Technology in Education

Just got word that I will be presenting at the 2007 CECA (CT-Computer Assoc.) conference on October 23.  This is my third time presenting there.  I will present about making writing a social event through blogging.

Check out our class blogmeister.  My work with the blogs has not been perfect.  I am learning more each day.  I have found that the students are reading each others work and they are reading the “experts” much more (Richardson, Warlick, etc…).  I have not gotten them to increase the amount of comments and thus value the “conversation”.

This is a draft of an assignment for class.  Its semi-outline right now.  Comments welcome.
Schools are irrelevant. Schools are boring. Schools don’t allow me to be me! What percentages of your students agree with these statements? Mark Prensky writes in the journal Educational Leadership (December 2006) that educators must “Listen to the Natives”. Students have grown up in a world completely foreign to most adults. Digital devices have become an extension of their bodies. They operate comfortably in a multi-task, global, collaborative, strategy based environment.

How can school leaders deal with the growing dichotomy between a technology-rich home life and a technology-poor learning environment in schools? Will the gap continue to increase? What strategies can leaders use to close the gap? These are questions that led me to focus on Prensky’s article.

Summary of Leadership Issues:

Prensky sums up his point at the beginning of the article; “Schools are stuck in the 20th century. Students have rushed into the 21st”. The gap between students and schools is widening, and it is accelerating. Solutions that rely on 20th century views of students, teachers, and learning will not close the gap fast enough.

Teacher selection needs to change. Instead of choosing teachers for subject matter knowledge they should choose them based on their guidance abilities. Teachers must practice engagement before content in their teaching. Students understand engagement. Students are used to working in a collaborative, global, strategy based environment. Students are highly engaged in a technology rich after school life. Digital tools are an extension of their brains. In most of the industrial world schools embrace digital tools such as phones and iPods. Students have a internet delivery device in their pockets. In Britain it is common for students to submit work using their cell phone, which is checked with a voice print. How often in American schools are high school students oral communication skills assessed? Maybe three to five times per year in oral reports? This could be 3-5 times per day using current technology.

Collaboration must increase and we must model this behavior. Students should be an active and equal part of teacher and administrative meetings. How would teacher professional development days change if students choose the workshops?

Avoid irrelevancy. The gap continues to grow between student life and school life. Will schools become just a credentialing institution existing only to produce a piece of paper that parents want?

We have all seen the student after school that is playing an online game (with other students from Japan and Bolivia) while talking on their mobile phone with their school friends, while listening to their iPod, and…..eating a snack. These students come to school and we give them 80 lbs of textbooks, a pencil, and 10-15 papers per day to fill out. They rarely if ever see a computer (and often they take a special trip to a lab to see one). Technology and computers are simply not part of the daily life of almost all American schools.

This growing irrelevance of American schools is a “big issue”. A leader of schools of the 21st century must break the molds of 19th century schools that we still live with. We currently have high school students taking classes online with instructors they never see face-to-face. Is it impossible that a town would say “lets not build that new school, provide the town wireless access, and outsource the teaching jobs to India”? Online learning at annual cost of $4,000 per student. No infrastructure. No capital costs.

No Child Left behind has begun to reorganize schools and educational leaders must quickly start “Listening to the Natives”. We must collaborate with students on providing a technology-rich environment that develops independent learners and thus avoid the growing irrelevance of American schools.

Technorati Tags: prensky k12 education Schneider

I am writing a paper on “Listen to the Natives” by Marc Prensky.  It talks a lot about adults in a school embracing technology.  Teachertube which has been highlighted by David Warlick and Viki Davis recently is a good example of this.  My favorite video is below.

Click here for video.

Technorati Tags: Warlick coolcat teachertube walk-through k12 education

So after 5-10 years of having to wear my glasses all the time I asked for contacts.  It has been quite an experience.  It took me forever to get them in my eyes.  I had to go back twice.  I’ve gotten down to where I can get them out easy, and it only takes me a few tries to get them in.

 But, I cant really see anything!  They don’t seem to be working very well.

A lesson in expectations:

I was a chaperone this past weekend for the All-Eastern Honors Ensembles.  This is an “elite of the elite” event for students of the Northeast states (Delaware to Maine).  It includes band, orchestra, jazz, and choir (BOJC).  The groups sounded completely superb.  I am a seasoned veteran and I had my mouth agape at the sound that was produced by each group.

So, my story.  The morning of the concert were the dress rehearsals, each group getting an hour on stage.  The choir was huge, measuring 350 students.  Obviously there was no place in the hall for them once the audience came in.

The choir/jazz concert was to start at 1pm.

The choir dress reharsal started at 11:30am.  All students dressed and on stage.

At 12:30pm the curtain is dropped and the house is let in.  The jazz ensemble will perform first in front of the curtain.  The choir is told “we will wait here quietly until it is time to perform”.

At 1:00pm the concert starts.  Jazz ensemble plays until 1:45pm. 

Curtain is raised for choir at 1:50pm.  They had been on stage for 2 hours and 20 minutes.  All 350 had stood silently through the 45 minutes of jazz performance.  They proceeded to sing like angels.

So….

Were the behavior expectations high for this group because they are elite?

Or…

Were they elite because the behavior expectations have been high?

How do you build capacity in your school to improve student achievement?  For every unit of responsibility given teachers is there an equal unit of resources/capacity provided?

Do we truly reflect on some of the teaching strategies still used and say “not good enough”?  How do schools deal with teachers who are doing “OK”?

Currently I am studying my leadership theories for my administration degree.  We read a lot about principals or schools that “get it”.  I wonder how many schools actually do get it.  I am in Connecticut with some very high performing districts.  Yet, I have friends in those schools who tell stories that clearly show those schools are not working to capacity.  And if a school hits capacity, how long can they hold that measure of performance?

 I am starting to agree with many of my fellow bloggers that we may need a revolutionary change.  Perhaps with the coming wave of baby boom retirements we will get a new crop of teachers who are prepared for the 21st century landscape.

Tomorrow I take the Connecticut Administrator Exam.  It is a test in four modules.  The first two are supervision modules.  We get documentation, watch a video of a lesson then evaluate.  Each module test lasts about two hours.  The second two modules are developing school improvement plans based on data that is presented.  Each of these modules lasts ninety minutes.  We have to write in blue books.  That is a lot of writing.

The test is really just about memorizing some formulas and words.  I am told the people who examine the tests are mainly looking that you take a position and use the words (modalities, diverse, authentic experience). 

And the test costs $450.  They wonder why people don’t want to become administrators.  The path to become certified in CT is pretty serious.  It includes a year long internship, thirty credits, a technology portfolio (which is outdated, but thats for another post) and special education requirements.