I think once you get a foundation of technology in the school that is
reliable and stable then you have a basis to build on. Of course, that
requires an understanding from the powers that be at the school that this
foundation is important. If you don't have that kind of understanding, then
the rest of my email is irrelevant. If everyone is constantly dealing with
network interruptions, badly terminated cabling, horrible networking,
problems they don't see relate to what they are trying to do and lack of
basic investment in infrastructure, then attempting to engage and improve
faculty and staff is a non-starter because the trust is not present. Get
value understood and trust in the foundational areas you need.
After that, there has to be a partnership with the school to help motivated
faculty be better teachers and use technology where it is appropriate and
beneficial for the mission of the teacher/subject/department/school for the
student benefit. Sure, this is never an easy answer, but constant discussion
seems to work well. So, you want to get a foundation in and not let those
that are slow or reluctant hold the school and other faculty back from
progress towards mission which should also be self-development.
The model of teachers owning courses they teach is common understanding and
agreeable to all involved in my experience. It makes sense that the teacher
WANTS to control and handle what he/she does with their classes. Tech being
a part of that makes sense when it makes sense to the teacher to deliver the
content. Making tech an external requirement or introducing possibly forcing
it makes it more alien and can have an adverse affect on the situation.
Teachers need to invite that in and having a culture that supports that
needs to be active. The times I have seen reluctance is when teachers have
been burned in the past and when there are too many question marks to
introduce something into the class. I think we all get that and if I were in
the teacher's shoes, I wouldn't want to introduce something that is an
unknown into a course that I know very well and have delivered for years
just fine (in their opinion).
So, my approach, albeit in progress, is to be available for the faculty and
deliver for the faculty so they WANT to work with us and be respectful to
them and give them credit for knowing their material and what could work or
not work. Trust and respect needs to be there. I am not a teacher, so I am
not coming it and telling them what I think they need to do but rather being
a resource to assist in their delivery. The delivery varies from teacher to
teacher, department to department and subject to subject.
Just as in the corporate world, you want people to want to work with you so
you can keep the resource tangents down to a minimum when possible. If
people do not want to work with you, that is a problem and that is actually
your problem to fix. For example, having motivated faculty scattering around
to all the different tools du jour without some guidance with the overall
school and student in-mind is a scary thing IMHO. I think that is where and
why the school as a whole needs to take ownership of this and see it not as
tech as a separate thing, but rather integrated in the mission. Where
teacher A loves ning and has all of his classes there but teacher B loves
something else and has all her classes there - the teachers might be happy
with what has been left to happen, but the student is now jumping around all
over the place (web) to get what they need rather than a more centralized
approach that keeps ease of use and some consistency in mind. Also, having
teachers go all over the place using the free tool du jour seems random and
erratic to me personally. Well-intentioned movement itself does not equal
progress.
Lots to talk about here clearly and I probably will need to clarify but the
teachers I have worked with in my first year in schools are all very
responsive when you approach them with service, respect and support. My goal
is not to grade them on how technical or how much technology they are
packing into their courses, but how effective they are taking advantage of
the tools and support the school provides and with their students learning
the content. Basically, this is why I am not a big fan of terms like
'Education Tech' because when one even states something like that there is a
separation or competition of some sort that could be inferred. I would
rather take the approach tech is part of the education but not a
displacement nor a constant.
Longer then expected and probably off-topic, but there you go. This relates
more to what I have seen out there with other schools and my experiences
over the last year and not with anything/anyone on the ISED list so please
don't mistake any pronoun I might have used above as a pointer to you in
anyway.
Thanks,
Jonathan
................................
Jonathan Mergy <jmergy@lwhs.org>
Director Of Technology
Lick-Wilmerding High School
755 Ocean Ave, SF CA 94112
P:415.585.1725 x365
http://www.lwhs.org
> From: Fred Austin <faustin@theoakwoodschool.org>
> Reply-To: ISED-L <ISED-L@listserv.syr.edu>
> Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:56:41 -0400
> To: ISED-L <ISED-L@listserv.syr.edu>
> Subject: Teacher Expectations with Technology
>
> Hi Guys
>
> Question:
> What are your expectations for teachers taking initiative to make sure
> they understand and use technology systems beyond their training and
> professional development? Realizing that there are different methods
> of uptake and retention on an individual basis, we are primarily
> talking about things like Moodle/Blackboard, SIS software, teacher web
> pages, and eTextbooks. Web 2.0 tools such as NING, Twitter,
> Podcasting, etc still being left up to the more motivated individual
> by choice.
> At what point does "hand-holding" taper off to wean the individual? Do
> you have instances of a few that just don't get it?
>
> Thanks for your feedback.
>
> Fred Austin
> Technology Director
> The Oakwood School
> Greenville, NC
>
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