Blog #3 - Top 5 EdTech "Musts" for Educators

Educational Technology is a constantly evolving field.

Education is a constantly evolving field.

Educators are not always constantly evolving.

Me included.  Over the past several months I have been forced to immerse myself in the field of Educational Technology.  It's been hard and saddening.  I'm realizing just how much of an ancient curmudgeon I am.  And I've only been teaching for 10 years.  How can this be?  Just a few years ago I thought I was on the cutting edge.  I recently read one of Doug Johnson's (the author of The Blue Skunk Blog) old posts from May 2010.  The blog was titled "Top Ten Social Media Competencies for Teachers."  With my recent "expertise" in Educational Technology, I've modified this list to 5 ideas (or questions) that all educators, regardless of their experience or level of expertise with technology, need to think about NOW!

1.  In most districts, students have internet access and a school-based e-mail address.  Should they also have a twitter, slideshare, and youtube account for school use?  Should they also have a school blog?

2.  Is it the schools job (think major school-wide initiative) to get students to use Web 2.0 technology applications, or should it be up to the individual classroom teacher?

3.  All students should have a PLN (period)!  They should use this as frequently as they use their e-mail.

4.  Should we teach students the intricacies of having an on-line identity and the long term aspects of reputation management?  What course do we do this in?

5.  Should all teachers and students be responsible for creating and following a personal learning plan to stay up-to-date on emerging technologies?

These ideas (questions) could transform the K-12 school experience.  How do we, as educators and administrators, make this happen?  You can find Doug's original blog here: http://tinyurl.com/2fj895g

What do you think?

Reflection #1 - C & I 579 Spring 2012

My attitude towards technology in general, and specifically Web 2.0 technologies, has drastically changed.  Before this course I did not utilize any types of technology, social media, or other Web 2.0 technologies.  Not only did I not utilize these applications, but I didn’t even know they existed or how to use them.  My attitude began to change during the development of my PLN.  The first thing that I did was set up a twitter account.  I did this not so much to tweet my own thoughts, (which I sometimes believe are inconsequential) but rather to follow 10 other educators.  I began to read the comments and blogs of other educators and realized that they face the same daily issues that I face.  Although I have never met these educators, I feel connected to them by the experiences we share. I read their reflections and solutions to these daily issues and applied what I read to my daily tasks.  The greatest part of this was being able to read about other successes and being able to implement their ideas in my school.

Before this I had been fruitlessly searching journal articles and books for new ideas to implement in the programs that I lead.  I also often felt isolated and disconnected from other educators that do the same job that I do.  Being able to read the words of other educators and apply the concepts they wrote about immediately changed my attitude towards information sharing.  Simply being able to read the words of other educators that face the same issue has made me feel more connected to both other educators and the educational world in general. I’m forced to think of all the time I spent searching and reading referred journal articles to find solutions to the daily educational issues that I faced. (only to come up with theoretical, not practice solutions). This was a time-consuming and frustrating process, one that often left me wishing that I hadn’t spent my time searching and reading. I had actually given up on finding useful information from this process because it was so time consuming. 

Now I can open Tweetdeck, read 4-5 blog entries in 10 minutes or less, and apply what I read immediately.  This has dramatically changed the way that I find and use information. This change has made me a more effective administrator because I no longer have to come up with my own solutions to problems, but rather, have uninterrupted access to others solutions and thoughts.  I also don’t have to spend precious time finding and reading journal articles. I wish that I would have utilized these technologies when I was a classroom teacher because the amount of information and ideas available at my fingertips is enormous.  Many administrators that manage professional development for teachers speak of increasing the size of your teaching “toolbox.”  Social media and Web 2.0 multiplies the size of everyone’s “toolbox” many times.

I have learned that I can access valuable information in the tweets and blogs of other connected educators.  I value their willingness to share their thoughts and take the time out of their daily tasks to reflect and write about issues that concern them.  I have also learned that it is important to be connected to other educators in order to provide students with the best, most up-to-date learning experience.  This connected is easily accomplished through the use of twitter, blogs, linkedin, and other social media. 

I have also learned the value of sitting down to write my own thoughts and feelings.  Writing my own blog posts and tweeting information on a regular basis allows me to organize my thoughts and be a more effective, organized administrator.  I still have trouble finding the time to sit down and clear my head and write, but when I do I feel very effective and connected.

I think that current educators have a responsibility to stay up to date on current educational movements and connect with other educators.  Social media and Web 2.0 technology has made this responsibility a reality that is easily accessible to all.  I am going to continue to monitor other educational blogs and write my own posts.  I am also going to work to get other educators I work with connected to easily accessible information that will make them more effective.  

Ed Tech Blog #2

Although this is only my second blog post, I'm really starting to like following the ideas on Twitter and different blogs.  I've been a mostly traditional educator, however, I've been reflecting on the future of education and my resonsibility to lead educators towards understanding and implementing 21st century skills.  A recent blog by Alan Matan made this idea all that much more important.  He wrote about his recent experience at a teacher job fair.  Here is an excerpt from his post:

"I was interviewing potential teaching candidates recently, hoping to get a pulse on undergraduate teacher preparation curriculum. One thing that struck me was the inability for these future teachers to articulate the current discussions in education. I expected these students to talk about the newly adopted CCSS, professional learning communities, common formative assessments, and response to intervention. Or at a minimum have a theoretical foundation in differentiated instruction and formative assessment. I wanted to hear them discuss effective, instructional strategies from Hattie and Marzano. The theme of these interviews was the candidates expressing how energetic and enthusiastic they are. These are great attributes, especially in a new teacher. However, what current skills are they bringing to the profession to help build a 21st century learner?"

Here is link to the entire blog post: http://edge.ascd.org/_Focus-On-These-5-Aspects-In-21st-Century-Teaching/blog/5761291/127586.html

Should I be concerned about this?  Should we all be concerned about this?  Perhaps we all need to work more closely together with college and universities to better define with 21st century educators need to be prepared for.  I'm hoping that our future educators know about PLT's, common formative assessments, RtI, and other "buzzwords" - maybe they were just nervous and forgot to mention them.  I'm also hoping that they understand important 21st century skills, especiall creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration.  Perhaps we should all review the P21 Framework: http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Framework_Definitions.pdf

Blog 1 - Still Starting with the Why

George Couros recent blog post struck a raw chord with me.  His original post can be found here http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/5368

The part that I really connected with  is when he reflected on the workshop he gave:

"I am not certain if the discussion that I had with them that day will stick with them, but I do know that taking that hour before and sharing them “why” we are trying to move forward will definitely increase the percentage of success.  As educators (and as people in general), we are always stressed about the amount of time that we have in a day, but as I have been told often, “sometimes we have to go slow, to go fast”.  Taking that time to discuss the why was important and needed.  It is also a lesson that I can learn greatly from as I continue my own work."
We can apply his view to any decision in education, but especially the use of emerging technologies.  Here is my condensed response to his post:

George,

I couldn’t agree more with your assessment of technology professional development opportunities and your statement on the importance of the answering the question “why” are doing what we are doing.  As an educator in a school that has moved from one initiative to another in the past 5 years, it has been exhausting and disheartening to start something new only to see it fade away 9 months later.  We have been missing the “why” and just focusing on the “how” or “what.”  We need to have a strong foundation of “why” we are doing things before we can successfully implement them, not only with respect to emerging technology, but also with what we do on a daily basis.   This foundation can then support and sustain our decisions.  Alternately, this foundation can also keep us from making random or reactionary decisions as well.