned on me, they fit very well together. By assessing how teachers are using the Moodle, I’m able to determine their current LoTi level.   From here, professional development can be focused on a teacher’s needs not simply throwing  a teacher into a one shot in-service or training.

Let me know what you think. Until next time.

Alan