Educational Discourse

The title is a two sided one. First, I’m suffering from a headache right now brought on by driving for an hour through blowing snow on icy roads from a meeting. It was a very good meeting but the driving was horrendous. Even the semis had their 4-way flashers on while driving!!

The second is from the fact that I’m up to my neck with trying to absorb all this information that I’ve been reading and looking at on various blogs regarding using Web2 in the classroom. The more I read, the more I am becoming convinced that we need to bring this to the forefront of educational discussions – be proactive and shaping instead of reacting and having someone else shape things for us. For many educators, it seems that government policy and regulations become the driving force and not the learning that could be taking place. As I’m finding out, there is a growing number of people who are finding the resources of Web2 and building them into their teaching with the results being a learning that takes on a different face than what we have previously seen.

One good example of this is the flat-classroom projects that are taking place in various classrooms. Now, usually I’m one of the first to hear of technology based learning but this came to me as a surprise – I had not heard of this nor was I aware of how it worked. I did some digging, via  Cool Cat Teacher to see what was being described. It looked to be a great thing and from the description, there is some great learning taking place. Flat classroom wiki  shows what is happening with this project. The information for the students is available on the wiki, which I found very informative as it gave me an inside look to what was going on in the classes – prior knowledge, learning objectives, resources and expectations. Now, the question that comes to mind is how does one make connections to try such a thing? Especially when it is obvious that the students from these two classes will be well ahead of my students when it comes to using such learning tools.

Finally, how does one break into the “circle”. It seems there are a number of people that I read who are linked to each others blogs and they are in the know about various on line and other line conferences and conventions that many of us who are not in the technocrat world don’t know about. This brings me to one of my pet peeves about this whole technology  in the classroom thing. There is a place for this in all schools not just those who have teachers who are technology teachers or consultants or such. In fact, I’d say that the people that I have had discussions with about using these tools are very interested but, like every teacher I know, must pick and choose what they put energy into and they find technology to be a daunting issue that they do not want to tackle. Yet, it is only through extreme blog surfing that I have come across this information. This is when my head begins to really pound – I consider myself to be pretty tech able but even I don’t have the time to get done and explore what I want to explore because of the demands of family, social and school life. How can we expect non-tech able people to begin seeing these tools as viable resources when those of us who are tech able are having trouble keeping up?

Just tonight I’m looking at how to manage RSS feeds, linking pages to my blog site, figuring out the wiki site information (and still a bit confused) and writing this. And it’s an hour past my bedtime!!  From what I can ascertain from most of the blogs I’ve been reading, these people have been at this for about 5 – 10 years, working with the technology, have been blogging since it became available (4 or 5 years at the most) and now it is the next wave that other teachers are suppose to get at? Not fair! My head really begins to pound at this notion. Had I not been into the technological tools and looking for information on blogging, I’d never have stumbled on some of these sites or tools. Somewhere, from someone, I remember there being a mention about passion being a key ingredient for the learning of something. Yet I’m reading that teachers, regardless of the passion, should be doing. Huh?

Again, I believe these tools will enhance learning and may be the next up and coming advancement in education but if most of the population with whom you are frustrated doesn’t know of the frustration, what happens next? What is the next step in the process?  As I’ve said before, I’m in agreement that we have to bring this to the next level but if people are not aware of the conferences or need to be on the techno side to get the invitations, you will get only those who are on the path not those who aren’t or those who might be searching but are overwhelmed by what they see. Finally, it’s not only the people who are in the classrooms that we need to invite but most of the general public, including parents, who are still wanting to see “school” as something with which they are familiar. Most of them don’t even visit the school website and some are even non-technology advocates as they see the use of technology as something that  can be a harm to their children as portrayed in the media. It’s all good and fine to say do it, show some individuals who are star performers as case studies and expect everyone to follow suit. It’s another to have the rest who are working very hard and don’t see any more time to fit in any more, who are doing their best with the expectations that are placed on them by legislators and trying to meet the demands of a very diverse learning population to see the benefits of something that, quite frankly, appears to be driven by a select group. To be truthful, until a few weeks ago I hadn’t heard of Will Richardson  , Vickie Davis , Sharon Peters , Jennifer Wagner , podcasting, meebo or wikiing. However, I am very familiar with Alan Blankstein, Richard and Rebecca Dufour, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Jay McTighe, Roland Barth, Douglas Reeves and other educational authors. Are we missing a link here?

Well, the headache isn’t any better. I think I’ve even made it worse!!

K

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